Morton: In order to succeed in today's society, one must have a college degree. Skeptics have objected that there ...

shunhe on December 17, 2020

Hi @Liwenong28,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at this question. Morton is saying that to succeed today, you have to have a college degree. He then says some skeptics say there are people who don’t have college degrees and are still successful. But, says Morton, those people don’t count, because they only have apparent success, because you don’t have enough education to be truly successful without a college degree.

So now we’re asked for a reason this argument is flawed, and upon reading it, it’s a circular argument, which is what (A) says. (D) says that the argument fails to consider the status of alleged counterexamples, but the argument does this. The alleged counterexamples are the people that the skeptics bring up, who are quite successful but don’t have college degrees. And they’re certainly considered, it’s not like Morton just ignores the argument. But it’s how he dismisses the skeptics’ argument that poses the problem, since he does it in a completely circular way. But by saying that they only have “apparent,” and not “true,” success, Morton considers the counterexamples, making (D) false. And remember, we’re looking for the main flaw with this argument anyway, and that’s clearly the circularity.

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

liwenong28 on December 23, 2020

Yes it helps. Thank you!