PrepTest 94+, Section 2, Question 15
People would not follow a leader if they felt that there was nothing they could gain by following that leader. Therefore, even those leaders who are incompetent or evil bring some good to their followers.
People would not follow a leader if they felt that there was nothing they could gain by following that leader. Therefore, even those leaders who are incompetent or evil bring some good to their followers.
People would not follow a leader if they felt that there was nothing they could gain by following that leader. Therefore, even those leaders who are incompetent or evil bring some good to their followers.
People would not follow a leader if they felt that there was nothing they could gain by following that leader. Therefore, even those leaders who are incompetent or evil bring some good to their followers.
Which one of the following is most similar in its flawed reasoning to the flawed reasoning in the argument above?
Because people expound upon only theories they believe are true, any theory that is expounded upon by someone contains at least a grain of truth.
Because there is some good to be found in even the worst circumstances, the world's most vicious people must have brought about at least some good.
To be a worthy leader, one must bring some good to people. Therefore, those who bring about some good make worthy leaders.
Because people can never completely separate what is true from what they wish to be true, no theory is ever completely true.
Even leaders of scientific revolutions are influenced by the false theories of their predecessors. Therefore, the influence of earlier false theories never completely disappears.
Explanations
The original argument goes like this: If people felt there was nothing to gain, people would not follow a leader. Therefore, even incompetent and / or evil leaders bring their followers some amount of actual good.
The flaw here is that people might believe they're getting some kind of good from a bad leader, when they don't actually get that good.
The question asks us to find a parallel flaw. It should be fairly easy to spot. I just need an argument that says something like "If folks thought they'd get a benefit, they'd take certain action. Therefore, even when taking that action is potentially harmful, they still get some benefit from it." In other words, I need the argument to take us from "feels like they'll get it" to " they'll get it."
Let's look at some answer choices:
Yeah, this does it. Rephrased, this says "If people expound on a theory, then they believe the theory is true. Therefore, any theory that's expounded upon contains at least some truth." This takes us from belief in the truth of a theory to the theory actually having some amount of truth to it. Spot on parallel flaw.
Nah. This is flawed, but it's not the same flaw. This misassociated "worst circumstances" with "most vicious people." That's a problem, of course. But it's not the same problem in our original argument.
Nope. This is also flawed, but it's a different flaw as well. This answer choice confuses sufficient for necessary. Had our original argument done this, it would have stuck out like a sore thumb.
No. This is also flawed in a different way. Just because folks can't separate what they wish was true from what is true doesn't mean all theories aren't ever totally true.
Nah. This is flawed too. But again, it's a different flaw. Just because leaders of scientific revolutions are influenced by the inaccurate theories of their forebears doesn't mean the influence of those theories doesn't eventually go away.
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