The desire for praise is the desire to obtain, as a sign tha

Question

The desire for praise is the desire to obtain, as a sign that one is good, the favorable opinions of others. But because people merit praise only for those actions motivated by a desire to help others, it follows that one who aids others primarily out of a desire for praise does not deserve praise for that aid.

Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the conclusion of the argument to be properly drawn?
(A) An action that is motivated by a desire for the favorable opinion of others cannot also be motivated by a desire to help others.
(B) No action is worthy of praise if it is motivated solely by a desire for praise.
(C) People who are indifferent to the welfare of others do not deserve praise.
(D) One deserves praise for advancing one's own interests only if one also advances the interests ofothers.
(E) It is the motives rather than the consequences of one's actions that determine whether one deserves praise for them.

gauravkaushik8591 · Accepted Answer

The desire for praise is the desire to obtain, as a sign that one is good, the favorable opinions of others. But because people merit praise only for those actions motivated by a desire to help others, it follows that one who aids others primarily out of a desire for praise does not deserve praise for that aid.

Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the conclusion of the argument to be properly drawn?

(A) An action that is motivated by a desire for the favorable opinion of others cannot also be motivated by a desire to help others.

(E) It is the motives rather than the consequences of one's actions that determine whether one deserves praise for them.

Premise: Desire for praise is the desire to obtain favourable opinion of others
Premise: People merit praise ONLY for those actions motivated by a desire to help others.
Conclusion: One who aids others primarily out of a  desire for praise  DOES NOT deserve praise for that aid.

Can you see the logical gap here?

What if a person had desire for praise AND desire to help others?

The conclusion can only be true if A holds true.

E says that it is the motives rather than the consequences. TRUE. But then with E as an assumption you can still find a logical fallacy that 'What if a person had desire for praise AND desire to help others'

Whereas with A being true. I cannot think of a logical fallacy.

Now let us say that it is the consequences rather than motives that determines bla bla bla.... (this is what you must have thought while picking E)

This destroys both the premises and the conclusion.

Whereas what we are asked here is to identify 'Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the conclusion of the argument to be properly drawn?'. That means premise being true, is conclusion true as well?

Negating the options must hurt the argument i.e. it must hurt the logical link between premise --> conlusion, and not both the premise and the conclusion.

Shalabh09 · Answer

Hi,

Could someone please explain the flaw in the option E?

Thank you.

himanshujovi · Answer

I also marked E . Dont see any flaw in that.

janxavier · Answer

Can someone plz tell me why not E?

Shalabh09 · Answer

Hi gauravkaushik8591,

Thank you for your explanation. This might seem a little far-fetched, but I guess I understand it now.

Putting it simply, the conclusion states that one who helps others because of selfish reasons(i.e. to be praised) doesn't deserve any praising at all. The option A reaffirms it by adding the fact that a selfish action CANNOT also be motivated by the desire to help. So, it stays selfish and shouldn't get any praising.

Is this understanding correct?
Hope this helps others as well.

Thanks again.

dina98 · Answer

Very confused.

The conclusion is: But because people merit praise only for those actions motivated by a desire to help others, it follows that one who aids others primarily out of a desire for praise does not deserve praise for that aid.

Does not this mean that as long as the primary reason is to help others, the action may qualify for praise. In that case, there is a possibility for cases where the action is motivated by desire for praise and to help. (As long as desire for praise does not weigh in more, the action deserves praise?)

An action that is motivated by a desire for the favorable opinion of others can(not) also be motivated by a desire to help others.

Am I overthinking it?

AryamaDuttaSaikia · Answer

No you are thinking in the right direction. It is stated in the argument that praise can be expected only if the desire was to aid others but if the motive for helping others was to be praised then the individual is not worthy of praise. Hence the author assumes that the desire to gain favorable opinion cannot be ruled by the desire to aid others.

unraveled · Answer

The desire for praise is the desire to obtain, as a sign that one is good, the favorable opinions of others. But because people merit praise only for those actions motivated by a desire to help others, it follows that one who aids others primarily out of a desire for praise does not deserve praise for that aid.

Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the conclusion of the argument to be properly drawn?
(A) An action that is motivated by a desire for the favorable opinion of others  cannot also  be motivated by a desire to help others.
(B)  No  action is worthy of praise if it is motivated  solely  by a desire for praise.
(C) People who are  indifferent  to the welfare of others  do not deserve  praise.
(D) One deserves praise for advancing one's own interests  only if  one also advances the interests of others. - WRONG. For moulding the crux of the passage into something else. Can't be an assumption, not even an inference.
(E) It is the  motives  rather than the  consequences of one's actions  that determine whether one deserves praise for them.

A bit philosophical argument which are normally tough to handle.
Let's say A desires praise of B i.e. favourable opinion of B. But B evaluates actions of A that it must out of helping others for him/her to praise. This can be and must be seen as happen as other way around i.e. when it comes to B the logic remains same that when B desires praise of A it is favourable opinions.
Now, the desire for praise by helping others should not be praised for that aid.

Clearly, there are two different things
1. That in one case an individual may SEEK praise for which he/she aid others
2. In another an individual is GIVEN A PRAISE for helping others i.e. he/she didn't do so in order to get praised.

So, we need to find whether above two are/not mutually exclusive.

Only A helps us find that.

Answer A.

ashutosh_73 · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja   KarishmaB   AjiteshArun   MartyMurray 
During timed practice, it was overwhelming to digest the abstract words mentioned in this question. Hence, i typed my thought process here to know whether my reasoning was okay.

Core to conclusion:

people merit praise only for those actions motivated by a desire to help others --> who aids others primarily out of a desire for praise does not deserve praise for that aid.

Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the conclusion of the argument to be properly drawn?

(A) An action that is motivated by a desire for the favorable opinion of others cannot also be motivated by a desire to help others.
This one wrecks the conclusion by stating that ' 'desire to help other'' and ''desire for praise'' are NOT mutually exclusive

(B) No action is worthy of praise if it is motivated solely by a desire for praise.
I think, it is the  simple restatement for the conclusion . If something is ''SOLELY'', then it is ''PRIMARILY'', right?

(C) People who are indifferent to the welfare of others do not deserve praise.
Okay, so what if i am ''indifferent to the welfare of others'' yet i help my girlfriend with the ''desire to help her''?
Conclusion holds.

(D) One deserves praise for advancing one's own interests only if one also advances the interests of others.
stimulus talks about ' 'deserve praise' ' for ' 'desire to help'' , this option talks about '' interests'' .
I think, completely irrelevant to the discussion

(E) It is the motives rather than the consequences of one's actions that determine whether one deserves praise for them.
Negation of the option will be:
Its not the case that ''motives rather than the consequences of one's actions that determine whether one deserves praise for them.

So, maybe both  ''Motive and ''Consequences''  determine the  ''deserve to praise'' , but conclusion, which is about not deserving the praise, is still intact.

Elite097 · Answer

KarishmaB  here the passage uses 'primarily' thus implying that both possibilities are possible- desire to get praise and desire to help other- in the conclusion so i am not clear how can we assume A

8Harshitsharma · Answer

Agree, I also ruled out choice A because of this.

Also, importantly the question stem states - which of the following "if assumed" would justify the conclusion. So that means the option choices need not be Must Be True, but rather we need to assume them to be true and see if the conclusion can be drawn properly.

Moreover, Choice E, if assumed to be true, does help explain the differentiation mentioned in the passage.

VerbalBot · Answer

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The desire for praise is the desire to obtain, as a sign tha

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