Q2 - Campaign manager: In campaign speeches, our candidate

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Principle-Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: It's understandable why the candidate hasn't wanted to reveal all the unpleasant consequences of his policies.
Evidence: You can't get elected by being fully candid, and it's important that the candidate get elected so that he can implement a positive political agenda.

Answer Anticipation:
The author is concluding that "it's okay to hide some of the unpleasant consequences of his policies" because "if he gets elected he'd have a chance to implement a positive agenda and he wouldn't get elected if he were fully candid".

So this is some sort of "the ends justify the means" type consideration. "If you're going to ultimately help people should you get elected, then it's okay to withhold the full truth from them in order to get elected". It might sound like "if a certain behavior [being fully candid] would prevent you from getting a chance to implement positive change, then it's justified to avoid that behavior". Or it could sound like "you should do what you need to do to get elected, if you're trying to implement a positive change"

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This seems okay. The ends justify the means. Withholding the full unpleasant details of his policies is an ethically questionable act, but if doing so allows him to get elected and implement very positive changes than maybe it's worth it.

(B) This is the opposite. This would justify the behavior of a politician who is going to tell the truth no matter what, even if it costs her the election.

(C) This is the opposite. The campaign manager is arguing that the candidate's behavior is JUSTIFIED, not illegitimate.

(D) "Trust" is too out of scope to match up. And the conclusion isn't about whether or not it will be possible to accomplish the politician's agenda; it's about whether or not the "not fully revealing" behavior is justified.

(E) This argument is about a candidate and whether his behavior is justified. This answer choice is about voters.

Takeaway/Pattern: The correct answer is surprisingly weak for this question type ("can sometimes be"), but the conclusion itself is also that weak "can be justified". The Conclusion Shortcut works pretty well here. On most Principle questions, thinking about the keywords of the conclusion helps you eliminate a lot of answers that are off topic. Here, we were concerned with supporting a conclusion that was saying "not being fully revealing of unpleasant consequences can be justified".

Only (A) and (B) seem to give principles that would help us to judge a candidate's actions as "justified". (C) helps us judge someone's actions as "illegitimate". (D) helps us judge whether something is possible. And (E) is about voters.

#officialexplanation