LAST-6-3-20

sensornet

Psychotherapy has been described as a form of moral coercion. However, when people are coerced, their ability to make choices is restricted, and the goal of psychotherapy is to enhance people’s ability to make choices. Hence, psychotherapy cannot possibly be a form of coercion.

Which one of the following describes a flaw in the argument?

(A) The position being argued against is redefined unfairly in order to make it an easier target.

(B) Psychotherapy is unfairly criticized for having a single goal, rather than having many complex goals.

(C) No allowance is made for the fact that the practice or results of psychotherapy might run counter to its goals.

(D) The goals of psychotherapy are taken to justify any means that are used to achieve those goals.

(E) It offers no argument to show that moral coercion is always undesirable.

答案是C。请问，是不是因为论述中第一句话说的是moral coercion,而反方观点说的是coercion,少了moral 的限制？

谢谢。

pcpcpcpcpc

文章的论据是the goal of psychotherapy is to enhance people's ability to make choices,但不等于结果就能像期待的一样，当真正的结果是restrict the ability时，psychotherapy就是coercion.所以argument有flaw.

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psychotherapy-->moral coercion-->restrict the ability

psychotherapy-->goal of enhance the ability

From the two lines above, we can see that psychotherapy implies two contraditory characteristics. Thus, at least one of them are false. But only according to the information given in the stimulus, we can't make sure which one of them is false.

The conclusion gives a single possibility that psychotherapy is not a form of moral coercion.

Answer C gives another possibility that the goals of psychotherapy can be false in practice. So it is possible that psychotherapy, in fact, cannot have the goal of enhancing the ability.