Q17 - After the Second World War

[tamwaiman]

How to get the answer? could anyone explain it for me? thanks~

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

It's really important on this question to properly identify the argument core.

Evidence
The burden of maintaining world peace would rest on the world’s major powers, and no nation should be required to assume the burden of enforcing a decision it found repugnant.

Conclusion
The five nations that were then the major powers would permanently have sole authority to cast vetoes.

We're asked to find the assumption on which the reason given relies, and the reason given is the evidence itself.

Since this is a necessary assumption question, we can negate each of the tempting answer choices. The correct one should destroy the conclusion when negated.

(A) is irrelevant. No one is providing democracy among nations.
(B) is correct. If some nation that was not among the major powers at the end of the Second World War would become a major power, then that nation would have no veto and yet would be burdened with providing world peace. This would surely violate the reason given that no nation should be required to assume the burden of enforcing a decision it found repugnant.
(C) doesn't say that those major powers would not have veto votes. So while it may be tempting, geographical blocs aren't really relevant.
(D) is irrelevant. The reasons given for the distribution of the veto wouldn't be violated if small, less powerful nations were scamming the system.
(E) is true in our understanding of what is fair, but the reasons in the argument do not rely on this assumption.

Does that clear this one up?

[tamwaiman]

Hi msherm

I'm appreciate of your detailed analysis.
But shall I paraphrase "the concept of the correct answer" before looking at the five options?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Oh great question! It would be great if you could start to think of a few ideas in your head where the argument goes wrong. So if you could see that maybe one day those powers that have permanent vetoes won't be the only major powers, that would help a great deal.

You don't have to be correct in your guesses either, it's just good to get the juices flowing to open up your thoughts to various ways to challenge the argument. I can't think of any other ideas on this one up front though.

You always want to think about why arguments are wrong before looking at the answer choices. That said, you want to remain flexible and understand that you won't always be able to prephrase an answer, nor will there always be only one viable way to say strengthen or weaken an argument. You might not always think of the one they put in the answer choices.

[LolaC289]

I think the explanation for this question could be parcelled out more clearly, as I read the above explanation but still felt a little bit confused. So I got back into the argument again and read for several times, and found out what makes it confusing is that there are actually two assumptions made and we have to match them accordingly ourselves.

So the argument, as mentioned above, is as follows:

Conclusion: The UN Charter provided the five nations that were then the major powers would permanently have sole authority to cast vetos.

Reason given for that arrangement (Premise/Support, whatever you like to call it): because the burden of maintaining world peace would rest on the world's major powers, and no nation should be required to assume the burden of enforcing a decision it found repugnant.

As we read closer, there are actually two reasons given and each supports a part of the arrangement.

1. Because the burden of maintaining world peace should rest on the world's major powers,
the nations were then the major powers would permanently be the SC members.

2. Because no nation should be required to assume the burden of enforcing a decision it found repugnant,
the five permanent members are assigned with veto power (the power to directly vote against, but not assigning a power to vote in favor of).

For the first part, the author assumes that just because we made the five nations who were then the major powers the permanent SC members, the burden of maintaining world peace will thus be put on the world's major powers (because the premise just said"would", we can assume that it is not limiting its conclusion to a certain temporal point, but to apply to the future).

There are two easy objections we can make towards this assumption: first, the nation which used to be a major power may decline to a non-major power (the vocabulary lack in here is embarrassing), and a nation which used to a non-major power may grow to be a major power. (B) here employs the latter.

For the second part, the author assumes that just because it is the veto power that is assigned to the five SC permanent members, no nation would be required to assume the burden of enforcing a decision it found repugnant.

The gap here is that when the five major power exerts its veto power, it may also be vetoing a decision that many nations positively seek for. Thus by vetoing that decision, SC is actually requiring other nations to assume the burden of enforcing a decision it found repugnant.

Hope this helps.

[LeonC641]

Thank you! Lola. Your analysis absolutely nailed it.