LSAT 140 – Section 1 – Question 21

LSAT 140 - Section 1 - Question 21

December 2013

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT140 S1 Q21
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Value Judgment +ValJudg
A
4%
157
B
9%
158
C
83%
166
D
1%
153
E
2%
155
142
150
159
 +Medium 148.137 +SubsectionMedium

Video of JY doing this

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Lawyer: If you take something that you have good reason to think is someone else’s property, that is stealing, and stealing is wrong. However, Meyers had no good reason to think that the compost in the public garden was anyone else’s property, so it was not wrong for Meyers to take it.

Summarize Argument
The lawyer concludes that it was not wrong for Meyers to take the compost. She supports this by saying that if you take something that you have good reason to think is someone else’s property, then you are stealing, and stealing is wrong. But Meyers did not have good reason to think that the compost was someone else’s property.

Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing necessary and sufficient conditions. The lawyer treats “good reason” as necessary for “wrong,” but according to her premises “good reason” is merely sufficient. So negating “good reason” tell us nothing about “wrong.”
In other words, even though Meyers had no good reason to believe that the compost was someone else’s property, it might still have been wrong to take it. Having “good reason” is not necessary for making something stealing or for making something wrong.

A
confuses a factual claim with a moral judgment
The lawyer discusses both a factual claim about Meyers having no reason to believe that the compost belonged to anyone and a moral judgment about Meyers’ action not being wrong. But she never confuses these two claims.
B
takes for granted that Meyers would not have taken the compost if he had good reason to believe that it was someone else’s property
The lawyer doesn’t consider or make any assumptions about what might have happened if Meyers had good reason to believe the compost was someone else’s. She only discusses the fact that Meyers did not have a good reason to believe this.
C
takes a condition that by itself is enough to make an action wrong to also be necessary in order for the action to be wrong
Having “good reason...” is sufficient to make an action stealing, and thus to make it wrong. But the lawyer treats “good reason” as necessary. Just because Meyers had no good reason to believe that the compost belonged to someone else doesn’t mean that taking it was not wrong.
D
fails to consider the possibility that the compost was Meyers’ property
If the compost was Meyers’ property, this would strengthen the lawyer’s conclusion that it wasn’t wrong for him to take it.
E
concludes that something is certainly someone else’s property when there is merely good, but not conclusive, reason to think that it is someone else’s property
The lawyer concludes that it wasn’t wrong for Meyers to take the compost because he had no good reason to believe it was someone else’s property. She doesn’t conclude that the compost is certainly someone else’s property, nor does she give reason to think that it is.

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LSAT PrepTest 140 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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