Cultural historian: Universal acceptance of scientific theories that regard human beings only as natural objects s...

shunhe on July 8, 2020

Hi @kzman29,

Thanks for the question! The answer to this question is actually (B), and let me explain why. We’re told that universal acceptance of scientific theories that regard human beings only as natural objects subject to natural forces outside your control will lead to a decline in morality. This is the conclusion of the stimulus and can be diagrammed

Humans regarded only as natural objects —> Moral decline

Then we’re told that if people don’t believe they’re responsible for their actions, they will feel unashamed when acting immorally, which can be diagrammed as

~Believe responsible —> Unashamed when acting immorally

And then we’re told that people not feeling ashamed of immoral actions leads to general moral decline, in other words

Unashamed when acting immorally —> Moral decline

So we can see that we need something to connect the idea of “humans regarded only as natural objects” to “~Believe responsible,” since that’ll allow us to make the following chain

Humans regarded only as natural objects —> ~Believe responsible —> Unashamed when acting immorally —> Moral decline

Which simplifies to

Humans regarded only as natural objects —> Moral decline

And this is what (B) does, and so (B) makes the conclusion follow logically when assumed and is the correct answer.