Critical Reasoning

To hold criminals responsible for their crimes involves a failure to recognize that criminal actions, like all actions, are ultimately products of the environment that forged the agent’s character. It is not criminals but people in the law-abiding majority who by their actions do most to create and maintain this environment. Therefore, it is law-abiding people whose actions, and nothing else, make them alone truly responsible for crime.
The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that
(A) it exploits an ambiguity in the term “environment” by treating two different meanings of the word as though they were equivalent
(B) it fails to distinguish between actions that are socially acceptable and actions that are socially unacceptable
(C) the way it distinguishes criminals from crimes implicitly denies that someone becomes a criminal solely in virtue of having committed a crime
(D) its conclusion is a generalization of statistical evidence drawn from only a small minority of the population
(E) its conclusion contradicts an implicit principle on which an earlier part of the argument is based


please do give me the explanation

Argument : criminals are products of environment
Environment is controlled by law abiding ppl
therefore only law abiding ppl are responsible for Crimes


(A) it exploits an ambiguity in the term “environment” by treating two different meanings of the word as though they were equivalent
There is no ambiguity in the environment........only one environment is referred

(B) it fails to distinguish between actions that are socially acceptable and actions that are socially unacceptable
(C) the way it distinguishes criminals from crimes implicitly denies that someone becomes a criminal solely in virtue of having committed a crime
There is no disctinction between criminals and crimes

(D) its conclusion is a generalization of statistical evidence drawn from only a small minority of the population
no statistical evidence

(E) its conclusion contradicts an implicit principle on which an earlier part of the argument is based

Its conclusion is a correlation but it does not contradict premise and hence Eliminated


Ans B. This was very difficult question. It took me enough time to answer
What is the source?

I think the answer is C... B doesn't really make much sense to me since "socially acceptable" and "socially unacceptable" actions don't seem to fit in well here.

would go for E

the stimulus starts by saying that the environment is responsible for the criminals actions and ends by saying that people who maintain the environment are responsible for the crimes. E brings this out.

scoobydooby wrote:would go for E

the stimulus starts by saying that the environment is responsible for the criminals actions and ends by saying that people who maintain the environment are responsible for the crimes. E brings this out.

But the fact that the environment has a bad influence is due to the people having a bad influence on the environment.

This is a way strange problem...

It took me hour to understand why the last sentence was so weird.
I think the last sentence actually contradicts the opinion mentioned before, therefor I would go for E... I find other answers just irrelevant....

Would be nice to know OA and the source. thx

thnx guys...the OA is E

but i still need the explanation.

geet wrote:thnx guys...the OA is E

but i still need the explanation.

Criminal actions are product of environment that forged the action's character. Who do you think will be responsible for forging the character? Will it be lawyers, police officers, or characters like batman or criminals, drug dealers and characters like Joker..

Law-abiding people are certainly forming the good part of society and will not be responsible for forging the action's character.

E) points out this fallacy correctly that it shouldn't be the law-abiding people that should be held responsible for the bad.

Hope this helps...

The first part says that All action ( including criminal action) is molded by the environment .

Then it says that majority of the population create this environment and concludes that the majority is responsible for the action .

But the majorities actions are also influenced by the environment ( according to the first part ) hence , how can we say the majority is solely responsible , in saying so,it contradicts with the first part

Well I feel A is the answer. I guess I'm right. If some expert could throw