Business executive: Attempting to create an ethical company by teachin

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

Answer: C

STEP 1: Read the question and identify your task.
This is a Describe question. The question asks you to describe the method the ethicist uses to respond to the business executive’s argument

STEP 2: Read the argument with your task in mind.
In essence, the business executive argues that teaching ethics to employees is a waste of time because they will inevitably act unethically.

STEP 3: Know what you’re looking for.
First you notice by the tone that the ethicist indicates disagreement with the executive (“makes as much sense as … ”) and that the ethicist uses an analogous situation (“spending money on driver’s education”) and that the analogous situation has what the ethicist considers an absurd justification (“all drivers will inevitably cause an accident”), indicating that such thinking will have an equally bad result. You will look for something similar in your answer options.

STEP 4: Read every word of every answer choice.
Answer A seems closer to a description of the business executive’s thinking than the ethicist’s. Your question asks for the ethicist’s method, not the executive’s. With answer B, the ethicist makes no attack on the executive’s character, only on his argument, so this is not the correct answer. For answer C, the ethicist does use another (analogous) situation to show the executive’s reasoning is flawed and would lead to a bad result, so this answer seems like your best option, but let’s continue to review the rest of the options. Answer D does not seem right because the ethicist makes no demands for further evidence. For answer E, the ethicist does not think there is any dilemma to explicate. For the ethicist, there is no dilemma at all, as you see by his use of an analogous situation that is fairly black-and-white. The correct choice is answer C.
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The method the ethicist uses to object to the business executive’s argument is to

(C) show that the executive’s line of reasoning would lead to an unacceptable conclusion if applied to a different situation

Ethicist presents an analogous situation to disapprove the line of reasoning presented by the business executive