June 2007 PrepTest, Section 3, Question 24
By Brandon Beaver | Published October 29, 2024
Type: Principle
Difficulty:
Explanations
Basically, the sociologist is describing a chicken and the egg problem. Which came first? Institutions raising people to be evil or evil people creating these types of institutions?
The sociologist thinks it must be evil people creating the evil institutions. However, what if the institutions aren’t evil and aren’t made of evil people, but simply ostracize some people and cause them to become evil as a result? The correct answer should foreclose that objection.
A
No, it isn’t about “which one is worse?” It’s more so, “which one came first?”
B
Sure, but how does this relate to evilness?
C
Optimism is not the subject.
D
This doesn’t tell me anything about the institutions, though.
E
Yeah, exactly the point the sociologist is trying to make. The whole (the institutions) don’t dictate the qualities of its parts (the individuals allegedly “made evil”). If this is true, then the sociologist seems correct: People born evil/imperfect cause the institutions to become evil/imperfect, not the other way around.
Passage
Sociologist: Romantics who claim that people are not born ev
Question 24
Which one of the following principles, if valid, would most