Q26 - A member of the British Parliament

[jardinsouslapluie5]

Could you explain the differences between (B), (C) and correct answer (D)?

I was almost get to (D), but then I saw "if" and hesitated to mark as correct answer choice.

Thanks.

[ohthatpatrick]

The flaw in the argument is a very common LSAT fact pattern:

An author is trying to conclude that something is a "net gain" or a "net loss" (overall positive or overall negative), but the only evidence we get is that there is SOME gain, SOME loss. To evaluate whether something overall is good or bad, we need to know the entire balance sheet of pros and cons.

This member of Parliament has established that a certain reform makes her constituents happy, but has not thereby proven that it increases the sum total of human happiness.

Why?

Because the increased happiness of her constituents could be outweighed by the increased UN-happiness of other people.

In order to Weaken the argument, we need some of this "negative balance sheet" evidence.

A) is completely wishy-washy and doesn't give us any clear indication that some people are unhappy from this reform.

B) only indicates that most people's happiness would not be increased. However, in order to weaken the argument, we need to know that at least some people's happiness would be decreased. ("would not be increased" is not the same as "would be decreased" ... another classic LSAT distinction)

C) is similar to (B). They both tell us that only a small group will have its happiness increased. Well, if everyone else just stays the same, and one small group gets happier, then we have "increased the sum total of human happiness", which strengthens this argument.

D) is annoyingly wishy-washy, but it's certainly speaking directly to our concern.

E) is out of scope, since we don't don't how widespread the support for this reform is.


Your concern about (D) is certainly well-founded. It says:
IF other people are unhappy, then making some ppl happy MIGHT not increase the sum total of happiness.

So you don't get a clear indication that
a. there actually IS anyone unhappy
b. that the unhappiness outweighs the increased happiness of the constituents

However, the correct answer to a Weaken question doesn't ever REFUTE the original argument; it just makes the argument more dubious.

Ultimately, (B) and (C), which say something more concrete, don't say anything that goes against the argument. It's not an objection to this argument to say that this social reform "DOESN'T make certain people happy". The only way to object to the argument is to introduce evidence that this social reform "DOES make certain people less happy". (D) is our only nod to that idea.

Hope this helps.

[efd628]

I got this answer wrong during weaken drill practice...although D initially stood as the correct answer without much thought...but I tried to apply what i Picked up from the Logic Bible and attack or undermine the conclusion. I initally took the conclusion to be "IT is a good social reform" and thus picked D also knowing that we can sometimes pull new info in...ahhh the struggle anyway:

Could you rewrite the last sentence into a conditional conclusion such as:

If the reform i propose would make my constituents happy, then it is a good social reform.

Rephrase the necessary part as:

If the reform i propose would make my constituents happy, then it will increase the sum total of human happiness.

Now D obviously shows increasing the sum total is is not necessary to make some (his constituents) ppl happy?

Is this just wrong? what is the conclusion? Should I just go with my gut sometimes. I guess the words "sum total" against words like "somebody" should have alerted me.

Or how about this...

good social reform --> Increase in sum Happiness
Make some happy-->achieving its purpose (rephrased as good social reform

make some happy-->good social reform-->Increase in sum happiness

We have thereby showed that increase sum happiness does not need to occur to make people happy.

[ohthatpatrick]

You're massively confusing me with the attempt turn this all into conditional stuff.

You could definitely convince me that "any reform which makes somebody happy is achieving its purpose" is conditional, but honestly I kinda considered that sentence a throwaway part of the argument.

You're correct to go after the Conclusion. I normally say the Anti-Conclusion to get my mind oriented to fighting the author.

In this case, I need to argue that this is NOT a good social reform.

Well, what IS a good social reform? How do we define good social reform?

Luckily, we don't have to ponder this question: it was answered for us.

We're going to evaluate good social reform based on whether it increases the sum total of human happiness.

Do I know that this proposed reform increases the sum total of human happiness?

Not quite. I only know that this proposed reform makes some constituents happy.

Well there's a big gap! The correct answer doesn't HAVE to necessarily target that, but it seems highly probable that we have found the leap in language that LSAT is testing.

Does "making some people happy" = "increasing the sum total of human happiness"?

Nope. You'd have to balance out all the happy and unhappy to see if, on the whole, something has increased the sum total of human happiness.

You kept describing (D) as though it related to proving that one thing is not NECESSARY to another. That totally lost me.

We're just trying to respond to this guy that "Just because your proposed reform pleases some of your constituents, you have convinced us that it increases the sum total of human happiness.'

(D) is simply the best rephrasing of that we get.

I think your missed reading with this problem was that you didn't register that "good social reform" in the Conclusion had already been defined in the Premise.

Because of that, are primary concern becomes establishing whether this PROPOSED REFORM actually meets the criterion given for what defines GOOD REFORM.

=====

For example, if I said:

"The best way to a woman's heart is to show her you respect her judgment. Since my recent love letter to Kathy involved soliciting her week 12 picks for Fantasy Football, my letter was the best way to a woman's heart."

Take a sec and tell me what link we're missing.



We need to get from "soliciting her week 12 picks" to "showing her you respect her judgment".

Make sense?