Columnist: Although there is and should be complete freedom of thought and expression, that does not mean that there...

Skylar on May 24, 2020

@AllisonJ, happy to help!

The columnist says, "Although there is and should be complete freedom of thought and expression, that does not mean that there is nothing wrong with exploiting depraved popular tastes for the sake of financial gain."

Let's clarify this by breaking it down into its two parts and removing the double negative:
(1) There is/should be complete freedom of thought/expression
(2) But that does not mean it is okay to exploit depraved popular tastes for financial gain

So the passage is saying that, although there should be freedom of thought/expression, it may still be wrong to exploit depraved popular tastes to make money. We are looking for an answer choice that conforms to this logic.

(C) "There should be no laws restricting what books are published, but publishing books that pander to people with depraved taste is not thereby morally acceptable."

This is correct. Let's break it down to show how it follows the two parts of the passage:
(1) There should be no laws restricting what books are published
(2) But that does not mean it is morally acceptable to publish books pandering to depraved taste

So (C) follows the passage's logic that, although there should be complete freedom of expression, this does not mean it is okay to exploit depraved popular tastes.

Does that make sense? Please let us know if you have any other questions!

AllisonJ on May 30, 2020

Yes, that helps so much, and the breaking down of the passage helped a lot as well because I think I got confused with that as well.