Q23 - Ethicist: Marital vows often contain

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption (which, if assumed, makes conclusion follow logically)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: No one should take "love" in a marital vow to be referring to 'feelings'.
Evidence: 'Feelings' are not within one's control, and a promise to do something not within one's control makes no sense.

Answer Anticipation:
The evidence doesn't provide us with any rules about what we "should / shouldn't" do, so if we're going to conclude "we should not interpret 'love' in a marital vow to be referring to feelings", we'll need an answer choice that gives us a rule about what "should not" be done. That actually eliminates A/C/E with only a moment's glance. What do we know about "interpreting 'love' in a marital vow to be referring to feelings"? We know that it would 'make no sense' to do so. Hence, we seem to be missing a rule that says "If something doesn't make sense, you shouldn't do it."

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Doesn't provide a rule about what "should not" be done, so there's no way that it could allow us to derive the conclusion.
(B) Not quite. This says "If something is not within your control, then you shouldn't make a promise to do it." Since we know feelings are not in our control, this rule would allow us to conclude that "no one should make a promise to feel a certain way". But the conclusion isn't talking about the person SAYING the vow, the person MAKING the promise. The conclusion is talking about someone HEARING the vow.
(C) Doesn't provide a rule about what "should not" be done, so there's no way that it could allow us to derive the conclusion.
(D) Yes! This says "If a given interpretation of a promise would make no sense, then we should not interpret the promise that way." Since we know that interpreting "love = feelings" in a marital vow would make no sense (you're promising to do something not within your control), this rule lets us conclude that we should not interpret a marital vow's promise to love in this fashion.
(E) Doesn't provide a rule about what "should not" be done, so there's no way that it could allow us to derive the conclusion.

Takeaway/Pattern: As always, with Sufficient Assumption, if the Conclusion has a new term or idea that was never presented or defined in the evidence, then we know that the correct answer will have to bring up that new term/idea. In this case, the Conclusion is trying to prove we "should not" do something, but we were never given any definition for what we "should or should not" do. Knowing the answer had to provide us with that component, we don't need to even consider A, C, or E.

#officialexplanation

[jennifer]

This is sufficent Assumption, that had a lot of conditional logic that threw me into a tailspin. My translation is below but it is wrong because it makes no sense.
L->F
F-> no control
P of no control-> no sense

----------------------------------
Love-> no feeling

[panman36]

I get how "D" is the right answer. Can someone explain why "B" is wrong?

[lhermary]

I'll give it a try. Hopefully one of the geeks can give it a go





Love refers to a feeling -> makes no sense

A promise to do something not within someone's control -> Makes no sense
____________________
~No one should take (believe) Love refers to a feeling

And this is where I have difficulty. Matching what I need with the answer choices.

Help

[maryadkins]

Feeling --> No Control

[Control --> Not a feeling]

Promising something out of control --> No sense

[Sense --> Not a promise out of control]

THEREFORE:

No one should take love as being a feeling.

How do we get there?

Well, first of all, our conclusion has "should" in it. This is a big clue that our assumption is going to have "should" in it, too. Why? Because when we just have facts in the premise(s), and we have a "should" in the conclusion--a clear opinion--we have to make that jump somehow (in a sufficient assumption question). An answer choice that just gives us more fact(s) without giving us a standard by which we can actually justify a "should" conclusion isn't going to fill the gap.

A, C, and E all lack "should" or a synonym for it; they all just state facts.

The problem with (B) is that it's more or less just affirming one of the premises. People shouldn't make promises to do something not in their control. Okay, but is love in their control? Is it a feeling? We still don't know that love is not in their control. So how could this assumption actually enable us to conclude--as the argument does--that love shouldn't be interpreted as referring to a feeling?

(D) works because it goes right to the heart of our conclusion: we shouldn't interpret a promise to love in a way that doesn't make sense.

How does this work?

Because what (D) is telling us is that this interpretation is bad:

love --> feeling --> no control --> makes no sense

And that's precisely what the conclusion says. That this interpretation of love is bad.

Hope this helps. Hard question!

[ivytony]

let me share my understanding and explanation of this Q:

mostly similar to what maryadkins wrote:

if love = feeling --> promise makes no sense
(contrapositive: promise makes sense --> love <> feeling (not equal to feeling))

promise to do things out of one's control --> makes no sense
(contra positive: makes sense --> promise to do things within one's control)
So the sufficient "(promise) makes sense" have two necessary conditions (independent? or another layer of sufficient/necessary conditions?): 1. love <> feeling, and 2. promise to do things within one's control)

The conclusion in basically what the above condition 1. love <> feeling, and we need to fill the gap (assumption) with the above condition 2. promise to do things within one's control (in other words: promise should not be out of one's control-makes no sense)

am I overthinking on this Q? I'm open to critiques

[maryadkins]

Nice thinking, ivytony. That's a fine way to break it down, as well. I don't think you have to get that complicated to get to (D), but I didn't see a problem with your analysis except one small comment:

The negation of a "promise to do something out of one's control" isn't necessarily a "promise to do something within one's control." Rather, it would just be NOT a "promise to do something out of one's control," right? There could be no promise at all. The negation doesn't mean there has to be a promise in the other direction. Subtle difference, but good to be careful, generally, about negating.

[matthewyoung2008]

Love referring to a feeling = a certain construal = C
Promise makes sense = PMS

If construed as such (C), then -PMS.

Contrapositive: PMS --> -C

Apply should to both sides:

SHOULD PMS --> SHOULD -C (this is the conclusion)

SHOULD PMS is (D).

[jan]

The conclusion is about not "referring" a word to mean something. nowhere does it say that one should not make a promise that doesn't seem to make any sense.

answer choice B says we should not MAKE promises which does not address the argument's conclusion.

[dhlim3]

I like Conditional Statements:

Premise 1: Feeling --> ~Control
Premise 2: ~Control--> ~Sense
Inter. Con: [Love=Feeling] --> ~Sense
Main Con: ~[Love=Feeling]

Since this is a sufficient assumption question, we have to figure out what would make it sufficient to arrive at ~[Love=Feeling]. Conclusion is just a negation of the Sufficient condition of the Inter. Conclusion. What would allow this negation without committing a logical fallacy? By taking the contrapositive of the Inter. Conclusion.

Inter Conclusion: [Love=Feeling] --> ~Sense
Contrapositive: Sense --> ~[Love=Feeling]

This translates to, "If a Promise is to make sense, then Love cannot refer to a feeling."

Since the conclusion has the word "should", the correct answer will say something along the line of "Promises should make sense".

Answer D reflects this.

[fadams]

Put simply:
A->B
Thus, /A
SA: /B

Into words
if love refers to feeling -> promise make no sense
Thus, no one should refer love to feelings
SA: should not make promise that make no sense: D

A. who cares about control and other feelings
B. should not make promise to do something that is not within their control, but conclusion is about how to interpret love
C. great, but author acknowledges this
E. how does it relate to love?

[GolddiggerF208]

Just for record:

love → feeling → -control → promise making no sense
(promise making sense → control → -feeling → -love)
________________________________________________________
should + -love

The sufficient assumption needs: should + promise making sense. That is, promise should make sense - promise should not make no sense - promise should not be interpreted in such a way that it makes no sense.