Q20

[weiyichen1986]

Hi all, so i have a question about why is E wrong? Line 49-52 says, "actions should not be taken----> detrack from public good"
so basically "morally wrong--->harm the public good?"

Thanks in advance

[ohthatpatrick]

Good question, but I think you're thinking (E) is tempting because you're representing lines 49-52 backwards.

Lines 49-52 say that "an action should not be taken because it is likely to detract from public good".

Symbolically, that would look like this:
Detracts from public good ---> don't take that action

The word 'because' always indicates a premise, and we represent the flow of premise to conclusion as
prem ---> conc

Choice (E) would be symbolized as:
Morally wrong --> harm others

So are these two conditionals the same?
Detracts from public good ---> don't take that action
Morally wrong --> harm others

No, partly because one reverses the order of the other. But also, would we consider "detracts from public good" and "harm others" equivalent ideas? I don't think I'd be comfortable exchanging one of those terms for the other.

I think you're looking at the right excerpt of text, though. If we just include the previous sentence and read 46-52, we see the author saying essentially "profit motive is not morally paramount. profitable courses shouldn't be taken if they detract from the public good."

So within these two ideas, the author is essentially equating "public good" with "morally good". That's a closer match to the language in (A).

Hope this helps.

[boy5237]

Patrick,

I was also looking at the same excerpt from the passage as indicated above (line 49 - 52).

It says CEO shouldn't profit themselves because it would detract public good.

So the conditional logic I came up from that statement is:
Detracting public good -> Morally Wrong.

If you take the contrapositive, Not Morally Wrong (or Morally Right) -> Only if not detracting public good (giving public good).

I believe it's very dangerous to think that opposite of Wrong is Right (and not detracting is giving) because what about the middle ground between right and wrong, yet I believe that's what A is trying to say?

What do you think?

[LizaK873]

I actually think E) says
"harm others" -> morally wrong,
because
"not morally wrong" --> not harm others.
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TLDR; if you replace "moral obligation" with E's definition, the entire passage makes no sense.

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Confusing part for me was that the 2 examples given, were both clearly morally wrong. (paper mill, ceo choose to not do something that harms)

However, instead of focusing on evidence, I focused on organization of the entire passage:
1. Businesses should care about moral obligation (aka "contribute to public good" (1))
2. Critics (economists) say no b/c of two reasons:
----> A) except for non-profits, CEOs are legally required to focus on profit, and not legally required for social benefit
----> B) focusing on profit will result in with social benefit anyway, so no need to
3. author criticizes these:
----> A) just because not legally required, doesn't free them from moral responsibilities, such as being against profit that results in harm
----> B) example of a case where profit results in social harm

If E was correct, the above changes this drastically into
1. Businesses should care about what harms society
2. No. Not legally required to avoid harm, and plus, it doesn't harm but benefits anyway.
3. No, responsibilities don't have to be legal, so companies should avoid harm.
this is not at all what the economists are arguing about, nor what the paragraphs are stating, nor what people (paragraph 1) explicitly complained about - "contribute to public good"

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So really, the last paragraph of the author is using 'harm' as examples to simply counter the economists' view,
while the main conclusion (that its supporting) is in the first paragraph, "businesses should not maximize profit without caring about benefit to society", aka lack of consideration of benefit

Author's overall argument is "economists are wrong b/c of X and Y, so businesses should not maximize profit without caring about benefit"
rather than "economists are wrong, so businesses should not take action that harms public even if it's profitable"
because the economist's view that author is challenging is NOT
"even if it harms, profit comes first",
but rather
"businesses shouldn't care about benefit b/c not legally required & end up benefitting anyway, even if not intended".

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another tldr;
"businesses have moral obligation* - to consider social benefit"
"no need, its not required legally + social benefit occurs anyway"
"morality is a responsibility, so it is still an obligation + social harm might occur instead"

'harm is morally wrong' is used to negate the criticism & support the conclusion "businesses have moral obligations",
while if you replace 'morality' with E's definition, conclusion incorrectly becomes "businesses should avoid social harm"
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