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Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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12 Apr 2017, 22:59
5
13
00:00
A
B
C
D
E
Difficulty:
95% (hard)
Question Stats:
23% (02:28) correct 77% (02:30) wrong based on 630 sessions
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Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right, for although we do consider people especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong, they are certainly no less virtuous if they have succeeded in extinguishing all such desires. The assertion that people are considered especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong plays which one of the following roles in the ethicist’s argument?
(A) It is a claim for which the argument attempts to provide justification. (B) It makes an observation that, according to the argument, is insufficient to justify the claim that the argument concludes is false. (C) It is a claim, acceptance of which, the argument contends, is a primary obstacle to some people’s having an adequate conception of virtue. (D) It is, according to the argument, a commonly held opinion that is nevertheless false. (E) It reports an observation that, according to the argument, serves as evidence for the truth of its conclusion.
Re: Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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16 Jun 2017, 13:06
5
sriamlan wrote:
I don't understand the logic behind this question.Can some expert please explain.
Consider a woman asleep at a park with her purse wide open so that anyone could easily walk by and steal her money. Charles sees the open purse and, being a glutton, is tempted to steal the money. Charles starts creeping up to the purse, but, even though he is drooling at the possibility of using that money to buy himself burritos, he reluctantly decides stealing the money would be wrong and walks away.
Mike walks by and has no desire to steal the money. In fact, the thought doesn't even cross his angelic mind.
The conclusion of the passage is: "It would be a mistake to say that just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right." Using our example, that means that it would be a mistake to say that Mike doesn't deserve to be praised for not stealing the money, even though he had no desire to steal the money.
"Although we do consider people especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong, they are certainly no less virtuous if they have succeeded in extinguishing all such desires." Using our example, although Charles can be considered especially virtuous for resisting the desire to steal, Mike, having extinguished the desire to steal, is no less virtuous than Charles.
Need an expert reply? Hit the request verbal experts' reply button -- and please be specific about your question. Feel free to tag @GMATNinja in your post. Priority is always given to official GMAT questions.
Re: Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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25 Apr 2017, 09:51
2
aurobindomahanty wrote:
Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right, for although we do consider people especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong, they are certainly no less virtuous if they have succeeded in extinguishing all such desires. The assertion that people are considered especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong plays which one of the following roles in the ethicist’s argument?
(A) It is a claim for which the argument attempts to provide justification. (B) It makes an observation that, according to the argument, is insufficient to justify the claim that the argument concludes is false. (C) It is a claim, acceptance of which, the argument contends, is a primary obstacle to some people’s having an adequate conception of virtue. (D) It is, according to the argument, a commonly held opinion that is nevertheless false. (E) It reports an observation that, according to the argument, serves as evidence for the truth of its conclusion.
Can someone please explain this? I'm lost in a whole sea of tweaked statements here! With lots of difficulty I boiled down to B and E.
Can someone please explain this? I'm lost in a whole sea of tweaked statements here! With lots of difficulty I boiled down to B and E.
Choice B and choice E both start with, "It [reports/makes] an observation that, according to the argument...", where the observation is that "people are considered especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong"
Quote:
(E) It reports an observation that, according to the argument, serves as evidence for the truth of its conclusion.
The conclusion is: "It would be a mistake to say that just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right" Does the observation cited above serve as evidence for the truth of that conclusion? No; in fact, it serves as evidence that people deserve to be praised for doing what is right when they ARE inclined to do otherwise (opposing point). So E can be eliminated.
Quote:
(B) It makes an observation that, according to the argument, is insufficient to justify the claim that the argument concludes is false.
The claim that the argument concludes is false is: "just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right." In other words, even though "people are considered especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong," this observation is insufficient to justify the claim that people do not deserve to be praised for doing what is right just because they are not inclined to do otherwise.
Re: Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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29 Apr 2017, 06:02
2
1
aurobindomahanty wrote:
Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right, for although we do consider people especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong, they are certainly no less virtuous if they have succeeded in extinguishing all such desires.
The assertion that people are considered especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong plays which one of the following roles in the ethicist’s argument?
