Q12 - Alexander: The chemical wast dump

[tzyc]

Could anyone explain why the answer is (B) instead of (E)?
I guess "first priority" in the stimulus maybe makes (B) sounds correct but was not sure the word "allocate" in (B)...it seems Terresa says unless there is a health risk, they do not make actions...so no allocation
And (E), "evaluate the importance" seems refer to the "priority" part, and it also mentions public health...(though it does not mention something like: if it causes risk to public health, it should be managed...)

Thank you

[nbayar1212]

So Alex basically says that we have a moral obligation to remediate the harm we've done to the environment while Teresa says that we should only do whats enough so that the town's people are protected.

You could think about the principle underlying Alex's argument as an ethical one while the principle underlying Teresa's argument is a practical one (since she thinks we should only spend our resources on things that have "a significant health hazard").

a) Teresa doesn't make a distinction between economic vs. non-economic interests - she simply states that health is a category of concern.

b) Yes; this is a practical principle that seems to underly what Teresa wants. Since she states that ensuring the health of the town's people is the highest priority and that we should only be concerned with the environment if it is a health hazard, we can conclude that she thinks allocating resources to a problem requires the problem to be of a high priority with respect to an effect on the town's population.

c) Too strong to be the principle here - the AC assumes that the existence of a hazard is sufficient justification to use resources while Teresa implies that the existence of a hazard is simply necessary. Maybe some expenses should be spared...

d) No mention of technology in the stimulus. Also, Teresa seems to primarily be concerned with "significant health hazards" not "slight" ones.

e) This AC implies that there needs to be a democratic process of some sort but there is no mention of this in the stimulus.

The reason E is not as good as B is that E conflates process and outcome. Teresa is only concerned about the kinds of outcomes that resources should be expended on i.e. environmental hazards that affect the town's people but she does not mention anything about who should be in charge of making that decision, which is why E doesn't work here (it states that the people as a whole should be involved but that may or may not be what Teresa thinks)

[tommywallach]

Hey Guys,

Just wanna weigh in with the expert opinion to say that nbayar really explained the heck out of this one. I agree with everything that was said. Well done!

-t