PT. 19 Question 12 Section 2

rockytoral

This question was included in the weaken drill and I can't seem to figure out the reason as to why D was the correct answer. Someone please help!

c.janson35

One way to see why D is correct is because it disproves the general principle that Debbie is applying.

To understand this, we have to look at Debbie's response:

She says that pain protocols are unnecessary because a person can decide for themselves whether or not to consent to surgery based on what their doctors tell them. Essentially this relationship can be diagrammed as "if you are a person, then you can consent to procedures based on information your doctor tells you."

To disprove and weaken a general principle, you would need to show that the sufficient exists without the necessary. For example, if I said "if a fruit is red, then it must be an apple," you would weaken/disprove this general principle by showing me a red cherry--that is, a red fruit that is not an apple (sufficient without the necessary).

Thus, to weaken Debbie's response, we could show that there is a person who wouldn't be able to make decisions based on the information their doctor gives them. This is what D gives us! Babies cannot make decisions for themselves even if doctors tell them what is to be expected during a procedure, therefore Debbie's reasoning why pain protocols are unnecessary fails to consider this key point. We effectively disproved her response! Pain protocols cannot be unnecessary for human beings based on her reasoning because there are some human beings that cannot decide for themselves whether or not to undergo surgery based on warnings from their doctor.

Hope this helps!

rockytoral

c.janson35,

Thank you! It most definitely helped. The only issue I'm having is the fact that we stretched the assumption... Like what is considered an infant 2 months or a year? How would we know whether or not they would be able to consent to something?

The reason I ask these absurd questions is because I would like to generally apply a strategy to Weakening Questions and I'm having a hard time coming up with a formula. I feel in some instances we bend the rules for some questions and others that its not an acceptable answer choice.
#confused

If you have any further recommendations I would really appreciate it!

c.janson35

I'm not sure it even matters what ages infants are, because the point works still hold even if the choice said children. This is because no one would expect a child to be able to fully understand the ramifications of surgery sufficiently to be able to consent to it, and so it goes without saying that an infant wouldn't be able to--no matter how old the infant is.

Generally, though, infants are 12 months or younger.

ychoi4

For this question, do you think it's necessary to read Carl's statement? or for questions like these in general where there are two speakers but the question is asking to weaken, identify a flaw or whatever in one of the speaker's argument?

c.janson35

@ychoi4 I think it's always I'm your best interest to spend the extra 15-20 seconds reading the response to the argument. Skipping chunks of writing isn't a good habit to make on the LSAT.