by christine.defenbaugh Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:07 am
Great thoughts, daytimeowl17!
For a question about overall purpose, the most efficient attack is to refer to the passage map that we've been mentally constructing as we read:
P1 - Med students need ways to stay empathetic to patients
P2 - traditional ethics "contributes little to the understanding of human experience"; narrative literature based ethics is better (multi-perspective/empathy)
P3 - narrative literature = flexible ethical thinking, moral imagination, perspective shift
P4 - doesn't go so far as "entirely relative" situational ethics (bad); does give "deeper understanding of human nature"
The author outlines a big problem in the first paragraph (maintaining empathy), then proposes a solution (narrative lit based ethics education) that would replace traditional ethics. This lines up perfectly with (D): "preserve the human dimension" is the original goal from P1, and the new approach to med school ethics training is solution.
You are absolutely correct that a significant problem with (B) is the word "counterproductive." This is tricksy, because the author suggests in paragraph 1 that the rigorous training can make it very difficult to maintain empathy, so it's arguable that THAT is "counterproductive". However, we never lay the same criticism on the ethics training in particular.
The criticisms of the ethics training are located at the beginning of paragraph 2, and the main thrust of these is that it "contributes little to the understanding of everyday human experience." This falls far short of claiming that it is "counterproductive."
I'd disagree with your first point, though. While (B) begins by seeming to refer to "ethics education" in general, because the answer goes on to refer to how it impacts the doctor-patient relationship, I think it's entirely reasonable to read it as applying specifically to med-school ethical training.
I honestly think that you could reasonably argue either way on that, and because of that, I am confident that the LSAT would never make an answer wrong for only that reason. I'd focus on the "counterproductive" issue, as it's clear cut!
For completeness's sake, let's take a brief look at each of the other incorrect answer choices:
(A) The author argues for the implementation of narrative-based ethics, but never suggests how to do it.
(C) This is the opposite of the author's point in P4 - he suggests that narrative ethics does NOT have to go the way of situational ethics.
(E) "well-designed"? The author never argues for the value of ethics education in general - seems we all agree that ethics education is valuable. Instead, he's arguing for a particular type of ethics education in order to solve a particular problem in medical education.
I hope this helps clear things up a bit! Keep up the excellent work!
