PT61.S2.Q24 - historian: it is unlikely that someone

vanessa fishervanessa fisher Alum Member
edited July 2017 in Logical Reasoning 1084 karma

Hey everyone,
So question 24 in section 2 of Prep Test 61.

This question I've been trying to grapple with for 3 days (seriously). I understand how conditionals work, but this question just doesn't work for me no matter how many times I do it, or listen to J.Y's explanation. I'm getting caught up on two things:
1) wording of one of the premises that don't feel they line up with normal conditional logic phrases
2) The order of the conditions (even if I grant the weird worded ones as conditional statements).

Here is the question:

Stimulus: It is unlikely that someone would see history as the working out of moral themes unless he or she held clear and unambiguous moral beliefs. However, one's inclination to morally judge human behavior decreases as one's knowledge of history increases. Consequently, the more history a person knows, the less likely that person is to view history as the working out of moral themes.

Stem: The conclusion of the argument is properly drawn if which one of the following is assumed?

So the right answer is:
B) The less inclined one is to morally judge human behavior, the less likely it is that one holds clear and unambiguous moral beliefs.

I actually got the right answer, but only through process of eliminating the wrong answers. I couldn't get full connection in this argument to get the answer as the missing sufficient assumption and it is driving me full out mad :)

The first thing that bothers me about this argument is the "unlikely" at the beginning, which I'm not sure exactly what to do with. The second thing is that the second premise [one's inclination to morally judge human behavior decreases as one's knowledge of history increases] does not ring to me as a conditional if/then type of sentence. I see that they are connected, but decreasing/increasing relationships aren't something I see fitting well into a conditional sentence sequence.

Secondly, even if I grant that this is a conditional statement, this is the logic drawing I end up with:

[P1] See history as working out of moral themes (SHWMT) ---> holds clear and unambiguous beliefs (HCUMB)
[P2] Morally judge human behavior decreases (MJHBd) ---> Knowledge of history increases (KHi)

[Conclusion] The more history a person knows (KHi) --> the less likely they are to view history as the working out of moral themes (/SHWMT)

So if I was to write this out in pure logic:

SHWMT --> HCUMB
MJHBd --> KHi

KHi --> /SHWMT

So even if I grant the weird statements around increasing/decreasing I still can't get from this to the missing premise:
The less inclined one is to morally judge human behavior (MJHBd) --> the less likely it is that one holds clear and unambiguous moral beliefs (/HCUMB)

MJHBd --> /HCUMB

I just can't wrap my head around this one as logically connecting in a sequence chain. Am I just having a brain stall?
Any thoughts @Sami ? :)

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-61-section-2-question-24/

Comments

  • inactiveinactive Alum Member
    12637 karma

    Edited title and added link to explanation so people can better help out.

  • vanessa fishervanessa fisher Alum Member
    edited July 2017 1084 karma

    Thanks Dillon!
    And yeah just as context I watched it a few times, but I feel J.Y's explanation doesn't end up clicking for me. I think especially because he moves around the statements in premise 2 and I can't figure out why he does, putting one in front of the other, even though they aren't written in that order

  • SamiSami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    edited July 2017 10774 karma

    @"vanessa fisher" said:

    The first thing that bothers me about this argument is the "unlikely" at the beginning, which I'm not sure exactly what to do with.

    So we can translate our "unlikely" to say "not likely" and it would mean the same thing.
    You first statement should now read: It is not likely that someone would see history as the working out of moral themes unless he or she held clear and unambiguous moral beliefs.

    Unless is a group three indicator word and you have to negate your sufficient. So you have to negate the statement "It is not likely that someone would see history as the working out of moral themes". From our lessons we know that when we negate a negative it becomes a positive. So our statement now becomes:

    If it is likely that someone would see history as the working out of moral themes (HMT) then he or she held clear and unambiguous moral beliefs (CMB). (HMT ----> CMB)

    The second thing is that the second premise [one's inclination to morally judge human behavior decreases as one's knowledge of history increases] does not ring to me as a conditional if/then type of sentence. I see that they are connected, but decreasing/increasing relationships aren't something I see fitting well into a conditional sentence sequence.

