Q18 - In order to encourage personal

[Nina]

i have problem eliminating C. i think the principle can be stated as "if not to prevent negative effects--> should not restrict"
and in C it stated that there are other ways to eliminate this harm...doesn't it suggest that it is not necessary to use the ban to prevent negative effects?

many thanks!

[tommywallach]

Hey Nina,

I'll take all the answer choices here, just in case other questions come up. However, I think your principle is great:

"Only restrict action to prevent negative effect."

(A) This says that we shouldn't restrict the action of people doing stuff that doesn't hurt others--seems alright. (Students are technically not adults (usually), so you could argue this is irrelevant to the principle. It isn't, however, inconsistent with the principle.)

(B) Here a certain action is left unrestricted because it doesn't harm anyone. Seems good.

(C) In this case, we have an action that does do harm to others. However, the principle says we should only restrict something to prevent negative effects. We don't need to ban smoking to prevent negative effects--the prompt tells us there are other ways to prevent those negative effects--so the principle doesn't apply. (It's a very tricky one though!).

(D) This creates negative effects for others, so banning is recommended. That's consonant with the principle.

(E) CORRECT. Consuming dangerous substances only harms the person doing it, so the principle would say don't restrict it (i.e. no harm to others). Of course, the principle would be in support of the warning label, because that would be preventing negative effects to others.

Hope that helps!

#OfficialExplanation

[Nina]

Thanks a lot, Tommy! and I just found out that i misread the question stem "inconsistent", I was trying to seek the one that is "consistent" with the principle

[leroyjenkins]

Also, in regards to C, the principle is that society should not restrict actions of adults except to prevent negative effects on others.

What this tells us is that a negative effect on others is necessary for such a restriction to be put in place. But it is not a sufficient reason for banning an action.

So in C, the fact that people may be harmed by pubic smoking is not sufficient in itself to justify a ban. Thus, C is completely consistent with the principle. Even if we knew for sure that public smoking would harm others, and a ban would be the only way to prevent the harm, that alone is not sufficient for a ban to be put in place (but it would certainly open up the possibility of adopting such a ban).

[nbayar1212]

Can't we simply just knock out any AC that doesn't have to do with adults explicitly? The principle limits itself to a subset of the population i.e. adults. The only way anything can be inconsistent with it is if the AC both limits itself to adults AND restricts something that doesn't harm others.

On a side note, we can just treat this as a MBF question, right? If the statement is a conditional, the only thing that MBF is if the sufficient happens but the necessary doesn't happen. In this case, we restrict an action but it doesn't harm others. With that in mind, we just go to the ACs.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Can't we simply just knock out any AC that doesn't have to do with adults explicitly? The principle limits itself to a subset of the population i.e. adults. The only way anything can be inconsistent with it is if the AC both limits itself to adults AND restricts something that doesn't harm others.

On a side note, we can just treat this as a MBF question, right? If the statement is a conditional, the only thing that MBF is if the sufficient happens but the necessary doesn't happen. In this case, we restrict an action but it doesn't harm others. With that in mind, we just go to the ACs.

I like the way you think nbayar1212!

You can absolutely think of this as a Must Be False question - to be inconsistent with the Principle means that we have to violate it! If our Principle is If A --> B, then the answer choices will show up in a few varieties:

1) A and B. Completely consistent with the principle, follows the rule.
2) ~A and ~B. Also completely consistent with the principle - follows the contrapositive.
3) ~A and B. Neither consistent nor inconsistent - the principle isn't triggered by anything happening here.
4) A and ~B. VIOLATES the principle! Inconsistent!

Using this framework, we can predict that our correct (inconsistent) answer here will 1) restrict adults' actions somehow and 2) not for the purpose of preventing harm to others.

Keep up the excellent work!

[lrnudelman]

I narrowed the choices down pretty easily between (B) and (E). I could see why E was correct, but I just couldn't completely resist B, also. And after a struggle, I eventually picked the wrong answer.

Could someone help me see why B is not supported? The way I see it, the scientist shouldn't be allowed to profit from his technology... But if he isn't ALLOWED to do something, isn't that a restriction? And doesn't that go against the statement "Society should not restrict the performance... except to prevent negative effects" ?

His profiting wouldn't cause negative effects; it just wouldn't spread the benefits around. The second part of answer B says that allowing others to profit wouldn't diminish the scientist's own profits. But that's irrelevant, isn't it? Either way, it's still limiting/restricting the scientist. This seems inconsistent to me.

Thank you so much! I feel like I'm missing something very obvious here.

[evadyw]

I narrowed the choices down pretty easily between (B) and (E). I could see why E was correct, but I just couldn't completely resist B, also. And after a struggle, I eventually picked the wrong answer.

Could someone help me see why B is not supported? The way I see it, the scientist shouldn't be allowed to profit from his technology... But if he isn't ALLOWED to do something, isn't that a restriction? And doesn't that go against the statement "Society should not restrict the performance... except to prevent negative effects" ?

His profiting wouldn't cause negative effects; it just wouldn't spread the benefits around. The second part of answer B says that allowing others to profit wouldn't diminish the scientist's own profits. But that's irrelevant, isn't it? Either way, it's still limiting/restricting the scientist. This seems inconsistent to me.

Thank you so much! I feel like I'm missing something very obvious here.

I had the exact same thinking when I was doing the PT. However, after reviewing, I think I was able to see why (B) is wrong. I think the key is to read "the scientist is not the only one who should be allowed to profit" as saying "many people, including the scientist, should be allowed to profit". In this way, the argument actually advocates non-restriction, since there's no evidence that allowing others would harm the scientist, which is consistent with the "no negative effect --> no restriction" principle.

Please feel free to jump in if anyone thinks I made a mistake somewhere in my thinking. Thanks!