Logical reasoning PrepTest 154 · Section 1 · Question 11

Incorrect. Moral condemnation is out of scope of the argument.

Incorrect. While this answer might have to be true for the argument to work (since Downing's action was honest but, according to the argument, no morally praiseworthy), this answer doesn't guarantee the conclusion (i.e., it's necessary but not sufficient).

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Honesty morally praiseworthy → Honest out of respect for morality
Downing: Honest, but motivated by self-concern
Therefore: Downing's honesty wasn't morally praiseworthy

Answer Anticipation:
We should first take the contrapositive of the conditional to get it to line up with the conclusion:

not Honest out of respect for morality → not Morally praiseworthy

Using this, we can see that the conclusion is valid if it's established that Downing's honesty wasn't done out of respect for morality. However, what's actually established is that the honesty was motivated by self-concern. The correct answer, therefore, will need to connect those ideas so that the premise is guaranteed to trigger the conditional (and we should also anticipate the contrapositive):

Motivated by self-concern → not Honest out of respect for morality
Honest out of respect for morality → not Motivated by self-concern

Answer Explanation:
This answer connects the two ideas we anticipated must be connected, so we should diagram it out to see if it matches:

Honest out of respect for morality → not Motivated by self-concernThat matches the contrapositive from our anticipation, so this is the correct answer. Downing's action was motivated by self-concern, so if that means it wasn't out of respect for morality, then it isn't praiseworthy.

Key Takeaway:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions generally feature new terms in the conclusion that need to be connected to a premise. Here, however, the conclusion (Downing's actions weren't praiseworthy) didn't introduce a new term—instead, the gap was between two premises. While rare, the process here is the same—find the terms that need to be connected, and anticipate that connection (and its contrapositive when your anticipation is a conditional, which it should be most of the time).

Incorrect. If we assume that motivations are included in the circumstances of the person acting, then this answer might be required for the conditional in the argument to be true, but it doesn't establish that Downing's actions were not motivated by morality and thus not praiseworthy.

Incorrect. This answer can be summed up as: Moral → Honest. However, that rule doesn't apply in this scenario since 1) Downing was honest, so this answer doesn't present any inferences, and 2) the argument is about motivation and praiseworthiness, and this answer doesn't establish either of those.