Reading comp PrepTest 136 · Section 3 · Question 23

Topic: Legal Studies

Paragraph 1

• Paragraph note
  • Common beliefs; an opposing viewpoint; criticism of that view; Author’s criticism of criticism
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Common belief 1 - Special exceptions - Government is bad; Can break laws (e.g., law is immoral)
  • Common belief 2 - Outside of those exceptions, moral obligation to obey law
  • Philosophical Anarchism (PA) - No obligation to obey law
  • Criticism - PA has 2 counterintuitive implications - 1) All governments equally bad; 2) People can do any (bad) thing they want
  • Author - PA doesn’t mean these things

Paragraph 2

• Paragraph note
  • Author rebuts first implication
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • Can believe no moral obligation to obey laws while still evaluating governments
  • Some do more harm than good; others more good than harm

Paragraph 3

• Paragraph note
  • Author rebuts second implication
• Views, minor Meta-Structures, and the author's attitude
  • PA - People are obliged to each other, not governments
  • PA - Positive moral duty to help each other
  • PA - Can transfer duty to help others to government (counterintuitive)
  • PA - Follow laws that create safety - Example - Drive on the right side of the road

Main Point: Critics of PA are wrong to say that it implies all governments are equally bad and people can do whatever they want, regardless of whom it hurts.

Lines 11-15 - A philosophy is described

Lines 15-21 - Criticism of the philosophy

Lines 22-23 - Author’s opinion of the criticism

Lines 24-30 - Defense from the first criticism

Lines 37-44 - Defense from the second criticism

Defense from Criticism - While normally seen in Humanities passages where the Author defends an artist from criticism, this passage features the Author defending a philosophy from the criticism that it has counterintuitive implications (Lines 15-17). She argues that it doesn’t have these implications (Lines 22-23). She never takes a side or says that she’s a PA (though she does present some of their beliefs in a positive light, e.g., that people have a moral duty not to harm others) - rather, she just focuses on how the criticism is wrong. When the central argument in a passage defends an argument from criticism, the main point should reflect that.

First, look at the italicized thought we had in Paragraph 3 - the one we noted as counterintuitive. PA argues that there’s no moral obligation to follow a law and citizens have no moral duties to their governments. The passage ends, however, on situations where PAs believe that the government can have power invested in them legitimately, and laws should be followed. These are counterintuitive arguments based on how most people view anarchism, and so they’re worth noting.

Second, it’s important to be really clear on the viewpoints here. The passage opens with a “background” viewpoint - what most people believe. However, that viewpoint is brought up just to contrast it with that of the PAs. The key viewpoints are the PAs, the critics, and the Author. The PAs believe that people have no moral duty to follow the laws of a government (Lines 11-15). The critics believe that this view has some counterintuitive implications (Lines 15-21) - not contradictory or wrong, but counterintuitive (against what most people would think - calling back to that opening viewpoint). And the Author doesn’t commit to being a PA - she just argues that these “counterintuitive implications” aren’t actually a necessary corollary to PA’s central belief. She does speak to some beliefs of the PAs, and she paints some of them in a positive light (e.gShe definitely thinks positively of their view that people have a positive moral duty to “care for one another”; Lines 45-46). There’s much more nuance to these viewpoints than “PA good/bad,” so let’s be careful as we head through the answer choices.