Teacher to student: You agree that it is bad to break promises. But wh

Question

Teacher to student: You agree that it is bad to break promises. But when we speak to each other we all make an implicit promise to tell the truth, and lying is the breaking of that promise. So even if you promised Jeannie that you would tell me she is home sick, you should not tell me that, if you know that she is well.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the teacher's argument depends?

A. Most people always tell the truth
B. It is sometimes better to act in a friend's best interest than to keep a promise to that friend
C. Breaking a promise leads to worse consequences than does telling a lie 
D. Some implicit promises are worse to break than some explicit ones.
E. One should never break a promise

nverma · Answer

It took me some time..!!
wats the source ??
OA plz.

BlueRobin · Answer

Ans is D since
The teacher argument is that people make an implicit promise when they enter into a conversation and the teacher states "it is bad to break promises", saying that she means it is not right to break the implicit promise and when the teacher states " you should not tell me that " she means dont break the implicit promise even if u have to compromise the expilicit.

C,E are beyond the scope as consequences or the situations in which promises should be held are not being discussed.

Ok B has to be the answer because option E will act againist both the promises, but B means he has to tell the truth, thereby keeping the implicit promise and acting in tyhe friends best interest.

metallicafan · Answer

+1 D

If we assume that breaking the explicit promise or the implicit promise will have the same effect, the teacher cannot conclude that the student should break the promise to his friend.

vikram4689 · Answer

D is the only one that is related to argument.

EXPLICIT PROMISE: promised Jeannie that you would tell me she is home sick
IMPLICIT PROMISE: with the teacher

Conclusion - teacher should not be told FALSE statement because it is bad i.e. badness of breaking IMPLICIT PROMISE is more than badness of breaking an EXPLICIT PROMISE

mykrasovski · Answer

This is an interesting passage. I would appreciate if any of the experts could comment on my reasoning

Premise 1: Breaking promises is bad. 
Premise 2: Implicitly promise to tell the truth. Lying = breaking promises = bad. 
Conclusion (teacher's point): if Jeannie is well, tell the truth and you won't break a promise, because you will not lie.

A. Most people always tell the truth

- Is not relevant here what "most" people do. This statement does not really affect the conclusion of the argument.

B. It is sometimes better to act in a friend's best interest than to keep a promise to that friend

- This option assumes that telling the truth to the teacher (that J is not sick) is in her best interest, and the student should not keep a verbal promise. However, there is no evidence that, even if J is indeed not sick, revealing the truth to the teach will be in the J's best interest. So, this option is a bit complicated. Let's keep it unless we find a better one.

C. Breaking a promise leads to worse consequences than does telling a lie

- Do we need to know about consequences? Probably not.

D. Some implicit promises are worse to break than some explicit ones.

- The explicit promise is the verbal promise of the student to say that J is at home sick. The implicit promise is that one promises to tell the truth (premise 2). So, according to the teacher, the student should break the implicit promise and tell the truth. Does not look much better than B...

E. One should never break a promise

- This is an "idealistic" real-world statement. Definitely not relevant to answer the question, but indeed important in Real World.

nightblade354  could you please help with this problem?

nightblade354 · Answer

B is wrong because we have no idea what is in the best interest of the friend. Maybe it was or maybe it wasn't to lie. But we cannot assume that because school = good that lying about them being sick is not in the person's best interest.

mykrasovski · Answer

nightblade354  okay, I think I finally understood why D is the correct answer choice. Also, your reasoning about why B is incorrect is simple and clear.

Thank you!

Rajdeep1989 · Answer

The student lied to the teacher and thats what breaking an implicit promise is. The teacher scolded the student for that only. 
Clearly D.

Shadyshades · Answer

Option (b) -It might be in a friend's interest to reveal the truth but it would break the promise to that friend. That's what the teacher doesn't want you to do. Don't break the promise. Hence, i will eliminate this option right away.

rahul5657 · Answer

(A) Most people always tell the truth
Irrelevant. This is about how people behave, not about the moral reasoning in this case.
 Incorrect

(B) It is sometimes better to act in a friend's best interest than to keep a promise to that friend
This would support lying to protect Jeannie.
It actually goes against the teacher’s conclusion.
 Incorrect

(C) Breaking a promise leads to worse consequences than does telling a lie
This supports not lying, but the teacher’s conclusion favors truth (and thus lying = worse).
This reverses the reasoning in the argument. 
 Incorrect

(D) Some implicit promises are worse to break than some explicit ones
YES.
The teacher argues that the implicit promise to tell the truth outweighs the explicit promise to Jeannie.
The entire argument depends on this ranking of promises. 
 Correct

(E) One should never break a promise
If this were assumed, then the student would be stuck between two promises (explicit and implicit) — it wouldn’t resolve the conflict, so it doesn’t support the teacher’s conclusion to favor one over the other.
 Incorrect

Teacher to student: You agree that it is bad to break promises. But wh

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Teacher to student: You agree that it is bad to break promises. But wh

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