Our criminal justice system should be revised to better acco

Our criminal justice system should be revised to better accord with a fair notion of individual responsibility. We should not be held responsible for events over which we exert no influence, and no one can control the forces of pure chance. Consider the following example: under our current system, if an individual carelessly discharges a pistol and injures another person, severe criminal penalties apply. However, if by some stroke of luck no one is injured, then the resulting criminal penalties are much less serious. A criminal with good fortune receive a lesser penalty.

The argument above assumes which of the following?
A) Individual responsibility is determined by the intent of the criminal.
B) A fair notion of individual responsibility does not include the result of someone's action.
C) Judges do not want to turn sentencing power over to juries.
D)Those who commit crimes are punished harshly even if they do not injure others.
E) Our prison system is currently overcrowded.

Let us break down this argument
The person x is arguing for something. He says that the criminal justice system isnt in sync with the fair notion of individual responsibility.
To support that conclusion, he draws a premise -- The punishment meant for a person's criminal act, for example shooting a person, is determined by the end result. However since the end result can be influenced by outside chance, individuals responsibility is dependent on the chance. ----> the criminal justice system isnt in sync with fair notion of responsibility.

The question is a tough one especially between choice A and B.

A)Individual responsibility is determined by the intent of the criminal. --- This is like what the person x is arguing. This is kind of what he is implying. But is this an assumption of the argument? What does this have to do with the link of premise to conclusion ..a persons crimina award is determined by the end result and therefore the system needs to be revised.
Let us use the negation technique. If we deny that responsibility is determined by intent then so if a person did not intent to shoot a person but did so accidently is not liable for punishment. This is a different path in which the author isnt going.

B) A fair notion of individual responsibility does not include the result of someone's action. If we apply the negation technique, then this reads as A fair notion includes the result of action. This results in the breakdown of the argument. Why? If the fair notion of responsibility includes the result, then author's premise to conclusion link breaks down. Hence choice B

Hey here is my reasoning:

The argument is we should adopt fair practice.
why? cuz current practice is unfair. consider the example:
shot fired, if someone is injured, then he has to be responsible
if no injury, then he has no responsibility.
THIS is UNFAIR, we can not decide he is guilty or not based on results of his action,
therefore in order to be FAIR, we have to assume fair notion is not based on someone's action

Please help me in my understanding .....
Conclusion here is the justice system should be changed to consider individual responsibility .

Example : Person fires a gun accidently it injures a person ---> strong punishment
Person fires a gun accidently it does not injure a person ---- > lighter punishment

Assumes the individual responsibility includes the result of the person action ....

Please help i am totally confused !!

Me neither.

Does it mean that "Individual responsibility is determined by the luck of the criminal"?

I don't even understand what option A and option B mean...

From what I understood the Individual responsibility(IR) is something which doesn't depend on
1.what happened (whether the man shot a table or another man)
2. but on what the man was intending to do ( whether the man was intending to injure a person or just discharging the Gun)
I chose A.

As riskietech explained, I guess I'm okay with the first part 1 but I can't really understand why part 2 is not true
Can anyone explain?

WHy A is incorrect
I narrowed down to A & b and then picked A as it tals about criminal intentions behind the action.

I don't agree with the OA. and here is my reasoning why I believe A should be the correct answer.

We are told that -> CJS should be revised so that to better ACCORD with a fair notion of individual responsibility. SO the opinion here is that we need to get the system take into consideration individual responsibility. We then are presented a case about non-injuries, and about the fact that criminals, who do not injure anyone, receive a lesser penalty.

We then must assume that the system should penalize the intent of the crime, and not just the actions.
A exactly says this. If we negate it, then what's the reason to BETTER ACCORD the CSJ with the notion of individual responsibility? This is nonsense. A looks better to me than B.

hello experts.

could you please help us with the above question.

The OA is correct.

Premise: The current system discriminates criminals who have conducted the similar irresponsible behavior, based on the outcome of the irresponsible act.

Conclusion: System should be revised.

Assumption:Outcome does not determine the level of irresponsibility of the criminal. (option B)

Negate B: Outcome determines the level of irresponsibility. Then the current system is alright and hence should not be revised. Negating option B breaks down the argument. Hence B is a valid assumption.

A is out of scope. The intent of the criminal is not the topic of the argument at all. The argument is about irresponsible behavior ( i,e. unintentional action), the result of such behavior and the punishment involved.

Thanks for the nice explanations. At first I could not solve this exersize, and only then I noticed that I had read one word incorrectly. Your comments helped me understand the error!)

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