Cigarette smoking has been shown to be a health hazard; therefore, government should ban all advertisements that promote smoking.

Which one of the following principles, if established, most strongly supports the argument?

(A) Advertisements should not be allowed to show people doing things that endanger their health
(B) Advertisers should not make misleading claims about the healthfulness of their products
(C) Advertisements should disclose the health hazards associated with the products they promote
(D) All products should conform to strict government health and safety standards
(E) Advertisements should promote only healthful products
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D-Day: November 18th, 2017

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This is a tough one. Any explanation for A&E?

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This is a tough one.

There is one premise: "Cigarettes are bad for health."

And the conclusion: "Therefore, government should ban all ads that promote cigarettes".

We now need to find one more premise that would most logically complete the argument.

A is a good option, but there are at least 2 flaws with it:

1. It's possible to make an ad promoting cigarette smoking without showing any people smoking. For example, a famous actor says into the camera: "Smoke cigarettes. They are amazing."
2. It's possible to make an ad promoting a healthy product (e.g. broccoli) with people doing something dangerous, as a negative example. For instance, you show a person eating 100 doughnuts per day and then say: "Don't be like that person. Eat broccoli."

E doesn't have any flaws. Once we put it into the argument, the whole thing works beautifully: "Cigarettes are bad for health. Ads must promote only healthy things. Therefore, we should ban all ads promoting cigarettes."