#10 - The only motives that influence all human actions

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore,

For this question, I thought it is D, however, I know it is C. Please let me know why D is the wrong answer and C is the right answer?

Thanks

Ellen

[David Boyle]

Dear Powerscore,

For this question, I thought it is D, however, I know it is C. Please let me know why D is the wrong answer and C is the right answer?

Thanks

Ellen

Hello,

B is the right answer for this question. Or do you have the right question?

David

[ellenb]

I meant to say that I know that B is the right answer; however, I picked D. So, I just want to know why D is the wrong one and B is the right one. I even diagrammed it, however, I was not sure if it is necessary for this stimulus.

Thanks in advance!

Ellen

[David Boyle]

I meant to say that I know that B is the right answer; however, I picked D. So, I just want to know why D is the wrong one and B is the right one. I even diagrammed it, however, I was not sure if it is necessary for this stimulus.

Thanks in advance!

Ellen

Hello Ellen,

Diagramming often helps, even if you could guess right without diagramming; diagramming lets you prove your work correct and see if your instinct was right.
B is right because even though every human action involves self-interest, that doesn't make self-interest the paramount influence. Maybe every human action *also* involves, to make a stupid example, the desire to see "The Lone Ranger" with Johnny Depp, and that is a stronger desire than self-interest. (The reviews pretty much say that it's a terrible movie, so it might *hurt* your self-interest to see it and spend money on it!)
D gets B sort of backward, by assuming (wrongly) that self-interest is the paramount influence, when the stimulus doesn't say that. D also says that something is the only influence, whereas the stimulus merely says that self-interest is the only influence that influences *all* human actions. (Maybe other influences, influence 99.9% of human actions, which is close to 100%.)

Hope that helps,

David

[Sherry001]

Hello ,
I had a difficult time understanding the flaw for this question .. After spending my life on it this is what I came up with could you please see if my reasoning is correct ?
Also if you could please help me get rid of D as its giving my nightmares ! Thanks so much.

1- The only motives that influence human actions --> arise from self interest

Conclusion: self interest is the chief influence on human action. (Self interest-> the chief influence on human action).

My analysis before jumping into the answers:I saw two flaws . I thought flaw #1 is that the author is mistaking a sufficient for a necessary. And flaw #2 the author takes something arising from a situation to be conclude that it's the primary factor when in fact so many other things could also have an influence on human action.

A) wrong . The author doesn't deny the causal relationship.
B) correct : the author takes the fact that actions arise from self interest to show that it's the chief reason.
C)no temporal flaw here.
D) seemed very attractive to me and still can't get rid of it.
E)no contradiction. It doesn't undermine its premise.



Sherry

[David Boyle]

Hello ,
I had a difficult time understanding the flaw for this question .. After spending my life on it this is what I came up with could you please see if my reasoning is correct ?
Also if you could please help me get rid of D as its giving my nightmares ! Thanks so much.

1- The only motives that influence human actions --> arise from self interest

Conclusion: self interest is the chief influence on human action. (Self interest-> the chief influence on human action).

My analysis before jumping into the answers:I saw two flaws . I thought flaw #1 is that the author is mistaking a sufficient for a necessary. And flaw #2 the author takes something arising from a situation to be conclude that it's the primary factor when in fact so many other things could also have an influence on human action.

A) wrong . The author doesn't deny the causal relationship.
B) correct : the author takes the fact that actions arise from self interest to show that it's the chief reason.
C)no temporal flaw here.
D) seemed very attractive to me and still can't get rid of it.
E)no contradiction. It doesn't undermine its premise.



Sherry

Hello Sherry001,

Sorry you spent your life on it. Anyway, first off, this may be an o.k. diagram of the first part of the stimulus:

Motives influencing ALL human actions self interest.

So a mistaken reversal of that would say that something from self interest must influence all human actions...but maybe that mistaken reversal is indeed a mistake! For example, maybe I have a desire to enjoy visualizing blueberry ice cream, but not to actually eat it (!). So that desire would be "self interest" (pleasurable), but not influence any actions maybe... Point being that that mistaken reversal above, is not exactly equivalent to what you said, "(Self interest-> the chief influence on human action)", which adds the idea of "chief". So it's not exactly a sufficient-necessary problem, though it almost seems like one a little.
Your "And flaw #2 the author takes something arising from a situation to be conclude that it's the primary factor when in fact so many other things could also have an influence on human action." may be more correct. Let's say that everyone in a neighborhood gets a campaign flyer, but only 85% of them see the candidate in person. Even though the flyer is more *widespread* an influence (everyone sees it), maybe seeing the candidate up close is more *powerful*, and is the deciding factor in the election.

As for answer D, it's almost a mistaken reversal of answer B. B basically says, "assumes that something occurring frequently means it's the most powerful". D says, "concludes that, because an influence is the paramount influence on a particular pattern or class of events, that influence is the only influence on that pattern or class of events"; the stimulus didn't say that self-interest is the only influence on events, but that it's the only one that influences all human actions (so that it's highly frequent). So D doesn't even come up to the level of being a mistaken reversal!

Your analyses of the other three answers choices seem pretty good. Good job overall!

Hope this helps,
David

[Johnclem]

Hi,
After reading everyone's explanation I'm lost even more . What is the flaw here ? Is this a mix up for conditions or is it causal ? Please help me figure this one out.


Thanks
John

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi John,

David's last response (see above) is spot on. The stimulus is structured as follows:

• Premise: If a given motive influences all human actions, it must arise from self interest:
  
  Influence ALL actions Arise from self-interest
  
  Conclusion: Self-interest is the chief influence on human actions.

I don't think there is any need to discuss conditional or causal reasoning here. Just consider why the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. If I told you that the only motive all law students have in common is to graduate from law school, can I conclude that graduating from law school is the chief motivator for law students? Of course not. Maybe some (though not all) students are motivated even more strongly by the desire to enact social justice? Others may have a burning desire to work at a big law firm. Etc. Clearly, just because the members of a certain class all share the same common motivation does not mean that other motivations aren't even more influential on that class. Surely, those other motivations don't affect everyone in the class (not everyone wants to work for a law firm), but they could easily affect some members of the class more strongly than the commonly shared desire to graduate from law school.

Does that make sense? Let me know.

Thanks!

[Jules97]

Hi,

I didn't diagram this question but instead I anticipated the flaw as "the argument assumes that because something influences ALL human actions, then it is also the chief influence for all human actions." Is this an accurate way to conceptualize the flaw?

Even though I wrote it down, I still picked D on my first try and now realize that it's backwards.

Thanks!

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Jules!

Yes, your basic analysis is correct. Just because self-interest influences all human actions, that doesn't necessarily mean that self-interest is the chief influence on human action. Just make sure you read those answer choices correctly to make sure that they are going in the right direction!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey