请教一道manhanttan的阅读题

youngseeUID: 3489314

    It is common to assume that people who act morally are normally motivated to act so, while those who act immorally lack moral motivation. However, research carried out by Monin and Miller strongly points to the existence of a moral licensing effect, according to which performance of morally commendable actions in turn licenses subjects to later engage in dubious behavior. This work suggests that individuals are motivated to perform moral acts not by an innate goodness on their part, but by a desire to appear to be moral people, whether to themselves or others. Researchers continue to disagree whether licensing is best understood as involving moral credentials, in which subjects interpret their later, dubious activity in terms of the moral identity they have supposedly established for themselves in prior acts, or as involving moral credits, where subjects see themselves as having built up a surplus that they can then “trade in” by acting selfishly. The research strongly suggests, however, that individuals care about their moral self-image, and not merely about what others think of them. Khan and Dhar, for example, found that subjects who were asked to merely imagine performing a generous act, such as tutoring a student, were later less likely to donate a portion of their earnings to charity than those who were asked to imagine engaging in a morally neutral activity. If individuals are normally motivated to at least strive for a moral self-image in this way, we should not be too hasty to discount the common-sense assumption that moral motivation is typically behind moral action.

1. Which of the following, if true, would provide a strong reason to dismiss the conclusion stated in the last sentence of the passage?
A。Later studies showed that subjects who were asked to imagine themselves performing generous acts were no less likely to act generously than other participants under test conditions in which no one else knew which scenario they were asked to imagine.
B。Later studies show that subjects give themselves the same moral license regardless of whether they are initially asked to imagine themselves performing generous acts, or to perform selfish acts that the staff involved in the study gives strong indication of supporting.
C。Later studies showed that some subjects were extremely resistant to giving themselves either moral credits or moral credentials, even if given the chance to perform moral or generous acts in more than one phase of the experiment.


沙发放上官方解释

youngseeUID: 3489314

The conclusion of the passage is that “If individuals are normally motivated to at least strive for a moral self-image in this way, we should not be too hasty to discount the common-sense assumption that moral motivation is typically behind moral action.” In other words, people are motivated to moral action by their desire to maintain a moral self-image.

Reasons to dismiss this conclusion would be any scenario in which people were shown to NOT care about their moral self-image (i.e. they only care what others think of them) or in which moral self-image mattered to people, but did not influence actions one way or the other.

(A) CORRECT. This is a scenario in which moral self-image may matter to people, but it does not influence their actions.

(B) CORRECT. This is a scenario in which moral self-image does not seem to matter. Either the actions are not affected by moral self-image at all (the subjects take the same moral license regardless) or what others think of the actions (i.e the approval of the staff involved in the study) is what matters.

(C) The word “some” weakens this choice, as it could indicate an insignificant minority of the subjects. A tiny minority of people may never behave as the conclusion states, but this is not an adequate reason to dismiss the conclusion altogether.

不明白选项A，虽然按照解释是literally削弱了全文最后一句结论，但是结论是为了说明人们有moral motives，选项A在涵义上和结论是不矛盾的= =