Wrecking Argument vs Wrecking a Conclusion

mam426

Can someone clarify this to me? What is the difference between a position and a conclusion? If someone could just sum up what JY is mentioning, that would be great!

joegotbored-1

I think JY's meaning is that you typically don't aim at the conclusion. You aim at the support for the conclusion. If the argument says all A are B, but you know that's wrong... or the question tells you to weaken it, then instead of saying something really harsh like, It is not the case that all A are B, you could go about it indirectly by providing an example. Here's an A that's a C. You haven't explicitly said that it's not the case that all A are B....but you totally wrecked the argument. You just showed an example where their argument falls apart.

If you are trying to wreck the conclusion, typically all you have to do is show that their premises support some alternate ending. For example, Batman has to be a billionaire to afford all the cool toys. Therefore, Batman must be Bruce Wayne. Then you come in to wreck the conclusion by saying, actually, Batman is Warren Buffet. BOOM! Conclusion gone... you just showed an alternate world that is equally supported by the premise.

TL;DR - Wrecking an argument means indirectly weakening some part of the argument by messing with an assumption inherent in a premise *or* describing a world in which their conclusion isn't necessarily a given.

bobalicious

To add to what joegotbored said, I think JY also meant that there are trap answer choices that sound like they deny the conclusion.

Example argument:
Batman has to be a billionaire to afford all the cool toys. Warren Buffett is a billionaire. Therefore, Batman is Warren Buffett.

That's not a good argument to begin with. Having done tons of LR flaw questions, it's quick to see that the flaw is sufficiency/necessity confusion. Just because WB satisfies a necessary condition for being Batman (having $$$) doesn't mean that he's Batman. There's more than 1 billionaire in the world.

So the way the LSAT would want us to weaken (or wreck) this argument is to reveal just how little the original premises support the conclusion. Or as JY likes to say "take away the support" / thin out Goku's beam. So I think here, we can say something like "You likely have to younger than 40 to be Batman and WB is 84 years old." That's a classic weakening answer b/c it is entirely consistent with all premises and the conclusion. Yet, now we see how little the original premises support the conclusion.

I think a trap "wrecking the conclusion" style answer - sorry I'm obviously not an LSAT writer - would be something like "WB is Spiderman". That sounds like it's contradictory to the original conclusion. It's just baity enough for us to presume "Oh obviously if WB is Spiderman, he can't be Batman." But... why not? Couldn't he be both?

joegotbored-1

Bravo Andy!

Edit: Came back, re-read Andy's line about WB being 84...laughed again. Can't get WB in a batman suit out of my mind. I imagine him throwing really heavy wads of $100 bills at evil doers.