PrepTest 20, Section 2, Question 22
To hold criminals responsible for their crimes involves a failure to recognize that criminal actions, like all actions, are ultimately products of the environment that forged the agent's character. It is not criminals but people in the law-abiding majority who by their actions do most to create and maintain this environment. Therefore, it is law-abiding people whose actions, and nothing else, make them alone truly responsible for crime.
To hold criminals responsible for their crimes involves a failure to recognize that criminal actions, like all actions, are ultimately products of the environment that forged the agent's character. It is not criminals but people in the law-abiding majority who by their actions do most to create and maintain this environment. Therefore, it is law-abiding people whose actions, and nothing else, make them alone truly responsible for crime.
To hold criminals responsible for their crimes involves a failure to recognize that criminal actions, like all actions, are ultimately products of the environment that forged the agent's character. It is not criminals but people in the law-abiding majority who by their actions do most to create and maintain this environment. Therefore, it is law-abiding people whose actions, and nothing else, make them alone truly responsible for crime.
To hold criminals responsible for their crimes involves a failure to recognize that criminal actions, like all actions, are ultimately products of the environment that forged the agent's character. It is not criminals but people in the law-abiding majority who by their actions do most to create and maintain this environment. Therefore, it is law-abiding people whose actions, and nothing else, make them alone truly responsible for crime.
The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that
it exploits an ambiguity in the term "environment" by treating two different meanings of the word as though they were equivalent
it fails to distinguish between actions that are socially acceptable and actions that are socially unacceptable
the way it distinguishes criminals from crimes implicitly denies that someone becomes a criminal solely in virtue of having committed a crime
its conclusion is a generalization of statistical evidence drawn from only a small minority of the population
its conclusion contradicts an implicit principle on which an earlier part of the argument is based
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