Town councillor: The only reason for the town to have ordinances restricting where skateboarding can be done would b...

Caitlin May 31, 2020

Why E and not A?

Could you explain why the correct answer is E? I had picked A because I thought it was saying that the ordinance would restrict skate boarding to the parks due to the danger of skate boarding in the roads.

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shunhe May 31, 2020

Hi @Caitlin,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at what the stimulus is telling us. Basically, we’re considering ordinances restricting where people can skateboard in order to protect children from danger. But we aren’t going to pass an ordinance restricting skateboarding in the park, even though it’s dangerous to skateboard there. Why? Because if kids can’t skateboard in the park, they’ll skateboard in the streets, which is more dangerous than the park. In other words, if we get rid of danger X, we’ll make danger Y, and danger Y is worse than danger X.

We’re asked for a principle that would provide the strongest support for the town councillor’s argument. Let’s take a look at (E), which tells us that ordinances that seek to eliminate dangers shouldn’t be enacted if doing so would make bigger dangers than they’d get rid of. This is exactly the kind of principle we’re looking for. If enacting this ordinance would lead to a greater danger (kids skating in the street) than the one it’d eliminate (kids skating in the park), then we shouldn’t enact it. This is the logic the town councillor uses, and so it’s the principle that would provide the best support for her argument.

Now let’s take a look at (A), which tells us that ordinances that restrict the recreational activities of a town’s inhabitants shouldn’t be passed unless those activities pose a danger to participants. Remember that we diagram X unless Y as ~Y —> X (or its contrapositive, ~X —> Y). So we get

~Activities pose a danger to participants —> Shouldn’t pass

But we aren’t talking about restricting an activity that doesn’t pose a danger to participants; we’re talking about restricting an activity that DOES pose a danger to participants, and so we can’t apply this logical chain here. Since (A) doesn’t apply, it’s incorrect.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

Caitlin June 3, 2020

@Shunhe It makes total sense now, thank you for explaining!