Political scientist: As a political system, democracy does not promote political freedom. There are historical exa...

shunhe on July 20, 2020

Hi @Anna2020,

Thanks for the question! So let’s recap this argument real quick. We’re told the conclusion at the beginning: democracy doesn’t promote political freedom. The premises: There have been democracies that have resulted in super oppressive societies. And there have been despots and oligarchs who have given a bunch of political freedom to their subjects.

So now we’re asked for a flaw in the politicians reasoning. And we can see that we go from examples about how democracies don’t have political freedom and non-democracies do to concluding that democracies don’t promote political freedom. Can we take it that far? Sure, we can say a democracy isn’t necessary for political freedom, and even that a democracy isn’t sufficient for political freedom. But we can’t conclude based on these premises that a democracy doesn’t help promote political freedom in any way. Maybe in those oppressive democracies, there would’ve been even fewer political freedoms without democracy. And maybe the enlightened despots and oligarchical societies would’ve had even more political freedoms with democracy.

Now take a look at (D), which tells us that the argument overlooks the possibility that democracy promotes political freedom without being necessary or sufficient by itself to produce it. This is exactly the flaw that’s described above. Democracy can still promote political freedom, even if it’s not sufficient (in the oppressive democracies) for it or necessary (in the enlightened despotisms and oligarchies) for it.

(C), on the other hand, is wrong because we can’t conclude that the historical examples are irrelevant to the claim here. In fact, they seem at least somewhat relevant. And that’s not the main flaw with the argument, as discussed earlier.

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

Anna20 on January 29, 2021

Thank you so much Shunhe, so helpful - as always!! I've re-done this question again, would you also be able to please explain why A is incorrect? Thank you so much!!

Emil-Kunkin on June 2 at 10:58PM

The author here does not use conditional logic, so there is no confusion of sufficient for necessary here