Ethicist: Marital vows often contain the promise to love “until death do us part.” If “love” here refers to a feeling, then this promise makes no sense, for feelings are not within one’s control, and a promise to do something not within one’s control makes no sense. Thus, no one—including those making marital vows—should take “love” in this context to be referring to feelings.

The ethicist’s conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

Principle: If a food product contains ingredients whose presence most consumers of that product would be upset to discover in it, then the food should be labeled as containing those ingredients.

Application: Crackly Crisps need not be labeled as containing genetically engineered ingredients, since most consumers of Crackly Crisps would not care if they discovered that fact.

The application of the principle is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it

Editorial: The town would not need to spend as much as it does on removing trash if all town residents sorted their household garbage. However, while telling residents that they must sort their garbage would get some of them to do so, many would resent the order and refuse to comply. The current voluntary system, then, is to be preferred, because it costs about as much as a nonvoluntary system would and it does not engender nearly as much resentment.

The contention that the town would not have to spend as much as it does on removing trash if all town residents sorted their garbage plays which one of the following roles in the editorial’s argument?

People often admonish us to learn the lessons of history, but, even if it were easy to discover what the past was really like, it is nearly impossible to discover its lessons. We are supposed, for example, to learn the lessons of World War I. But what are they? And were we ever to discover what they are, it is not clear that we could ever apply them, for we shall never again have a situation just like World War I.

That we should learn the lessons of history figures in the argument in which one of the following ways?

Sigerson argues that the city should adopt ethical guidelines that preclude its politicians from accepting campaign contributions from companies that do business with the city. Sigerson’s proposal is dishonest, however, because he has taken contributions from such companies throughout his career in city politics.

The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument