Advocate: You claim that it is wrong to own gasoline–powered cars because they pollute too much; you have an electri...

Mehran on February 4, 2016

@TheFacu The advocate's conclusion here is, "Thus, if you are right about gasoline-powered cars, you should not have your electric car either."

The support provided? The company that made the electric car also makes millions of gasoline-powered vehicles, so buying an electric car benefits the producer of products to which the electric car owner has objected.

We are looking for a principle that would most help to justify the advocate's reasoning.

The problem with (E) is that it doesn't apply to this situation. (E) is basically saying that if a company makes no environmentally sound products, then one should not purchase products from that company.

We can diagram (E) as follows:

not ESP ==> not P
P ==> ESP

Remember, the advocate's conclusion here is you should not purchase an electric car (i.e. not P).

To arrive at this conclusion using the principle in (E), we would need to invoke the sufficient condition, not ESP (i.e. no environmentally sound products). But this company DOES make environmentally sound products, i.e. the electric car at issue, so (E) does not help us.

Let's take a look at (D) now. (D) states, "One should not support an organization that does anything one believes to be wrong." We can restate this as if an organization does anything one believes to be wrong, then one should not support it.

We can diagram (D) as follows:

W ==> not S
S ==> not W

To arrive at the conclusion of "not support" (i.e. not S), we need to invoke the sufficient condition here which is W (i.e. organization does anything one believes to be wrong).

We know that this company also makes millions of gasoline-powered vehicles, which the electric car owner believes is wrong. Therefore, the electric car owner should NOT support this organization.

So (D) is the principle that strengthens the advocate's reasoning by tying the premise (car company does anything one believes to be wrong) more closely to the conclusion (the electric car owner should not have bought the electric car from this company).

Hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.