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Bunuel
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Bunuel
Joe: The sign on this garden says “Do Not Pick The Flowers.”

Sally: You are right. But there are a lot of flowers here. Picking just one will not hurt.

Joe: That is not true. If everyone thought that way and picked a flower, the garden would be destroyed.

Joe’s response to Sally is questionable because ______.


A. it ignores the possibility that there may be circumstance where destroying the garden is justified

B. it is circular in reasoning

C. it contradicts itself by pointing out that collective action has a different result than does an individual action

D. it cites the consequence of everyone performing an action rather than that of Sally’s action itself

E. it attacks Sally’s character in order to undermine her credibility


OFFICIAL EXPLANATION



Sally makes a claim that picking one flower will not cause any harm. Joe replies that her claim is not true and supports his response by citing the consequence of everyone picking a flower. By doing so, Joe attempts to shift the focus away from Sally's actual claim.

(A) Whether there are circumstances under which destroying the garden is justified is irrelevant to Sally’s claim that picking one flower is not harmful and Joe’s argument refuting that claim.

(B) A circular argument assumes that which it is trying to prove. The following is a circular argument: "Only an untrustworthy person would run for office. The fact that politicians are untrustworthy is proof of this." Joe’s argument is not circular: Joe does not rely on the assumption that Sally’s statement is not true in order to argue that Sally’s statement is not true.

(C) While Joe does point out that the consequence of the collective action is different from that of Sally’s individual action, his argument is questionable because in doing so he attempts to shift the focus away from Sally’s actual claim, not because he contradicts himself. There is no contradiction here.

(D) CORRECT. Joe attempts to refute Sally’s claim by asserting that the collective action of “everyone” would destroy the garden. This argument is questionable because Sally merely made a claim about the consequence of picking just one flower, not about the consequences of everyone doing so. By using the consequences of everyone picking a flower to refute Sally's claim on the consequences on picking just one flower, Joe implies that Sally's picking of the one flower will necessarily lead to everyone picking a flower (hence, leading to the destruction of the garden). Not only is this assumption not necessarily true, but it is also not supported by anything Joe says in his response: he merely states a premise based on a hypothetical ("If everyone thought that way and picked a flower...."). This questionable argumentive technique of shifting the focus from the consequence of a single action to the consequence of a much larger collective action without proving a cause-and-effect link between the single and collective actions is known as the "fallacy of the slippery slope assumption."

(E) Joe says nothing that attacks Sally’s character.
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