Political analyst: Several years ago, McFarlane, the military dictator, had Brooks, the former prime minister, arrest...

Emil-Kunkin on October 16 at 04:11PM

I think there are two responses to your question. First, this is a necessary assumption question rather than a sufficient assumption question. For sufficient assumptions we need to bridge the gap, but for sufficient assumptions all we need to do is to find something the author must agree with.

Second, there can be more than one flaw in an argument, as is the case here. I agree that the author makes an assumption about not supporting people you believe to be corrupt. This is a pretty reasonable assumption, it almost falls under the common sense umbrella, but there are absolutely some rare counterexamples (see the 1991 Louisiana Gubernatorial election, or Marion Barry's third mayoral campaign). When we have multiple flaws, it's often the case that one is bigger than the other, and I think that's what we have here. The idea that she will have few supporters rests on the idea that everyone either supports or opposes the dictator. This is a much bigger leap than the idea that few people will support someone they believe to be corrupt. While the right answer theoretically could have hit on either flaw, it's usually more likely it hits the bigger flaw.

Elizabeth25 on October 18 at 01:34AM

thank you for the explanation. The first part of it I think you wrote a typo, you said sufficient assumption twice and gave two different descriptions can you confirm please and thanks again

Emil-Kunkin on October 19 at 12:19AM

Indeed I did! for sufficient assumption question we do need to bridge the gap, for for necessary ones we must find something the author agrees with.

Just to elaborate on that a bit more, necessary assumptions are things that the argument has implicitly assumed. If they are not true, the argument makes no sense- so I like to just treat these as must be trues (if the argument is to be correct).