PT 82 RC Query

If Glory then Guts

Just took PT82 and I've looked around on various forums regarding passage 3 'Judicial Candor' but I haven't seen much discussion on a certain issue within it. I struggled during timed and went -5 in RC which is pretty unusual for me (4 errors in that passage). I did manage to blind review all of them correctly given that I found my confusion lied in how I read Passage A. Namely, during my timed run I took passage A to be completely neutral on whether judicial candor should or should not be endorsed. During review, I basically realized that you had to read Passage A as an implicit endorsement. This then allows you to answer the questions with relative ease. I guess my biggest hang up is that this implicit reading seems to go directly against PT52 RC S4, 'Philosophical Anarchism', where I felt rewarded (and vindicated by the credited answers) precisely for not taking the author to be implicitly endorsing the position they are defending. To me it seems reasonable that an author can illustrate and analyze putative defenses of a theory or position, without necessarily committing themselves, in any normative way that is, to the actual theory or position. Does anyone share my concern with this passage here? Or, maybe someone has a reply as to why such a reading is justified here and not in 52? This ambiguity is bugging me because it seems like you're set up for failure in either 52 or in 82 if you employ a consistent approach.

KevinLuminateLSAT

Before I get into why passage A arguably does provide textual support for the author’s agreement with the duty of judicial sincerity, could you go into why you think PT52 rewards you for not viewing the author as implicitly endorsing the view they are defending from critics? I’m not sure which question you would get wrong if you had that interpretation. In fact, one of the correct answers requires us to view the author as implicitly accepting some of the basic tenets of PA. Why is that answer acceptable if one can discuss defenses of a theory without necessarily commiting oneself in a normative way to any aspect of that theory?

I think you’re right to be cautious about inferring such a normative view, but what other correct answer would there be for #22 in PT52 if we did not think that the author had some normative take on PA? Similarly, let’s say you’re right that PT82 Passage A doesn’t have a normative view on judicial sincerity - what other correct answer would there be to the questions you got wrong? I think LSAT is asking us to recognize that the question of Passage A’s agreement is at least ambiguous - and if one resolution of that ambiguity produces no correct answer, but the other resolution does, then we have to go with the latter.

Ultimately, I think the LSAT would point to the language in the last paragraph of Passage A to support the idea that Passage A supports judicial sincerity. The “problem” with the first defense is that it “fails to acknowledge the normative force” of the duty not to lie in opinions. What do you think about that language? What about the part afterward, where the author says that the duty to tell the truth in other contexts is “justified”, including in cases where it doesn’t produce good outcomes?

I can see a reading of this part that would interpret the “normative force” and the notion that truth-telling is “justified” as not necessarily the opinion of the author, but rather the author’s description of society’s view. Under that reading, the author’s discussion of better and worse ways of defending judicial sincerity is really strategizing on behalf of what society would say, given society’s normative views, and does not necessarily reflect the author’s own opinion. But I wonder if you would agree that although this may be a reasonable interpretation, it’s a bit strained and not clearly the only one.

If Glory then Guts

Thank you for such a detailed and very helpful response Kevin!

To answer your first question, and after doing passage 4 of PT52 again just now, I think I erred when I said I felt "rewarded". This is because, as you point out, you probably don't get any questions wrong with a reading of soft and implicit endorsement. And Q22 is indeed very good evidence that such a reading is actually intended. I remember at the time solving that question via POE without being very happy with it. I guess I was thinking of Q20 and Q27 primarily when bringing this passage up in relation to 82, because the principal thrust of the passage, as indicated by the answers, was to simply defend a theory against a couple of objections. It now seems to me, after your comment, that I may have gotten away with my more neutral reading in 52.

As to 82. Therein lied my confusion on the timed run. I simply couldn't find any answers that supported a reading of neutrality in Passage A. By the time I'd realized something was wrong during timed, I just didn't have enough time left to go back and redo the answers with an amended interpretation. A bit like when you think you're solving a logic game and then suddenly realize from multiple possible AC's that you've mis-mapped a rule. So in my blind review I flipped over to an implicit reading and managed to identify the correct answers. And I definitely have no qualms with bending my knee to the LSAT when it comes to realigning and rehashing my intuitions or even my fundamental approach when presented with good reasons to do so. And you've definitely managed to allay my concern as to why I couldn't initially.

As to the language in Passage A, I would say that by identifying the "problem" inherent in the prudential defense, the author is indeed making an evaluative claim. But not towards judicial sincerity per se, rather to the prudential defense itself. So if asked a question on a neutral reading, it would seem appropriate to say that the author advocates a moral defense of judicial sincerity over a prudential one but is not necessarily arguing for or against judicial sincerity. Similarly, I would say that the author makes a normative claim as to truth telling in a non-legal setting. But whether this should or should not have any bearing on the judiciary remains somewhat ambiguous. It will certainly inform the moral defense, but does it actually raise the position of the author on judicial sincerity to the position of positive advocate? Perhaps it does in soft sense (and that's all we need), given that we're told that the author believes that "truth is an independent constraint on our actions", and so that constraint would hold in all settings, legal included. That in combination with the formal arrangement of the text, e.g. presenting an opposing opinion and then dedicating text to partially rebutting it. As well as the wording used to distance the author from viewpoint of the critics in the first paragraph by constantly reminding us that it is in fact "their" opinion (and not his or hers) thus creating at the very least a starting point for positional departure. Definitely somewhat strained and I feel that I could make a compelling argument for a neutral reading in both 82 and 52. But that's definitely not the job required here. We just need to find the consistency that informs an interpretation from the text AND the answer choices. I think my approach from here on out, until proven otherwise, will be to retain my hesitancy to not over imbue meaning but not quite to the absolute extreme.

Once again, I really appreciate your response which would have taken quite some time, so thank you.

KevinLuminateLSAT

If you want a great example of the LSAT asking us to infer positive opinion even when, strictly speaking, the exact same passage seems consistent with a neutral opinion, check out PT48 Passage 2 (Louise Gluck) #12. I think this passage shows that the formal arrangement of the text, as you noted for PT82 Passage A, is something the LSAT wants us to pay attention to.

If Glory then Guts

You're absolutely right. I just went over my PT48 notes and found that I'd written about 700 words in my notes on Q12 alone lol. Basically tossing up this exact issue where in timed I'd selected C.