Quality of our interactions in human relationships is gauged by

CONCEPT

A passage-based question of the form “X is gauged by ___” asks for the yardstick the passage itself attaches to X, not for a yardstick that merely sounds plausible in general. The governing distinction in such items is between attributes a person possesses — material resources, social rank, formal credentials — and conduct a person enacts towards others. Any evaluative framework that judges relationships must take conduct as its measure, because conduct is what actually passes between the parties.

APPLICATION

1. The passage fixes the domain in its opening line: “Ethical living is concerned primarily with the interpersonal dimension of our behavior.”

2. It then names what is being measured: “morality brings us into contact with others and asks us to consider the quality of that contact.” The quality under discussion is therefore the quality of the contact between people.

3. That contact is spelt out as treatment: “Is that the way I should treat someone else?” “Is that the way someone else should treat me?” Both test questions ask about behaviour directed at another person.

4. The passage then makes exactly that behaviour the object of judgement: “Because we have the ability to be critical of our interpersonal behavior and our interaction with animals, we have the ability to develop codes and norms to guide that behavior and interaction.”

5. Putting the four steps together, the yardstick the passage attaches to the quality of our interactions is interpersonal behaviour.

CROSS-CHECK / CONTRAST

• economic status — income and wealth are resources a person holds; the passage measures “the quality of that contact”, which arises between persons rather than being held by one of them.

• social status — rank and standing are positions within a hierarchy; the passage’s test questions ask how one treats and is treated, not where one stands relative to others.

• educational background — schooling and qualifications are credentials acquired beforehand; the passage locates ethics in “everyday living” and in character traits as they “play out”, that is, in what a person actually does.

Hence the quality of our interactions in human relationships is gauged by interpersonal behaviour.