LSAT 131 – Section 1 – Question 16

LSAT 131 - Section 1 - Question 16

December 2009

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT131 S1 Q16	+LR +Exp	Sufficient assumption +SA Conditional Reasoning +CondR Link Assumption +LinkA	A 8% 159 B 79% 166 C 3% 157 D 6% 159 E 4% 156	144 152 161	+Medium	147.383 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Chiu: The belief that a person is always morally blameworthy for feeling certain emotions, such as unjustifiable anger, jealousy, or resentment, is misguided. Individuals are responsible for only what is under their control, and whether one feels such an emotion is not always under one’s control.

Summary

Chiu concludes that, in feeling certain emotions, people’s morals aren’t always to blame. She supports this with an inference that people aren’t always responsible for certain emotions. This inference comes from the premises (two conditional statements).

Missing Connection

The conclusion is about moral blame, but the support doesn’t discuss this. Chiu has successfully supported the inference that people aren’t responsible for certain emotions. This inference leads to the conclusion if we assume that if someone isn’t responsible for something, then they are not morally blameworthy.

Individuals do not have control over their actions when they feel certain emotions.

This answer doesn’t address moral blameworthiness. Moral blameworthiness is in the conclusion, but we were not provided any information about this in the support. So, we need that concept to be in our answer choice.

If a person is morally blameworthy for something, then that person is responsible for it.

The contrapositive of this is, “If a person is not responsible for something, then they are not morally blameworthy.” This is a link that leads from what was inferred in the argument (people are not always responsible) to the conclusion.

Although a person may sometimes be unjustifiably angry, jealous, or resentful, there are occasions when these emotions are appropriate.

Appropriateness is irrelevant here. We cannot assume anything about the relationship between appropriateness and responsibility, or appropriateness and moral blame.

If an emotion is under a person’s control, then that person cannot hold others responsible for it.

(D) does not address moral blame. Without that, we cannot build a bridge from support to conclusion. Additionally, the ability to hold others responsible is irrelevant.

The emotions for which a person is most commonly blamed are those that are under that person’s control.

Knowing which emotions people are most commonly blamed for doesn’t allow us to conclude anything about whether someone is morally blameworthy.

LSAT 131 – Section 1 – Question 16

LSAT 131 - Section 1 - Question 16

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J.Y.’s explanation

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LSAT PrepTest 131 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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