#21 - Essayist: Commitment to relationships or careers is commonly held

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen, Principle. The correct answer choice is (E).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice.

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[ero225]

Can you please provide an explanation for the answer choices?

[pjtherriat]

I selected E as my answer choice after eliminating the others, however, I'm still unclear as to why this is the correct answer. I pretty much narrowed it down to C or E and then just went with E because it was toward the end of the section.

Is it wrong to make the leap that the premise "all commitments should be seen as morally neutral," is the reasoning for why E is correct?

This was my diagram

Commitments ---> Morally Neutral ---> No Praise

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi to you both!

I like that you are using conditionals here, pj, but I would make a small adjustment. I would clearly show the structure of the argument. You want to distinguish the premise(s) from the conclusion in order to clearly understand what the principle should strengthen.

Premise: Commitment that benefits none deserves no praise

Conclusion: Commitments morally neutral

We need a principle that helps the idea that all commitments are morally neutral. The evidence we have so far is that there are some commitments that don't deserve praise. It's a pretty big jump to prove that all commitments are morally neutral, but remember here that we aren't justifying the conclusion. We only need to help it in some way.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice is describing things that are true about morally neutral commitments. But they don't support the idea that ALL commitments are morally neutral. In fact, because it says that morally neutral commitments must fall into at least one of two specific categories, it weakens the idea that all commitments are morally neutral.

Answer choice (B): This also gives us a reason to think that some commitments are not morally neutral, so we would eliminate it.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice gets us to the idea that some commitments are morally neutral, but that's not quite far enough. It doesn't support that ALL are morally neutral. While this is a better choice than both answer choice (A) and answer choice (B), it still doesn't support our conclusion that all commitments are morally neutral.

Answer choice (D): This says certain commitments aren't virtuous, but that's not saying all commitments are morally neutral.

Answer choice (E); This is phrased conditionally. Any commitments deserve no praise all commitments are morally neutral. This is somewhat strange in phrasing or even in concept. It's a large jump from there's a commitment that is undeserving of praise, therefore ALL commitments are morally neutral. But this follows the logic. It directly connects our premise, which established that there are some commitments that are not deserving of praise, to our conclusion, that all commitments are morally neutral.

Hope that helps you both!

[coffee123]

In your reasoning for C, even if this answer does not quite justify the entire conclusion, isn't it still enough for the answer choice to justify the conclusion by any amount, even if by a small amount, and be the correct answer?

I see why E is a better answer now, but I am still wondering why C is an incorrect answer. In the section on Strengthening questions in my Powerscore book, I thought it was enough for an answer choice to merely strengthen an argument by a small amount, even if it doesn't necessarily prove the conclusion? Thanks!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi coffee,

While it is true that the correct answer to a Strengthen question need not 100% justify the argument (and often doesn't), you still need to always pick the answer that Most strengthens the argument. This means that if an answer happens to strengthen the argument a tiny bit but another answer strengthens it far more, that second answer is correct.

Usually the wrong answers in Strengthen questions do not strengthen the argument at all. Instead, they either have no effect on the argument or even weaken it. However, there are occasionally wrong answers that may arguably strengthen the argument slightly, but are nevertheless wrong because another answer strengthens much more. This is exactly why the questions use the words "Most strengthens" or "Most helps to justify" in this question. This is also why it is critical to always read and evaluate all five answers in order to choose the best.

Here, Answer C shows that some commitments are morally neutral, but that really doesn't do much for our conclusion that all commitments are morally neutral. It's slightly better than nothing (and Answers A, B, D), but it's not nearly as strong as Answer E.