Why is E wrong?

Started by Katie-Pleiss · started 2020-06-09 13:15 · last activity 2020-06-15 16:20 · 1 reply

Could you explain why E is wrong? Thank you!

Replies

  1. shunhe · 2020-06-15 16:20

    Hi @Katie-Pleiss, Thanks for the question! So notice that this is a question that asks for a necessary assumption. So the question we have to ask ourselves about (E) is, is it a necessary assumption? Well, (E) tells us that the majority of people who successfully quit smoking cite health concerns as the primary motivation for their success. Does the argument require that a MAJORITY of people cite health concerns as the PRIMARY motivation for their success? Maybe slightly less than a majority cite health concerns as the primary motivation, whereas the rest of the people cited it as one of a few major concerns, but not technically the primary concern. Then the argument would still hold, and so we can see how (E) isn’t a necessary assumption based on the negation technique. Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

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