PrepTest 93+, Section 3, Question 21
Orator: Moral excellence can be achieved only by repeatedly overcoming inclinations to do the wrong thing. Overcoming these inclinations is often difficult to do, even for a morally virtuous person, but the only way to become a morally virtuous person is through the achievement of moral excellence.
Orator: Moral excellence can be achieved only by repeatedly overcoming inclinations to do the wrong thing. Overcoming these inclinations is often difficult to do, even for a morally virtuous person, but the only way to become a morally virtuous person is through the achievement of moral excellence.
Orator: Moral excellence can be achieved only by repeatedly overcoming inclinations to do the wrong thing. Overcoming these inclinations is often difficult to do, even for a morally virtuous person, but the only way to become a morally virtuous person is through the achievement of moral excellence.
Orator: Moral excellence can be achieved only by repeatedly overcoming inclinations to do the wrong thing. Overcoming these inclinations is often difficult to do, even for a morally virtuous person, but the only way to become a morally virtuous person is through the achievement of moral excellence.
Which one of the following is a conclusion that follows logically from the orator's statements?
A morally virtuous person is incapable of doing the wrong thing.
Most people who achieve moral excellence are morally virtuous.
Someone who has no inclination to do anything that is wrong has achieved moral excellence.
Someone who is not morally virtuous is incapable of achieving moral excellence.
Every morally virtuous person has been inclined to do something that is wrong.
Explanations
The orator's laid out some facts for us, but hasn't concluded anything yet. They say moral excellence requires repeatedly overcoming inclinations to do wrong. Note the implicit conditional statement in there: If you're morally excellent, then you repeatedly overcome inclinations to do the wrong thing. Cool—moving on.
They continue by telling us that overcoming inclinations to do wrong—i.e., meeting the necessary condition of the previous sentence—is often difficult, even for someone morally virtuous. "Often difficult," tells me this is more difficult than not. So, even for the morally virtuous, it's more difficult than not to overcome inclinations to do wrong. I'm following—let's keep going.
They finish by saying, "the only way to become morally virtuous is through the achievement of moral excellence." This brings us full circle.
That is, if being morally virtuous requires achieving moral excellence, then it also requires overcoming inclinations to do the wrong thing. This tells me that anybody who's morally virtuous must have achieved moral excellence, which also means they've overcome at least one inclination to do wrong.
The question asks us which answer choice is a conclusion that follows logically. My prediction here is "if you're morally virtuous, then you've dealt with the inclination to do the wrong thing."
No chance. This isn't supported in any way by the orator's statements.
Nope. Moral excellence is necessary to achieve moral virtue, but that doesn't mean that being morally excellent makes you morally virtuous. We don't know if any person who is morally excellent is also morally virtuous, much less "most" of them.
Nah, this isn't supported by the orator's first claim. We only know that if you're morally excellent, you've fought the inclination to do wrong, not that you've overcome it entirely.
No, similar to B, moral excellence is necessary for moral virtue. That means you can absolutely be morally excellent without achieving moral virtue—you'll simply have met the requirement for being morally virtuous.
Bingo. This is just a rephrasing of my prediction: If you're morally virtuous (meaning this applies to all / every member of this group), then you've been inclined to do something that is wrong.
0 Comments