Hendry: Most employee strikes should be legally permitted. But strikes by university faculty are an exception. Facult...

Annie on February 11, 2020

Hi @toyalli,

Here's a breakdown of the argument:

H: Most strikes should be legal, but not those by university faculty because those harm students. Strikes should NOT be legal if they would harm the customers.

M: If you follow that principle, then most strikes should NOT be legal.

The "principle" that M refers to is H's idea that strikes should NOT be legal if they would harm the customers.

Answer Choices:
(A) is incorrect because M does not talk about students being customers of the university. Therefore, he clearly doesn't disagree with H over this.

(B) is correct because M is challenging the principle that H is using. H tells us that strikes shouldn't be legal if they harm the customers, but that they should almost always be legal. M then tells us that this is wrong and that they should rarely be legal if following this principle. This means they disagree over the principle- here, they disagree on how often employee strikes actually harm the customers (M thinks that is frequent, while H thinks it is rare).

(C) is incorrect because M is not focused on university faculty, but rather talks about strikes in general.

(D) is incorrect but tricky. M does not actually tells us if he thinks that most employee strikes should be legally permitted. Rather, he says that if the principle is correct then H is analyzing it wrong.

(E) is incorrect because, like C, M is talking about strikes in general, not faculty strikes.