LR Question 21 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Ethicist: On average, animals raised on grain must be fed…
QUESTION TYPE: Weaken
CONCLUSION: Meat eating will soon be morally unacceptable.
REASONING: We could feed animals grain, or feed humans grain. We can feed more people by feeding the grain directly to people. Meanwhile, every year there are more people and less farmland.
ANALYSIS: This sounds like an airtight argument. But the author makes the assumption that animals need to eat grain. Historically, many grain eating animals were raised on grass. So that may be one alternative.
___________
- It doesn’t matter what people prefer. Some people might prefer to steal for a living rather than work, but stealing is still morally wrong.
- CORRECT. This means that at least some meat expands the food supply. You can raise some cows and sheep for meat without taking away from grain. So, those cows/sheep expand the food supply.
(Of course, in this case it might still be morally unacceptable to eat grain-fed animals. But that wasn’t the conclusion.) - This strengthens the argument! It means that the lower nutrition of grain isn’t a problem.
- The argument didn’t say why large areas of farmland are going out of production. Maybe only 10% of the annual loss is due to suburbs, and the rest is due to soil erosion. In such a case, urban living wouldn’t do much to address the problem. Also, the fact that people could stop the suburbs doesn’t mean that they will. People might prefer to make meat immoral instead.
- The author wasn’t saying that we should eat only grains. A no-meat diet can include grains, vegetables, legumes, soy, etc.
More Resources for Weaken Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Weaken questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers weaken questions.
you mean unacceptable to eat grass fed right?
I see what you mean, but it’s actually the other way around. The ethicist’s argument targets grain-fed animals, and concludes on that basis that consuming meat will become morally unacceptable. Answer B weakens that by showing that some meat comes from grass-fed animals raised on land unsuitable for crops, meaning that some meat doesn’t compete with the human grain supply and could even expand the overall food supply.
What Graeme meant in the parentheses is that yes, grain-fed animals could still be considered morally unacceptable, since they reduce the grain available for humans. But because the ethicist’s conclusion is that ALL meat consumption is morally unacceptable, the existence of grass-fed animals undermines that broad conclusion – even if grain-fed meat remains problematic.
Hope that clarifies! Let me know if you have further questions.