Teacher to student: You agree that it is bad to break promises. But wh

+1 D

If we assume that breaking the explicit promise or the implicit promise will have the same effect, the teacher cannot conclude that the student should break the promise to his friend.

D is the only one that is related to argument.

EXPLICIT PROMISE: promised Jeannie that you would tell me she is home sick
IMPLICIT PROMISE: with the teacher

Conclusion - teacher should not be told FALSE statement because it is bad i.e. badness of breaking IMPLICIT PROMISE is more than badness of breaking an EXPLICIT PROMISE

This is an interesting passage. I would appreciate if any of the experts could comment on my reasoning

Premise 1: Breaking promises is bad.
Premise 2: Implicitly promise to tell the truth. Lying = breaking promises = bad.
Conclusion (teacher's point): if Jeannie is well, tell the truth and you won't break a promise, because you will not lie.

A. Most people always tell the truth

- Is not relevant here what "most" people do. This statement does not really affect the conclusion of the argument.

B. It is sometimes better to act in a friend's best interest than to keep a promise to that friend

- This option assumes that telling the truth to the teacher (that J is not sick) is in her best interest, and the student should not keep a verbal promise. However, there is no evidence that, even if J is indeed not sick, revealing the truth to the teach will be in the J's best interest. So, this option is a bit complicated. Let's keep it unless we find a better one.

C. Breaking a promise leads to worse consequences than does telling a lie

- Do we need to know about consequences? Probably not.

D. Some implicit promises are worse to break than some explicit ones.

- The explicit promise is the verbal promise of the student to say that J is at home sick. The implicit promise is that one promises to tell the truth (premise 2). So, according to the teacher, the student should break the implicit promise and tell the truth. Does not look much better than B...

E. One should never break a promise

- This is an "idealistic" real-world statement. Definitely not relevant to answer the question, but indeed important in Real World.


nightblade354 could you please help with this problem?

B is wrong because we have no idea what is in the best interest of the friend. Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't to lie. But we cannot assume that because school = good that lying about them being sick is not in the person's best interest.

nightblade354 okay, I think I finally understood why D is the correct answer choice. Also, your reasoning about why B is incorrect is simple and clear.

Thank you!

The student lied to the teacher and thats what breaking an implicit promise is. The teacher scolded the student for that only.
Clearly D.

Option (b) -It might be in a friend's interest to reveal the truth but it would break the promise to that friend. That's what the teacher doesn't want you to do. Don't break the promise. Hence, i will eliminate this option right away.

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