Examkin

Question

Difficulty: MediumFlaw in the Reasoning

City Administrator: A municipality cannot effectively reduce its carbon footprint without completely overhauling its public transportation infrastructure. Last year, our city successfully secured funding and executed a total overhaul of our public transit system, deploying a fleet of electric buses and significantly expanding the light rail network. It follows that our city will soon see a dramatic reduction in its carbon footprint.

The administrator's argument is logically flawed because it concludes that an outcome is guaranteed merely because a precondition for that outcome has been met.

Answer: Answer

Answer

True
The statement is correct because it perfectly describes the logical fallacy of confusing a necessary condition with a sufficient condition. The author assumes that fulfilling the requirement for a goal (overhauling the transit system) is enough to guarantee the goal itself (reducing the carbon footprint), completely ignoring that other factors might also be required.

Step-by-Step Solution

1
Analyze the premises to determine the conditional relationships established.
The premise 'cannot reduce... without overhauling' translates to a formal rule: If a city reduces its carbon footprint, it must overhaul its public transit. Therefore, overhauling transit is a necessary condition.
Identifying the formal logic structures in the stimulus is essential for spotting reasoning flaws.
2
Analyze the conclusion to see how it utilizes the established conditions.
The conclusion states that because the city has overhauled its public transit (the necessary condition is fulfilled), it will successfully reduce its carbon footprint (the sufficient condition is triggered).
Comparing the conclusion to the premises reveals the exact logical leap or presumption the author makes.
3
Evaluate the provided descriptive statement against the identified logical leap.
The statement claims the argument concludes an outcome is guaranteed merely because a precondition has been met. This precisely describes the error of treating a necessary condition as a sufficient one identified in step 2.
The primary task is to determine if the proposed description accurately and abstractly captures the argument's flaw.

Key Concept

Flaw in the Reasoning: Confusing Necessary and Sufficient Conditions
Rate this question

Topics

Flaw in the Reasoning

More questions from this topic