Given the information in the passage, the author is LEAST likely to believe which one of the following?

kens May 6, 2020

October 2002 SEC 3 Q12

I don't see why E can be eliminated. Also I don't understand why the statement, "Intellectual authority may accept well–reasoned arguments; institutional authority never does," could be the correct answer. How do we conclude that institutional authority never accept well-reasoned argument? Thanks in advance.

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filozinni July 8, 2020

I have the same question, please provide an explanation!

Anna20 January 19, 2021

Hi - I got this question wrong too, picking C instead of B after being stuck between the two. After reading the answer choices a couple of times, they all started to sound somewhat similar! Please let me know in case you disagree with the below.

I think E is incorrect because of the drafting in the last paragraph (lines 46 to 57), as the last paragraph suggest that the overruling of the institutional authority via the overruling of a precedent case creates a conflict of the new judgment (which is arrived at using intellectual authority), with the precedent judgment (i.e. one judge uses intellectual authority to disagree with the precedent case / previous judgments of previous judges).

On review answer choice C looks incorrect because of lines 1 - 6 - which state that intellectual authority does not depend on convention, and institutional authority is a contrasting notion (and therefore does depend on convention).