Political theorist: The chief foundations of all governments are the legal system and the police force; and as there ...

DrewN November 7, 2020

Help, Answer doesn't make sense with stem

Hello, I understand that the error in the argument is treating PWP as being sufficient for GLS. However, the stem reads " He fails to establish that..." So if the question is asking what he failed to establish and the answer choice is what he did (wrongly) establish, then how can that be the right answer? Aren't we looking for what he failed to establish?

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Motunrayo-Bamgbose-Martins December 16, 2020

I think this might help you because I had the same question. its a comment by Victoria on a previous post:
Hi @Reina and @ahambsch16,

The political theorist concludes that "where the police are well paid, there will be a good legal system."

PWP --> GLS

What evidence do they use to support this? They only have one premise/principle: "where the police are not well paid, there cannot be a good legal system."

Not PWP --> Not GLS
GLS --> PWP

This question is definitely a little bit confusing in terms of the wording it uses. Essentially, answer choice (D) is correct because the premise does not support the conclusion.

The political theorist concludes that PWP is sufficient, but the principle that they cite in support of this tells us that PWP is necessary.

In this way, the argument fails to provide us with any evidence to support its conclusion (i.e. that PWP is sufficient). While the conclusion may state that PWP is sufficient, the argument itself is missing the information to support this conclusion.

The political theorist cites one principle and then uses an illegal negation/reversal to draw its conclusion. (It can be either a negation or a reversal depending on whether you use the contrapositive or not).

Negation
P: Not PWP --> Not GLS
C: PWP --> GLS

Reversal
P: GLS --> PWP
C: PWP --> GLS

Hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Motunrayo-Bamgbose-Martins December 16, 2020

so basically, their evidence fails to establish what it is concluding