Logical reasoning PrepTest 113 · Section 4 · Question 9

Flawed

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise Questions

~People believe responsible for actions → ~Feel shame when acting immorally

~Feel shame when acting immorally → General moral decline

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions frequently deal with conditional logic, and we can see quickly that this one does - it includes keywords such as “inevitably,” “if,” and “is bound to,” all of which denote the certainty that defines a conditional statement.

When this is the case, the argument is generally flawed in that it’s missing a step in the conditional chain, or it’s attempting to apply a conditional to a specific case without establishing that the specific case meets the sufficient condition. In this case, since there are multiple conditional premises, we’re likely in the former situation.

Comparing the premises to the conclusion, we can see that the necessary condition of that conclusion shows up in the conditional chain, so let’s “build backwards” from there. We know that the general moral decline of the conclusion is guaranteed by a lack of shame when acting immorally, which itself is guaranteed by people not believing they’re responsible for their actions:

~Believe responsible for actions → ~Feel shame → Moral decline

The sufficient condition of the conclusion, however, is about a specific belief - that humans are “natural objects” subject to forces outside their control. While that can arguably contribute to a feeling that you’re not responsible for your actions, the argument never establishes that it necessarily leads to that belief, so we need to connect the scientific theories from the conclusion to the specific belief that’s the sufficient condition of the chain in the premises:

Believing that humans are natural objects subject to forces outside their control → Belief that people aren’t responsible for their actions