LSAT 106 – Section 3 – Question 18

LSAT 106 - Section 3 - Question 18

June 1999

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT106 S3 Q18	+LR	Strengthen +Streng Rule-Application +RuleApp Link Assumption +LinkA	A 12% 163 B 3% 160 C 83% 168 D 1% 156 E 2% 155	143 152 161	+Medium	148.198 +SubsectionMedium

The human brain and its associated mental capacities evolved to assist self-preservation. Thus, the capacity to make aesthetic judgments is an adaptation to past environments in which humans lived. So an individual’s aesthetic judgments must be evaluated in terms of the extent to which they promote the survival of that individual.

Summarize Argument

The author concludes aesthetic judgments are good to the extent they help a person survive. Why? Because the brain evolved to help humans survive, so the ability to make aesthetic judgments developed in response to environments where past humans lived.

Notable Assumptions

The author assumes aesthetic judgments should be evaluated based on their ability to fulfill the original purpose for which they evolved: to assist survival. He assumes there’s no better basis for determining the value of those judgments. In addition, he assumes each individual mental capacity in the human brain could only have evolved as an adaptation to a past environment.

All human adaptations to past environments were based on the human brain and its associated mental capacities.

This gets the desired reasoning backward. If the reverse were true—and all human mental capacities were adaptations to past environments—then the author could more easily conclude the capacity for aesthetic judgments was such an adaptation.

Human capacities that do not contribute to the biological success of the human species cannot be evaluated.

This is irrelevant. Since the author concludes the ability to make aesthetic judgments is a past adaptation that helped humans survive, this principle does not apply to that ability.

If something develops to serve a given function, the standard by which it must be judged is how well it serves that function.

This helps justify the author’s conclusion. It implies aesthetic judgments should be judged by how well they help humans survive—and not by some other standard—since they apparently evolved for that purpose.

Judgments that depend on individual preference or taste cannot be evaluated as true or false.

This rules out only one implausible way aesthetic judgments could be evaluated, out of many possibilities. It doesn’t help the author reach the particular conclusion that aesthetic judgments should be evaluated based on how well they help people survive.

Anything that enhances the proliferation of a species is to be valued highly.

This is irrelevant. The author is concerned with evaluating individuals’ aesthetic judgments, not their ability to make those judgments.

LSAT 106 – Section 3 – Question 18

LSAT 106 - Section 3 - Question 18

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LSAT PrepTest 106 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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