The author uses the word "immediacy" (line 39) most likely in order to express

samiralehmeidi on October 14, 2019

Example 5: Sufficient & Necessary

For example 5, why is moral and intelligent under Necessary and not just moral leaving Intelligent to be under sufficient?

Replies
Create a free account to read and take part in forum discussions.

Already have an account? log in

Victoria on October 14, 2019

Hi @samiralehmeidi

Remember that 'only if' introduces a necessary condition. So, our necessary condition here is the electorate being moral and intelligent.

If we left intelligent under sufficient, our sufficient condition would then have to encompass both the electorate being intelligent and a democracy functioning well, which are two separate things.

When you have two descriptors attached by 'and' or 'or', keep them under the same condition. When you write the contrapositive, 'and' becomes 'or' and 'or' becomes 'and.'

So, for this example:

A democracy will function well only if the electorate is [both] moral and intelligent.

DFW - > E M and I

It is necessary for the electorate to be both moral and intelligent for a democracy to function well. Therefore, if the electorate is not moral or not intelligent, then a democracy will not function well. This is our contrapositive statement.

E not M or not I - > not DFW

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

nimakian801 on October 22, 2019

I'm actually more confused on how we were able to select the answer choice that had and in it and not or.

Skylar on November 7, 2019

@nimakian Happy to help!

We diagrammed the passage to get: DFW -> M and I
The contrapositive of this is: not M or not I -> not DFW

Therefore, "not M" is alone sufficient in the contrapositive to invoke "not DFW." Similarly, "not I" is sufficient to invoke "not DWF." Both do not need to coexist. You can think of this as a two-part diagram:
not M -> not DFW
not I -> not DFW

Answer choice (C) is diagrammed as: not M and I -> not DFW. Since we have "not M," we can invoke "not DWF." It does not matter if we have "I" or "not I," so (C) is correct and the presence of the word "and" does not alter the outcome.

Does this help? Let us know if you have additional questions!