PT41.S1.Q22 - rules unpunished moral guidance

CJ ShinCJ Shin Free Trial Member
edited December 2015 in Logical Reasoning 302 karma
Hey guys, I was going over my old PT's and I still cannot get a full understanding of this question.
The stim basically says:

"if violation of explicit rules are routinely left unpunished, chaos results. Therefore, we ought never to allow any explicit rules to go unpunished."

Well, this is a typical
A->B
/B
-----
/A argument structure.

I can see that the author assumes that we do not want chaos, but I don't think LSAC is that crazy to think that it is a flaw.
The answer choice hints at us that the actual flaw of this stim is that there is a flawed jump from "routinely" to to "never," but I don't see how this works.

Any thoughts?
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-41-section-1-question-22/

Comments

  • Justin GilesJustin Giles Free Trial Member
    edited June 2013 44 karma
    The argument says if a violation is routinely unpunished, chaos results. That means at least 50%+1 of the times it's let go. Therefore, we shouldn't ever let people break an explicit rule.

    Okay: Speeding. There's an explicit rule against going over 55MPH. If we let people routinely speed and don't punish them, chaos will result. It'll be like Fast and the Furious all up in this bitch. So, we ought never to let anyone speed without punishing them.

    Hmm. What about people rushing someone to the hospital? A pregnant wife perhaps? According to this argument, we have to always punish them as well. Seems iffy...
  • jpak822jpak822 Free Trial Member
    23 karma
    You can also think of it this way...

    The conclusion says that it should "never" go unpunished --> which means 100% of the time

    However, "rountinely go unpunished" is only one part/type of the all the instances of "unpunish"ment (is that even a word? haha...) You can't simply justify 100%/never allowing something just because one type/instance of it results in chaos!

    Therefore, this boils down to an evidence flaw in which some evidence against a claim is taken to prove the claim as true!

    Hope this helps man
  • CJ ShinCJ Shin Free Trial Member
    edited June 2013 302 karma
    Yes, I have thought about those possibilities, but the answer choice D begs for a deeper understanding of the relationship between the words "routine" "never" and "sometimes."

    According to your reasoning that "routinely not punishing" is just a part of the whole "unpunish"ment, and therefore does not grant 100% punishment, but wouldn't this reasoning be actually worse for "sometimes"?
    "Sometimes" is actually a smaller number of instances relative to "Routinely"..

    It seems to me that this question is testing our knowledge of the binary relationship between "sometimes" and "never."

    Again, the argument structure is:

    Routinely not punished -> Chaos
    We don't want chaos
    ------------------
    Therefore, never not punish.

    Here, we would expect "not routinely not punish" instead of "never not punish."
    But the argument concludes with the latter.
    And answer choice D points out this flaw that "not routine" is NOT "never."
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