Sarah: some schools seek to foster a habit of volunteering in their st

Sarah: some schools seek to foster a habit of volunteering in their students by requiring them to perform community service. But since a person who has been forced to do something has not really volunteered and since the habit of volunteering cannot be said to have been fostered in a person who has not yet volunteered for anything, there is no way this policy can succeed by itself.

Paul: I disagree. Some students forced to perform community service have enjoyed it so much that they subsequently actually volunteer to do something similar. In such cases, the policy can clearly be said to have fostered a habit of volunteering.

Stimulus: Sarah states that some school in order to foster the habit of volunteering in their students tries to include it into the curriculum. In such situations the school is forcing students to volunteering and so this cannot be called as volunteering.

Paul states that it is incorrect because the students who are forced later enjoy community services and volunteer.

IMO C. Paul brings in the information that makes sarahs assumption incorrect

Paul responds to Sarah’s argument using which one of the following argumentative techniques?


(A) He argues that Sarah is assuming just what she sets out to prove.

(B) He argues that Sarah’s conception of what it means to volunteer excludes certain activities that ought to be considered instances of volunteering.

(C) He introduces considerations that call into question one of Sarah’s assumptions.

(D) He questions Sarah’s motives for advancing an argument against the school policy.

(E) He argues that a policy Sarah fails to consider could accomplish the same aim as the policy that Sarah considers.

Hi TarPhi, not sure whether you still have the same doubt or not, but like you, I was also confused between C and E but then re-read the argument and then option E. The point of disagreement between both parties is whether inculcating voluntary activities is a true form of voluntarism. Sarah concludes her argument by saying that given it is a forced form of activity it is not of true nature, but then the second speaker brings in consideration that what if one forced activity leads one to do other activities that they themselves initiated. Now read E, there is no policy that Sarah fails to consider it's just she didn't consider all the consequences. So C is the correct choice

­Sarah’s argument: The policy of fostering a habit of volunteering in students by requiring them to perform community service cannot succeed by itself.
Students do not volunteer; they are forced to perform community service.
Since they do not volunteer, we cannot say that we have fostered a habit of volunteering.

Paul: Some students volunteer later because they enjoyed the school’s mandatory community service.
In those cases, we can say that the policy did foster volunteering.

Sarah and Paul have opposing positions.
Sarah believes that the policy does not foster volunteering by itself. Paul believes that in some cases, the policy does foster volunteering.

How is Paul’s premise (Some students volunteer later because they enjoyed the school’s mandatory community service) related to Sarah’s premises?

Did it question the validity of one of Sarah’s premises?
Did it question Sarah’s motives for bringing up this argument (say, she wants to embarrass the school because of a perceived slight)?
No.

Paul introduces a new premise (some students enjoy the community service and volunteer later). So, the ‘method of disagreement’ here is "One can provide additional data that weakens the conclusion."

Let’s look at the options now.

(A) He argues that Sarah is assuming just what she sets out to prove.

“Assuming just what one sets out to prove”, as we will discuss in section II, is called circular reasoning. He does not argue that Sarah used circular reasoning. Mind you, it doesn’t matter whether Sarah actually used circular reasoning or not (we know that she did not). What we have to find out is whether Paul claimed this.

(B) He argues that Sarah’s conception of what it means to volunteer excludes certain activities that ought to be considered instances of volunteering.

This is not correct. He does not argue that Sarah’s definition of volunteering is not correct.

(C) He introduces considerations that call into question one of Sarah’s assumptions.

Correct. He introduces a premise/consideration (some students enjoy the community service and volunteer later). This premise calls into question one of Sarah’s assumptions (that students who undergo mandatory community service do not volunteer). Sarah, to arrive at ‘the policy does not foster volunteering’ assumes that students do not volunteer later of their own accord. This premise tells us that they do volunteer later sometimes.

(D) He questions Sarah’s motives for advancing an argument against the school policy.

Paul does not question Sarah’s motives. There is no talk of motives against the school etc.

(E) He argues that a policy Sarah fails to consider could accomplish the same aim as the policy that Sarah considers.

Paul does not introduce any other policy that Sarah failed to consider. The only policy being discussed is that of mandatory community service and its impact on fostering volunteering.

Answer (C) ­

Method Questions are discussed here:
https://youtu.be/uA5aXAZI1Z8