Chapter 11, Level 2 Self-Quiz: GI

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Your job is to analyze the reasoning involved in the following passage. You can do this by illustrating the logic involved. You should look for uses of logical operators such as conjunction, disjunction, negation, and conditional statements; sufficient and necessary conditions; and the analogical reasoning involved in the argument. Upon completion of your analysis, answer the question that follows.

The act should be read as criminalizing only false factual statements made with knowledge of their falsity and with intent that they be taken as true. Although the Court has frequently said or implied that false factual statements enjoy little First Amendment protection, see, e.g., Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., those statements cannot be read to mean "no protection at all." False factual statements serve useful human objectives in many contexts. Moreover, the threat of criminal prosecution for making a false statement can inhibit the speaker from making true statements, thereby "chilling" a kind of speech that lies at the First Amendment's heart. See id., at 340-341. And the pervasiveness of false factual statements provides a weapon to a government broadly empowered to prosecute falsity without more. Those who are unpopular may fear that the government will use that weapon selectively against them.

Assume the following key:

(A) The Act should be read as criminalizing only false factual statements made with knowledge of their falsity. (B) The Act should be read as criminalizing only false factual statements made with intent that they be taken as true. (C) Although the Court has frequently said or implied that false factual statements enjoy little First Amendment protection, see, e.g., Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc., those statements cannot be read to mean "no protection at all." (D) False factual statements serve useful human objectives in many contexts. (E) Moreover, the threat of criminal prosecution for making a false statement can inhibit the speaker from making true statements. (F) The threat of criminal prosecution for making a false statement has a "chilling" effect on a kind of speech that lies at the First Amendment's heart. (G) And the pervasiveness of false factual statements provides a weapon to a government broadly empowered to prosecute falsity without more. (H) Those who are unpopular may fear that the government will use that weapon selectively against them.

Which of the following best captures the logical structure of the argument?

. Your job is to analyze the reasoning involved in the following passage. You can do this by illustrating the logic involved. You should look for uses of logical operators such as conjunction, disjunction, negation, and conditional statements; sufficient and necessary conditions; and the analogical reasoning involved in the argument. Upon completion of your analysis, answer the question that follows.
The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. This is the ordinary course in a free society. The response to the unreasoned is the rational; to the uninformed, the enlightened; to the straight-out lie, the simple truth. See Whitney v. California, 274 U. S. 357, 377 (1927) (Brandeis, J., concurring) (“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence”). The theory of our Constitution is “that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market,” Abrams v. United States, 250 U. S. 616, 630 (1919) (Holmes, J., dissenting). The First Amendment itself ensures the right to respond to speech we do not like, and for good reason. Freedom of speech and thought flows not from the beneficence of the state but from the inalienable rights of the person. And suppression of speech by the government can make exposure of falsity more difficult, not less so. Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse. These ends are not well served when the government seeks to orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates.
Assume the following key:
(A) The remedy for speech that is false is speech that is true. (B) This is the ordinary course in a free society. (C) The response to the unreasoned is the rational. (D) The response to the uninformed, the enlightened. (E) The response to the straight-out lie, the simple truth. (F) The theory of our Constitution is “that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.” (G) The First Amendment itself ensures the right to respond to speech we do not like, and for good reason. (H) Freedom of speech and thought flows not from the beneficence of the state but from the inalienable rights of the person. (I) Suppression of speech by the government can make exposure of falsity more difficult, not less so. (J) Society has the right and civic duty to engage in open, dynamic, rational discourse. (K) These ends are not well served when the government seeks to orchestrate public discussion through content-based mandates.
Which of the following best captures the logical structure of the argument?

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