44. Legal theorist: It is unreasonable to incarcerate anyone for any other reason than that he or she is a serious threat to the property or lives of other people. The breaking of a law does not justify incarceration, for lawbreaking proceeds either from ignorance of the law or of the effects of one’s actions, or from the free choice of the lawbreaker. Obviously mere ignorance cannot justify incarcerating a lawbreaker, and even free choice on the part of the lawbreaker fails to justify incarceration, for free choice proceeds from the desires of an agent, and the desires of an agent are products of genetics and environmental conditioning, neither of which is controlled by the agent

The claim in the first sentence of the passage plays which one of the following roles in the argument

(A) It is offered as a premise that helps to show that no actions are under the control of the agent

(B) It is offered as background information necessary to understand the argument

(C) It is offered as the main conclusion that the argument is designed to establish

(D) It is offered as evidence for the stated claim that protection of life and property is more important than retribution for past illegal acts

(E) It is offered as evidence for the stated claim that lawbreaking proceeds from either ignorance of the law, or ignorance of the effects of one’s actions, or free choice

 答案是Ｃ，可是我觉得是Ｂ。

我觉得这段话的结构是 Legal theorist: It is unreasonable to incarcerate anyone for any other reason than that he or she is a serious threat to the property or lives of other people. （background） The breaking of a law does not justify incarceration(main conclusion), for lawbreaking proceeds either from ignorance of the law or of the effects of one’s actions, or from the free choice of the lawbreaker. Obviously mere ignorance cannot justify incarcerating a lawbreaker, and even free choice on the part of the lawbreaker fails to justify incarceration, for free choice proceeds from the desires of an agent, and the desires of an agent are products of genetics and environmental conditioning, neither of which is controlled by the agent (evidence)

因为我认为从It is unreasonable to incarcerate anyone for any other reason than that he or she is a serious threat to the property or lives of other people. 才可以得出后面那些evidence，而从

请ｎｎ指点。

我也觉得是b，第一句说只有认定某人确实威胁社会才能实施监禁。然后说触犯法律就把他监禁是不对的，因为触犯法律可能由于a ignorance of the law or of the effects of one’s actions，b free choice of the lawbreaker。第三句说了ignorance 不能监禁，free choice也不能监禁，因为free choice反映了lawbreaker的desire。最后一句说desire是非人力所能控制的。

我认为2句是以1句为前提铺开，3和4逐层解释前句。所以1并不是结论，因为2，3，4句推不出1句，而是整篇的指导思想。