Q9 - At some point in any discussion

[Shiggins]

PJ = Principles of Justice

DPE = Different provision for elderly

SPF = societal policies fixed

"Different communities that each recognize the dignity and equality of all citizens ( Principles of equality) will, for example nevertheless settle on somewhat different provisions for the elderly."

Conclusion:

Principles of Justice are insufficient to determine the social policies of fixed within a particular area.

I took the example as PJ -> DPE and applied it to answer choice D in which two states have similar PJ -> and have different requirements or different provisions.

The one problem I have with this question is the way I can structure the conclusion.

PJ is insufficient for SPF, so can that be diagrammed as:

PJ-> ~SPF because here we have PJ but it does not necessarily lead to or bring about SPF.

I just want to clarify this last statement in bold bc I am unsure of whether the conclusion can be expressed this way.

Another question I have is if the conclusion is similar to saying
"No principles of Justice are sufficient to determine the social policies of fixed within a particular area.

If anyone can help, correct or qualify what I have wrote, much appreciated.

[maryadkins]

Being told that general principles of justice are never sufficient to determine details of social policies just means that that PJ can never be enough to tell us what the social policies are. What you wrote is:

PJ --> - SP

This is correct if you read it as "If we ONLY knowing the principle of justice," then we do not know the social policy. Do you see why?

Just knowing the principle of justice doesn't mean we can't determine social policy if we also know other things. What we're told is that it's not sufficient--which means it can't be the only thing we know if we want to determine the social policy.

Another question I have is if the conclusion is similar to saying
"No principles of Justice are sufficient to determine the social policies of fixed within a particular area.

Yes, this is fine.

[Shiggins]

Thank you Mary. I understand now that by itself PJ is not sufficient to bring about SP and it is more clear now from your explanation that you can have both together but it would require something else to bring about SP.

[mcrittell]

Mary, I'm actually lost on this one completely. Can you help me figure out this problem from top to bottom please?

[maryadkins]

Sure. We can say our core is:

different communities that all recognize dignity and equality will have different provisions for the elderly

-->

general principles of justice are never sufficient to determine the details of social policies

So we're given an example of how two places that have the same general principles (dignity and equality) still have different detailed social policies (provisions for the elderly). The gap is that we jump from one example of a policy to concluding that we can never determine what policy is going to be. That's a leap. Maybe there are policies not involving providing for the elderly that we could determine, like whether we allow cannibalism. Or have universal health care. In other words, the only example we get is the elderly, but our conclusion says "never." Serious shift!

(D) strengthens the argument by giving us a different example that fits the bill--day care.

(A) is about electoral principles, not principles of justice.

(B) is about economic principles.

(C) is the opposite of what we're looking for: different principles but the same policy.

(E) is also the opposite of what we're looking for.

Hope this helps...

[ptewarie]

Great explanations.
Another way of looking at it is this:

1. Stimulus says:
Knowing the general principle of a state does not allow you to deduce what the actual social policies of that state will really entail

in relatable terms:
Knowing that I am Happy does not allow anyone to deduce that I just won the lottery. I might be happy for many other reasons.



2. Reason:
states with the SAME principle, can have different social policies.

For example:

Country 1 -> Principle B-> Social Policy X
VS
Country 2 -> Principle B-> Social Policy Y

so 2 countries, same principle, but two different policies.
This shows that knowing the Principle ( in this case B) would NOT allow you to deduce what the policy is. In this case it could be either X or Y.


Now lets look at AC:
A and B are immediately out since they are not talking about societal justice

C says the following:

Country 1 -> Principle B -> Social Policy X
Country 2-> Principle C-> Social Policy X

Problem:
This does NOT prove in any way that the author's argument is wrong, nor does it weaken it.
Remember the author's argument we have to refute is:
"Knowing Principle does NOT allow us to know policy".

In this case if we know country 1 has Principle B do we know it has X as a policy? Maybe, maybe not!

In the stimulus we could infer that if both countries followed SAME principles but had DIFFERENT outputs that the principle was not an indicator of what the policy was going to be. Here, we have no way of knowing that because we are only given 1 example of Principle B and 1 of Principle C.
Also, there is nothing in the stimulus that rules out that 2 principles might not yield the same policies!

example:
1. Timbuktu-> only those with one hand should be treated fairly-> Elderly should be treated with respect

2. Country X-> Everyone, regardless of any differences should be treated fairly-> Elderly should be treated with respect

Here, we see two countries with different principles and SAME policies. Yet we cannot say that the knowing the principle is NOT sufficient to know the policy, despite the policy being the result of 2 different triggers.

hence,I would BEST categorize this as "no effect".

E follows the exact same trajectory as C, just in different, bare terms( this should be a give away that both are most likely wrong)


The correct answer D, should now be easy to see.

State 1-> Principle X-> Policy A
State 2-> Principle X-> Policy B

From this we can deduce that knowing
Principle X is NOT sufficient to deduce that the policy.

Key thing to remember, is that many treat weaken questions like FLAW questions. The goal of weaken questions is NOT to destroy the argument, but to shake its foundations. Think of a house with 4 pillars as an argument and a weakener as ripping away one of these pillars so the house only rests on 3 pillars, but does not necessarily crumble over.

[tzyc]

Just wondering...
(D) says "similar" rather than "same" as in the stimulus.
Is this OK??
At first I chose (D) but thought maybe similar is not good for strengthening the stimulus and switched to (B)...
Would (B) be OK if it was not economic principles? I think the basic is the same...(same principle would not lead to the same results)

Thank you

[maryadkins]

You are correct that if (B) were about principles of justice and read that two states have the same principles of justice but different actual policies, it would strengthen.

"Similar" is fine in (D). It's still saying they're close to the same.