#26 - A member of the British Parliament is reputed to have

[Adam Tyson]

That's not a stupid question at all, JocelynL! The problem with answer C is that it is possible that only the member's constituents are made happier, and that could still mean the sum total of all happiness is increased. If one person is made happier, then we can add that happiness to the total of all happiness, and that total would go up! One smile makes the whole world brighter, right? The issue isn't who is made happier, but whether the total of all happiness has increased. The problem is that the member of Parliament has not taken into account the possibility that the total could go down even though his constituents' happiness went up. What if making them happy made a lot of other people unhappy?

So, the constituents are not ALL of the people that matter, but they are a part of the total, so they DO matter.

[bonnie_a]

Hello I've got a question on an intermediate conclusion. I figured the part where it says any reform that makes somebody happy is achieving its purpose is an intermediate conclusion. As far as I know, intermediate conclusion also acts as a premise for the main conclusion and we are supposed to accept premises as true no matter what. So when I was doing the question myself, I took them as true (if somebody is made happy, then it's achieving its purpose) and focused on the main conclusion (just because a few people are made happy and the purpose of good social reform is to increase the sum total of happiness, the author thinks it's a good one). But, as I was reading through the posts here, I noticed people seemed to find fault with this intermediate conclusion (though I agree that that intermediate conclusion is not a reasonable one). In cases like this one, are we expected to find what's wrong with an intermediate conclusion, even if it acts as a premise and we have to take premises as true all the time?

[Robert Carroll]

bonnie_a,

We don't have to take premises as true for a Weaken question at all. So there's nothing wrong with undermining this intermediate conclusion. Nor would there be a problem undermining a premise that isn't an intermediate conclusion, if the question type is Weaken. As long as the answer weakens the conclusion, it's ok for it to do anything.

Robert Carroll