Q7 - Principle: People should not feed wild animals because

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Explain/Resolve (we could call this three different question types, because it doesn't neatly fit anywhere, but the mental task will be most like that of Explain/Resolve, because we're meant to defend a surprising idea "an exception to the principle")

Stimulus Breakdown:
You shouldn't feel wild animals becaue the animal can become dependent on humans and less likely to survive on its own. However, bird lovers feed wild birds.

Answer Anticipation:
GIVEN THAT feeding wild animals can lead to them being dependent on humans and less likely t survive on their own, HOW CAN IT BE THAT it's okay for bird lovers to feed wild birds in an attempt to get the birds to visit their yards and gardens?

I don't usually spend much time trying to predict answers to Paradox questions, because the answer is often surprising. But I was thinking we'd justify the exception by saying that there is some GOOD aspect of feeding wild birds that OUTWEIGHS the negative aspect of making them more dependent on humans and less likely to survive on their own.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Opposite. This is a BAD part about feeding wild birds.

(B) Maybe. It points out a GOOD thing that comes from feeding wild birds. It's a very weakly worded answer, though, since it's only "some".

(C) This is neither good nor bad. It's kinda just obvious and has no clear impact.

(D) Maybe. It points out that the people who feed wild birds may be doing a BAD thing, but they may also do a GOOD thing that offsets/outweighs that? This is a little bit weird though. We'd be justifying the potentially bad behavior of feeding wild birds by saying that some other behavior is good? Let's say it's bad to give a homeless person cash, because they'll spend it on low nutrition food/drink/drugs. Can we justify giving a homeless person cash based on the idea that we ALSO support organizations that try help homeless people have access to public gardens? Not really. You would just say, "Keep doing that 2nd action, which is helpful. Stop doing that 1st action, which is potentially damaging." We haven't justified the 1st action. We've just made ourselves feel better about the person doing the action.

(E) YES. Instead of saying "feeding wild birds has an exceptional POSITIVE that outweighs the typical NEGATIVE", this answer justifies feeding wild birds by initially letting us know that the typical negative associated with feeding wild animals does not apply to wild birds. With wild birds, there's no reason to worry that feeding them will make them less likely to survive on their own. It turns out that most wild birds cannot survive on their own; they depend on human sources of food to survive. If we stopped feeding the wild birds, it wouldn't lead to the birds becoming less dependent. The birds would just die from lack of sufficient food. So this justifies the exception. We're feeding wild birds because the typical negative doesn't apply to them, and since feeding them will help them survive, we have a positive without a negative.

Takeaway/Pattern: This was a very weird task / question stem, but if we're trying to justify feeding wild birds, we could have at least gone to the answers asking ourselves, "Which of these will make me feel better about feeding wild birds?" (A) is the opposite. (C) is neutral. (B) is weakly positive. (D) seems positive, but it's really irrelevant, because we're not justifying the feeding of wild birds, we're just saying something positive about a DIFFERENT behavior of people who do feed wild birds. (E) is a strong, positive reason for feeding wild birds.

#officialexplanation