    That's fine you can keep them as connection and not a conditional statement but you have note down the connection in some way:
    The relationships means that when the knowledge of history increases we can conclude there is a decreasing Inclination to Morally judge.

    To make it easier for myself I like to write it down as : KH increase .....> inclination to morally judge decreases.

    Conclusion: KH increase ......>less likely /HMT

    Since this is a sufficient assumption question type, I first want to see how can I go from KH increases to less likely /HMT.

    Going back to our original task here are the two premises as we wrote:

    HMT ----> CMB
    KH increase .....> inclination to morally judge decreases.

    Conclusion: KH increase ......>less likely /HMT

    If I was to substitue A and B for my premise here is what it looks like:

    A--->B
    C.....>D

    C....>/A

    In our case it looks like this

    What premise is missing?

    D---->/B (We need to connect inclination ---> /CMB)

    In our precise case we are missing inclination to morally judge decreases -> "less likely" to not have clear and unambiguous moral belief)

    The less likely is something that our conclusion adds. We can keep that as it is and just follow our conditional logic.

    Which is what answer choice B says. The less inclined one is to morally judge human behavior, the less likely it is that one holds clear and unambiguous moral beliefs.

    Let me know if that helped.

  • vanessa fishervanessa fisher Alum Member
    edited July 2017 1084 karma

    Thanks @Sami
    I"m just out at the moment, but plan to read through this deeply when I get home and will let you know if it clicked.
    I appreciate you taking the time!

  • SamiSami Live Member Sage ⭐ 7Sage Tutor
    10774 karma

    @"vanessa fisher" said:
    Thanks @Sami
    I"m just out at the moment, but plan to read through this deeply when I get home and will let you know if it clicked.
    I appreciate you taking the time!

    @"vanessa fisher" said:
    Thanks @Sami
    I"m just out at the moment, but plan to read through this deeply when I get home and will let you know if it clicked.
    I appreciate you taking the time!

    No problem! Your welcome <3 Take your time. This was for you <3

  • vanessa fishervanessa fisher Alum Member
    edited July 2017 1084 karma

    Hey @Sami
    Thanks again for this.
    Your explanation is helping me clarify where I'm having the disconnect. Everything you are saying makes sense, but what I'm struggling with is the second premise [one's inclination to morally judge human behavior decreases as one's knowledge of history increases].

    You wrote:
    "That's fine you can keep them as connection and not a conditional statement but you have note down the connection in some way:
    The relationships means that when the knowledge of history increases we can conclude there is a decreasing Inclination to Morally judge.

    To make it easier for myself I like to write it down as : KH increase .....> inclination to morally judge decreases.

    Conclusion: KH increase ......>less likely /HMT"

    So the problem I'm having is with the order in which you've put the conditions. why did you switch from the original order which is inclination to morally judge decreaes ---> KH increases to the opposite? J.Y does this also and I can't figure out why. This is where I'm getting stuck because the order then implies the sufficient assumption one is looking for.

    This seems to be part of the stickiness of the particular conditional relationship in premise 2 which doesn't feel usual.
    Is it because it is a biconditonal? That is the only thing I've been able to come up with

  • karenkarenkarenkaren Alum Member
    116 karma

    Hi Vanessa,

    Perhaps you've already moved on from this question, but I just did PT61 and was stumped on it as well.

    @"vanessa fisher" said:
    Is it because it is a biconditonal? That is the only thing I've been able to come up with

    The biconditional explanation is the only one that fully works for me.

    I don't know if you like using outside explanations, but this one helped me a lot, and diagrams the stimulus as biconditional: https://forum.powerscore.com/lsat/viewtopic.php?t=6710

  • vanessa fishervanessa fisher Alum Member
    1084 karma

    @karenkaren
    Thanks! I will check out the explanation. I ended up moving on from it just assuming biconditional, so I'm glad to have the confirmation

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