Q21 - If you take something

[smiller]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Premises:
1. (take item) think it is someone else's → stealing → wrong
2. (take item) ~ think it is someone else's

Conclusion:
~ wrong

Answer Anticipation:
There are two ways to evaluate this argument. One is based on formal conditional logic, and the other is based on more general reasoning.

Formal approach:
The conclusion is based on an invalid negation of the conditional statements in the premises.
We can infer
~ wrong → ~ think it is someone else's
but we can't infer
~ think it is someone else's → ~ wrong.

General reasoning:
The premises tell us that taking an item is wrong if we have a good reason to think it belongs to someone else. Could taking it also be wrong for other reasons? Yes, absolutely. That's why the conclusion isn't valid. Meyers doesn't have a reason to think that the mulch belongs to someone else, but taking it still might be wrong for other reasons.

Correct Answer:
(C)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) This isn't a flaw in this argument. There is a moral judgment about stealing being wrong, but the argument doesn't confuse a factual claim with a moral judgement.

(B) This is unsupported. No part of the argument would lead us to assume anything about Meyers not taking the compost.

(C) This is the correct answer.

General explanation:
The premises tell us that thinking an item belongs to someone else is enough to conclude that taking it is wrong. But even if the premises are true, taking an item could be wrong for other reasons. The conclusion requires us to assume that it is necessary to think that an item belongs to someone else in order for taking it to be wrong; in other words, we're assuming that taking it can't be wrong for entirely different reasons.

Formal explanation:
When an argument contains a conditional logic flaw, we need to be on the lookout for answer choices that describe the flaw using the kind of abstract language we see in choice (C). If you approach this question by diagramming statements, answer choice (C) states that the argument is flawed because it assumes
wrong → think it is someone else's
or, by contrapositive,
~ think it is someone else's → ~ wrong.
This is exactly what the argument incorrectly assumes.

(D) This is not a flaw In this argument. If the compost was Meyers' property then he would have a good reason to think it was not someone else's, but that's not where the flaw occurs. We don't care why he doesn't think it belongs to someone else. The problem is that even if he thinks this, we can't conclude that taking the mulch is not wrong.

(E) This misstates the conclusion of the argument. The argument does not conclude that the mulch is certainly someone else's property.

Takeaway/Pattern: Understanding conditional logic, and being able to diagram conditional statements, can help you very quickly spot conditional logic flaws in arguments. However, the LSAT will often state the correct answer to a Flaw question in abstract terms.

#officialexplanation

[rezamza]

Glad to see that no one is needing help on this problem! But for reinforcement, and for those who started studying using more recent tests, Ill try and explain this flaw.

The lawyer makes a statement about stealing and how wrong it is and then concludes that his client, having stolen something, did not meet the conditions for making the action wrong.

If diagramming is necessary, it would go something like this:

Premise:
TAKE SOMEONE ELSES PROPERTY KNOWING IT MIGHT BE THEIRS ----> STEALING & STEALING WRONG

Her client, Meyers:
DID NOT THINK THE ITEM MIGHT BE SOMEONE ELSES ----> SO NOT WRONG



A) No confusion between a fact and moral claim
B) She assumed nothing about whether or not her client would have stolen the item had he had good reason to believe it was someone else's
C) This answer, in other words, says "mistakes a sufficient condition for a necessary condition," and is the right answer. Not satisfying the sufficient condition of the premise does not mean that the necessary condition is not met. This is a mistaken negation.
D) She doesn't do this at all.
E) No information on this either.

Hope this helps…if anyone else has anything to add that I missed or has something of mine to fix, please feel free!