PT38.S1.Q19 - essayist: only happiness is

Niner Papa

I'm hoping that someone might be willing to check my thinking/analysis before I go to the explanation. It has been suggested that if we write out an explanation for our thought process that it helps to solidify our learning. This is my attempt to follow that suggestion. Also, could someone tell me if it's advisable or not to attempt to do what I've done prior to viewing the video explanation, or am I complicating things too much? Should I just skip all this work and go right to the video explanation first?

PT 38.1.19

Answer selected during test: (E)
Answer selected during BR: (A)
Correct answer: (C)

Notes:
Since it has been a few days since I took the test and performed my BR, my original thinking is somewhat fuzzy. However, I think the reason I selected E on the test was because I thought that if people only deserve happiness according to the happiness the provide others, then a truly bad person couldn’t deserve happiness because they don’t bring happiness to others.

I think I selected answer choice A on the BR because I was thinking there was a disconnect between the idea that we only value the happiness that is deserved and that we only deserve happiness according to the happiness we provide to others.

Now, how did I miss answer choice C? I think the reason that I missed the correct answer and selected wrong answers twice is because I wasn’t appropriately identifying with the argument. In the first place, I wasn’t looking for a conclusion. I was just looking for a statement that “fit”. I see now that the word “therefore” indicated that I was to be looking for a logical conclusion that appropriately rested on the premises. Also, the question stem indicates that I need to complete the “argument”. Since an argument is a premise + conclusion, and since there is no conclusion in the stimulus, I needed to identify the proper conclusion. I think I wasn’t appropriately identifying the premises in the argument; all of the extraneous statements boggled me a bit. So without the proper understanding of the premises, it’s understandable that I wouldn’t be able to identify the conclusion. I’m still struggling to clearly identify the premise (in fact, I think there is only one), but here’s what I think it is:

P: The happiness people deserve is determined by the amount of happiness they bring to others.
Which would then couple with the proper conclusion:
C: The judgment that a person deserves to be happy is itself to be understood in terms of happiness.

So, if I understand this problem now, the reason I selected the two wrong answers is the same reason I missed the right answer: I didn’t properly identify the premise in the argument.
https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-38-section-1-question-19/

The 180 Bro_OVO

Hey!

I or someone else will respond to your actual question in a bit, but please don't post the full LSAT question.
It's a copyright issue with LSAC.

https://7sage.com/discussion/#/discussion/15/forum-rules

Niner Papa

My apologies. I'll correct it right away!

Niner Papa

Thanks for the correction and guidance. I have amended the discussion thread.

The 180 Bro_OVO

Hmmm. I'm accessing the site from my phone, but on the top right corner of your post. Is there a little button that says "edit" when you hover over it?