Question

read the following excerpt from levitt and dubners freakonomics. there is a tale, \the ring of gyges,\ that feldman sometimes tells his economist friends. it comes from platos republic. a student named glaucon offered the story in response to a lesson by socrates—who, like adam smith, argued that people are generally good even without enforcement. glaucon, like feldmans economist friends, disagreed. he told of a shepherd named gyges who stumbled upon a secret cavern with a corpse inside that wore a ring. when gyges put on the ring, he found that it made him invisible. with no one able to monitor his behavior, gyges proceeded to do woeful things—seduce the queen, murder the king, and so on. glaucons story posed a moral question: could any man resist the temptation of evil if he knew his acts could not be witnessed? glaucon seemed to think the answer was no. but paul feldman sides with socrates and adam smith—for he knows the answer, at least 87 percent of the time, is yes. feldman reaches the conclusion that most people are honest without receiving an incentive by making a claim about his individual experiences and looking for evidence. making a broad generalization about morality and looking for evidence. studying his individual experiences and arriving at a broad generalization. studying a counterclaim about morality and arriving at a broad generalization.

Explanation:

The text describes Feldman's conclusion. He has his own experiences (like the story of the ring and his own business with bagels where he observed honesty). From these individual experiences (his own business model where he left bagels out on the honor - system and calculated an honesty rate of 87 percent which is mentioned as “at least 87 percent of the time, is yes” referring to people being honest), he arrives at a broad generalization about people being honest without incentives.

Answer:

studying his individual experiences and arriving at a broad generalization.