LR Question 25 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Political philosopher: A just system of taxation would…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Each person should be taxed solely in proportion to their income.
REASONING: Each person’s contribution should be based on how well society serves that individual’s interests. Wealth is the most objective way to determine how well society serves someone.
ANALYSIS: This argument switches terms. Wealth is how much money and capital you have. Income is how much money you’re earning.
You’d be fine with having an income of zero if you have two billion dollars in the bank. So if wealth is the most objective measure, taxing income will miss the mark. We should tax people directly on wealth. The right answer must make a similar concept shift.
___________
- CORRECT. Speed is how fast a car can go. Acceleration is how quickly a car can speed up. Those are different. A car could accelerate very quickly but have a low top speed. This is the same concept shift error from the stimulus. It matches the difference between an absolute amount of something (wealth/speed) and how quickly you gain it (income/acceleration). (See more on absolute vs. relative)
- We should be granted autonomy in proportion to maturity. Giving “complete” autonomy to those at a high school level is too much – “high school student” definitely isn’t the highest level of maturity. This answer doesn’t match the concept shift from the stimulus.
- This has similar language to the stimulus but it doesn’t make the same mistake. The mistake here is assuming that corporations get more subsidies just because they get some subsidies. The argument didn’t say what subsidies citizens get.
- This doesn’t make the error from the stimulus, but it is a bad argument. We should be taxing incomes themselves, not the activities. Taxing the activities will probably reduce them.
- This is a bad argument, but it doesn’t make the total amount/speed of gain concept shift from the stimulus. The reason this argument is bad is that there could be people outside hospitals with more serious health needs.
More Resources for Flawed Parallel Reasoning Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Flaw drills: Practice identifying flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flawed Parallel Reasoning questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flawed parallel reasoning questions.
Hey Graeme,
So I answered this question a bit different than you did and wanted to know if my thinking process was correct. Since this is a flaw question I focused on the structure and key words.
I kind of eliminated all of the answers just based on the conclusion, In my head I was thinking theyr’e saying “should be taxed solely in proportion” which I took as to their control and A’s conclusion was “proportion to their ability to accelerate”
of course I looked at other key words and stuff to eliminate other answers but this is what helped me choose A between my last two options
I also liked A because of the beginning sentence it seemed to match the stim.
Is my thinking process completely wrong and I just got lucky? or am I on the right track
Hi Mohammed, good question! Your process wasn’t entirely off, but it does seem like you got the correct answer more by intuition that directly identifying the flaw.
You correctly picked up on the phrasing of the conclusions and how they both contain “solely in proportion”, which reflects the restrictive reasoning in the stimulus. Matching conclusions in terms of structure and language can sometimes help, but it is not a foolproof tool to use. For instance, conclusions don’t always reflect the underlying flaw, and correct answers can still be correct even if their language doesn’t match and vice versa (incorrect answers can match language but still be incorrect).
The key to locking in Answer A is identifying the flaw, which in this case is the concept shift in the stimulus. The argument shifts from wealth to income, and A mirrors this reasoning by shifting from speed to acceleration. On Flawed Parallel Reasoning questions, I’d recommend honing in on the reasoning and the flaw itself. In essence, how the premises lead (or fail to lead) to the conclusion. That’s the most reliable way to approach these questions.
Your instincts seem to have been solid, but with a slight shift towards focusing on the reasoning rather than just structure and keywords, you’ll strengthen your process even more.
I think you are missing the word “say” in the last sentence here:
This has similar language to the stimulus but it doesn’t make the same mistake. The mistake here is assuming that corporations get more subsidies just because they get some subsidies. The argument didn’t (SAY) what subsidies citizens get.
Yes, that’s correct! Thanks for catching this, and the page has been updated.
Hey Graeme,
Could we also look at this in terms of a “whole/part” flaw? That imagining “wealth” as the overall measure leads to erroneously measuring an individual’s income? Just like in the correct answer, seeing that “speed” is the overall danger means testing an individual car’s acceleration?
No, I think that’s separate. Whole/part is something like: This car can accelerate quickly, so every individual part of it can accelerate quickly.
Ok- thanks. I guess I have been having trouble pinpointing the right way to ‘abstract’ the question stimuli. I feel very close to a breakthrough but I make the wrong assumptions sometimes.