(A) It is a claim for which the argument attempts to provide justification. -As per the wordings of the argument, it is not justifying anything. (B) It makes an observation that, according to the argument, is insufficient to justify the claim that the argument concludes is false. -THIS IS CORRECT. As per my explanation in point E below, second is just a definition and doesn't justify anything. (C) It is a claim, acceptance of which, the argument contends, is a primary obstacle to some people’s having an adequate conception of virtue. -The argument doesn't talk about any obstracle. (D) It is, according to the argument, a commonly held opinion that is nevertheless false. -"Commonly" is no where in the intrepretation (E) It reports an observation that, according to the argument, serves as evidence for the truth of its conclusion. -If you read the argument the conclusion is in the first line stating that if a person doesn't do anything wrong it doesn't mean that he or she shouldn't be praises, and the second line is stating that the people who resist their desire to do wrong are called virtuous. Second is basically a definition of being virtuous. It doesn't prove anything.
Hello, This is "SOME" question. Thank you for sharing it. It is really a mind twister. Please correct me GMATNinjaTwo if my understanding is wrong. Regards
_________________
Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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16 Jun 2017, 17:44
will this question really appear in the real GMAT? btw, the key word is "although" and "mistake". The latter indicates that the conclusion cannot be proven wrong by the whole premise stands after "although"
Re: Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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16 Jun 2017, 18:17
Pretty sure this is a retired LSAT question, just judging by the language and the style. The LSAT likes to put philosophical and ethical quandaries in its questions.
The answer choices sound a whole lot like the ones that appear in GMAT boldfaced CR questions. So this sort of thing is useful enough, I guess...
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Re: Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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16 Jun 2017, 22:33
GMATNinja wrote:
Pretty sure this is a retired LSAT question, just judging by the language and the style. The LSAT likes to put philosophical and ethical quandaries in its questions.
The answer choices sound a whole lot like the ones that appear in GMAT boldfaced CR questions. So this sort of thing is useful enough, I guess...
and there is no strategy to cope with such questions?
Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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18 Jun 2017, 09:09
1
chesstitans wrote:
and there is no strategy to cope with such questions?
For some strategies on dealing with boldface CR, check out the advice toward the middle of this chat transcript: https://gmatclub.com/forum/verbal-chat- ... l#p1861859. It's not very polished, but hopefully it will help a little bit. And we'll eventually post a lengthier topic of the week on boldfaced CR later in the year.
And here's another, older thread on boldfaced CR: https://gmatclub.com/forum/strategy-and ... 65576.html. I don't 100% agree with everything in it, but it's a really good, thorough post. And different tactics work for different people, so if you like this one better, go for it. _________________
Need an expert reply? Hit the request verbal experts' reply button -- and please be specific about your question. Feel free to tag @GMATNinja in your post. Priority is always given to official GMAT questions.
Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone
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17 Nov 2017, 17:48
I ran into a slightly different version of that question which was a boldface. I have therefore included the changes in the quoted text below to take these differences into consideration. Although the question type is different, it essentially asks the same thing and all answer choices are the same but (E).
I only intend to share how I dealt with this question. The first time I read it, I immediately realized I would not manage to understand its meaning in under 2 minutes.
As such, I used pure structure and keywords to go through a process of elimination. I hope it helps!
Step 1 = ID Question Type We are dealing with a Boldface / Role type of question (Argument Group).
Step 2 = Deconstruct Passage Not too hard here. It starts with our conclusion (= claim), and from the bold part onward we are dealing with evidence (= observation).
Step 3 = Anticipate Answer I anticipated "something" that would be true and not a claim.
Step 4 = Answer the Proper Question
aurobindomahanty wrote:
Ethicist: It would be a mistake to say that just because someone is not inclined to do otherwise, she or he does not deserve to be praised for doing what is right, for although we do consider people especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong, they are certainly no less virtuous if they have succeeded in extinguishing all such desires.
The statement above in boldface plays which of the following roles in the Ethicist's argument? The assertion that people are considered especially virtuous if they successfully resist a desire to do what is wrong plays which one of the following roles in the ethicist’s argument?
(A) It is a claim for which the argument attempts to provide justification. The boldface part is not a claim. Eliminate
(B) It makes an observation that, according to the argument, is insufficient to justify the claim that the argument concludes is false. It is an observation. Not sure what the rest meant in my first attempt. Keep it and keep going.
(C) It is a claim, acceptance of which, the argument contends, is a primary obstacle to some people’s having an adequate conception of virtue. The boldface part is not a claim. Eliminate.
(D) It is, according to the argument, a commonly held opinion that is nevertheless false. It is explicitly stated that the boldface part is true. Therefore it can NOT be false. Eliminate.
(E) It reports an observation that the argument claims is false and, according to the argument, is sufficient to demonstrate the falsehood of the claim that the argument concludes is false Again, the reported observation is true. A correct Answer Choice cannot contradict the passage. Eliminate. It reports an observation that, according to the argument, serves as evidence for the truth of its conclusion.
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23% (02:28) correct 
