#4 - Politician: Suppose censorship is wrong in itself, as

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (E)

In this stimulus, the politician makes the following questionable argument:

• Premise: censorship is morally wrong.
  
  Conclusion: refusing a part is morally wrong.

The leap in the politician’s argument is fairly clear: the politician apparently assumes that for an actor, refusing a part is equivalent to censorship. This link is not justified by the politician’s logic—this is the flaw.

Answer choice (A): There is no such presumption—the author discusses an idea ascribed to modern liberals, but does not make the claim that actors are liberals.

Answer choice (B): The politician does not use the term “liberal” in order to discredit the idea, so this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): The politician’s argument does not require that one’s profession holds any moral obligation, so this cannot be the flaw in the reasoning.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice describes the flaw of internal contradiction, and there is no such flaw in the politician’s argument—just an unjustified leap in logic.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice, and the one which best reflects our prephrase above: the politician makes the unwarranted assumption that refusing a role is the same as censorship.

[Dancingbambarina]

General question with AC's that say "Presume..." particuarly in flaw:

If you negate, and it wrecks the argument, is this sufficient to make it the correct answer, or does context matter, say if the presumption doesn't qualify as a presumption afterall ; i.e. it is an assumption that's not flawed, and so doesn't qualify as a presumption "without justification"?

Thank you again.

[Dana D]

Hey Dancing,

It's difficult to say in generalities, but no, I would not say "presuming" something is automatically a flaw. There are many times in our real lives when we start an argument with many presumptions that we provide no justification for. This is practically necessary to save time and because, in general, we usually all start from certain shared understandings about things. Perhaps someone would understand our argument more if we explained all our assumptions at the start, but that doesn't mean an argument is flawed just because we didn't include them.

For example, if I say that you should bring an umbrella to work tomorrow so you don't get wet on your commute home, a flaw in that argument is not likely to be that I "presume, without justification, that the other person doesn't want to get wet" , becuase I just as easily could have said "I know you don't like to get wet, so you should bring an umbrella to work tomorrow so you don't get wet on your commute home." There's still other flaws in this argument - for example perhaps a more obvious flaw is that I assume your only option to stay dry is to use an umbrella, without considering an alternative to avoid getting wet, like ordering an Uber home.

Hope that helps!