#17 - Glen: An emphasis on law’s purely procedural

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Point at Issue. The correct answer choice is (E)

Glen argues that law’s primary role should be to create virtuous citizens. Sara responds by observing
that such a role would encourage government to decide what constitutes virtuous behavior, which
would be dangerous. By beginning her counterargument with the conjunction “but,” Sara indicates
that she is in direct disagreement with Glen’s conclusion. This suggests that the main point of issue
between the two speakers is what the primary role of law should be.

Because the two speakers are having a disagreement over an issue that is ethical in nature, factual
answers will be incorrect. The correct answer will contain a normative statement that passes the
Agree/Disagree Test, i.e. it must produce responses where one speaker would say, “Yes, I agree with
this statement” and the other speaker would say, “No, I disagree with it.” Unless both responses are
produced, the answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (A): Since neither speaker comments on the issue of whether citizens are capable of
making good choices without governmental interference, this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice is incorrect because it does not pass the Agree/Disagree Test.
While Glen is likely to agree that virtuousness matters more than the protection of citizens’ rights, it
is unclear whether Sara would disagree with this statement. The relative importance of virtuousness
is not under debate: the issue is whether government should be allowed to regulate it.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice seems attractive, but is incorrect for several reasons: First,
it contains a factual statement, not an ethical one; factual answers cannot address the underlying
judgment issues that form an ethical debate. Secondly, this answer choice does not pass the Agree/
Disagree Test. Although Sara would clearly agree that allowing government to decide what
constitutes virtuous behavior is dangerous, it is unclear how Glen would respond to this statement.
He might concede that there is indeed some inherent danger in allowing government to cultivate
virtue, but that such danger is outweighed by the even greater danger of promoting indifference
towards society’s welfare. Since we cannot prove that Glen would definitively disagree with answer
choice (C), this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This is the Opposite answer, as there is some evidence that both Glen and Sara
would agree with this statement. Glen claims that an emphasis on law’s purely procedural side
produces a concern with personal rights, which is undisputed by Sara.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice, because Glen would agree with the
statement and Sara would disagree with it. The key to answer choice (E) is the word “should.”
According to Glen, law’s primary role should be to create virtuous citizens. However, for Sara such
a role would lead to an undesirable outcome. Therefore, she would disagree with the claim that
cultivation of virtue should be the primary role of law. Answer choice (E) passes the Agree/Disagree
Test, and is therefore the correct answer choice.

[cgs174]

Hi!

I answered this question correctly during a timed take of the test but missed it during my blind review. I went back and forth between B and E both times, in the end I had problems with both answers but had a hard time determining which was better.

I identified the conclusion of Glen's argument to be that the primarily role of law should be the creation of virtuous citizens and that, through the use of the word "but" Sara rejects the conclusion. This led me to answer choice E.

However, I couldn't find a suitable reason to eliminate B. Glen believes that personal rights are less important that virtuousness, while Sara believes this conclusion is wrong, it is better to have personal rights at the expense of virtue, as long as the decision about what is virtuous is decided by the government. This seemed to be strongly parallel with choice B.

The use of relative words like "more dangerous than" in the stimulus resonated with the relative nature of B ("more important than) while the more absolute and definitive nature of E made me a bit wary. The best reason I could come up with for preferring E over B is that B makes a value judgement about what is inherently better, virtue or personal rights, while Sara is concerned with the implications of what valuing one over the other would mean. Is that why B is not correct? Am I just overthinking this?

Thanks for your help!!

[Adam Tyson]

I think your ultimate analysis is good, cgs174, but you may along the way be reading too much into what these two parties are required to believe, and that could make trouble for you on Must Be True questions and others in the same family, like this Point at Issue question.

We cannot be sure what Glenn would say about what is more important in general terms, personal rights or virtuousness. All we can say is that Glenn thinks the current emphasis of the law's procedural side has negative effects, and he thinks the emphasis should be on something else. Glenn might think personal rights are the most important thing, but that the law's focus on virtue would be the best way of protecting those rights! Or, Glenn might think those things to be of equal importance and the current system is just overemphasizing one at the expense of the other. And we can't really be sure what Sara would say about the relative importance of those two concepts, either. We only know that she has some concerns about Glenn's suggestion and the possible negative effects of his approach.

If we cannot say, based solely on the text, what one person would say in response to an answer choice in a Point at Issue or Point or Agreement question, then that answer is wrong, even if we can be sure what the other person would say. We need clear, textual support that one party would say "yes, that's true, I agree with that" while the other, according to the text, would have to say "no, that's false, I disagree." Absent that clear, text-based support for even one of the two speakers, the answer is a loser.