#26 - Specific Reference, Parallel Reasoning

[christinecwt]

Hi Team - can anyone explain why Answer Choice A is wrong as i thought it represent the coordination among the owners and the relevant authorities?

[Adam Tyson]

There are a couple problems with that answer, christinecwt, the first of which is that it involves the wrong kind of rule. The second paragraph deals with rules of coordination in cases where "a mere coordination of activities is itself the good that results." But a rule about getting permission from land owners before digging on their property isn't just about coordination being good. It's about preventing damage to property, invasion of privacy, and the prevention of theft (if you assume that the property owner has some right to the artifacts buried there). Digging without permission is potentially very harmful! Imagine the chaos if anyone could just start digging wherever they wanted!

The specific example in the second paragraph is a rule about which side of the road to drive on. There is nothing inherently harmful about driving on the left, nor is there anything inherently harmful about driving on the right. The harm comes when some people choose one while others choose the opposite, and maybe some other people switch back and forth at random. Coordination is itself the good that comes out of the rule, rather than the prevention of something that is inherently bad.

Look for an answer that shows a similar rule, where the action at issue is not inherently harmful (flying at whatever altitude), but the coordination between people doing that thing is better than a lack of coordination (there's no harm in flying at 10,000 feet, but it's better if you and I don't both do it at the same time while heading straight towards each other).

[christinecwt]

Thanks a lot Adam

[Mmjd12]

I chose (D) for this one. The second paragraph discusses "mere coordination of activities is itself the good that results" and "any fair rule, then, would be better than no rule at all."

I felt that the restaurant uniform example was a closer parallel to this than (E), which seemed to me to a better analogy for the type of coordination the author describes in the 3rd paragraph -- where the harm to others is not immediately obvious but nevertheless present. Answer (E), as Adam wrote above, there's no harm in flying at 10,000 feet, but it's better if you and I don't both do it at the same time while heading straight towards each other.

The question asks about second paragraph though, which mainly discusses coordination that itself is the good that results. As such, there might not be any harm prevented in wearing whatever uniform a restaurant imposes, so long as some kind of coordination is present. So that the staff is easily identified, etc.

Why is (E) a better choice than (D) here?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Mmjd12!

To see why answer choice (D) is better than (E), consider the example that the second paragraph utilizes. It specifically relies on the example of rules pertaining to which side of the road to drive on. In this context, the prohibited act "is not inherently harm-producing, as are burglary and assault; instead it is a lack of coordination that would be harmful" (lines 30-32). So driving on the wrong side of the road is an example given in which people may agree to attach criminal sanctions to a given rule even when the prohibited act isn't clearly harm-producing on its own.

Answer choice (E) is quite similar to the example in the second paragraph--instead of a rule pertaining to cars driving in the appropriate lanes, it's instead a rule about airplanes driving in their appropriate lanes/altitudes. In addition, in this situation the prohibited act doesn't inherently harm others--rather harm would only come from lack of coordination (planes might run into one another if there wasn't a rule requiring them to fly at different altitudes, just as cars would run into each other if there wasn't a rule directing them to drive on a certain side of the road). By contrast, there doesn't seem to be a harm that would result from the lack of coordination discussed in answer choice (D).

[Mmjd12]

That makes sense thanks so much Luke