LR Question 12 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Humans’ emotional tendencies are essentially unchanged…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: We can’t choose more wisely than in the past.
REASONING: Our emotional tendencies haven’t changed.
ANALYSIS: On necessary assumption questions, the conclusion often has no link to the argument. On those questions, you have to assume that the conclusion depends on the reasoning. So in this case, the assumption is: “wise choices depend on emotional tendencies” or something like that.
I simplified the argument by taking out out the part about technology. Technology is just a new factor that fails to change anything. The main point is that new factors won’t change us because we haven’t changed our emotional tendencies.
___________
- This isn’t necessary. It’s only necessary that we haven’t undergone any changes that would affect our capacity to choose wisely.
- Careful. The question talked about “emotional tendencies”. It didn’t talk about “being in control of your emotions”. You’re making an assumption based on outside knowledge that our emotional tendencies lead to us not being in control of emotions, and that this is bad.
Maybe it’s actually the case that our tendencies lead us to be extremely in control of our emotions, but this actually prevents fully wise choices. I don’t know. In any case, this answer isn’t necessary. The argument never mentioned control of emotions. - Lessons of history? That was never in the argument. This can’t be necessary.
- Not necessary. You can negate this in such a way that it’s still almost true and has no impact.
Negation: One person, once, 1,000 years ago, made a single choice mostly based on emotions but that also included a non-emotional factor. Everyone else has chosen using emotions alone. - CORRECT. When you negate this, the argument’s reasoning falls apart.
Negation: Humans could make wiser choices even if emotional tendencies haven’t changed.
For me, the combination of “generally” in the stimulus and “only if” in E was confusing.
By saying “generally humans are unable to choose more wisely” doesn’t the stimulus allow that sometimes humans *do* choose more wisely? I.e. that some humans choose more wisely?
So if there are some exceptions (some humans choosing more wisely now than in the past), then those humans are making wiser choices *despite* emotional tendencies being essentially unchanged, which would be the negation of E.
I’m sure I’ve gotten something mixed up, but I’m not sure where.
Good point. The word “generally” does allow for exceptions, so you’re right that the conclusion doesn’t claim all humans fail to choose more wisely. But when it comes to NA questions, the test is: does the conclusion still hold if we negate the answer choice?
As Graeme wrote, the negation of E is: Humans could make wiser choices even if emotional tendencies haven’t changed.
If we accept the negation, the core reasoning of the argument does actually fall apart. If people could choose more wisely without a change in emotional disposition, then the unchanged emotions can’t explain the general inability. That directly undermines the logic. Even if “generally” allows for exceptions, if the negation of E is telling us that humans CAN make wiser choices without changing emotions, then there wouldn’t be even a “general” trend to suggest the opposite.
So the assumption in E is still necessary to support the claim that emotional stagnation is what prevents most people from choosing more wisely. Even probabilistic conclusions rely on assumptions that explain the trend, not just eliminate all exceptions.
So, you actually didn’t get anything mixed up (that I can see from your comment, at least). It’s just that the negation doesn’t have to disprove a universal fact, it still breaks the general explanatory link the conclusion relies on. Hope that helps!
Thank you very much for your great explanations!!
I eliminated E because “fundamental change” seemed way too absolute for a necessary assumption question. Why is this not the case? How can I avoid this kind of mistake in the future?
Good question. The answer is it is not too absolute if the stimulus uses the same language. The stimulus says “essentially unchanged” and E says “only if an essential change”, so the concepts match exactly.
The gap on this question is between on change in emotions, and no change in our ability to make wise decisions. The author has to assume those are linked.
A quick comment on how to eliminate (D) from a more logical perspective (since it was relatively tempting to me and I found it hard to imagine counterexamples):
It could still be the case that other factors play a role in decision-making, but they remained unchanged from those of the earliest members of our species AS WELL. Therefore, emotional tendencies + everything else remains unchanged, and so does our capacity to choose more wisely.
That’s a great negation! Changing the original, but making the negation as non-useful as possible. Nice work.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.