Q13 - Brooks: I'm unhappy in my

[jardinsouslapluie5]

Is this (A) about, Morgenstern is not taking into account that Brooks could be much unhappier if she quit job?
He is assuming "already unhappy" as a fixed stage?

[chike_eze]

Is this (A) about, Morgenstern is not taking into account that Brooks could be much unhappier if she quit job?
He is assuming "already unhappy" as a fixed stage?

I believe so. He is assuming that the degree of unhappiness in both cases will be the same. "Well, I don't really like the people I'm working with, but at least I get a pay check... o well." vs. "Damn! I am broke, and getting kicked out of my apartment!!"

[isaac.botier]

Q13. (A)
Question type: Flaw (Assumption Family)

Another flaw question, another core to find. The core of Morgenstern’s portion of the prompt is:

Only risk in quitting is not finding a new job + If Brooks quits and doesn’t find a new job he’ll be pretty unhappy + Brooks already unhappy --> He might as well quit.

The flaw here is not very heavy on logic, but rather requires some level of understanding human emotions. This is pretty rare for the LSAT.

Let’s think of some of the reasons Brooks might be unhappy at his job. His work might not be mentally stimulating. He may hate the people he works with. Maybe the food quality in the cafeteria at work has really fallen off. Or it could be that his officemate has a body odor issue. Now lets think of some possible reasons he will be unhappy if he quits and can’t find a new job. He won’t be able to afford his apartment any more. He won’t be able to pay his student loans. He may end up homeless and has no skill that translates well to street performance.

Morgenstern is assuming that Brooks would be the same level of (or less) unhappy if he were unemployed as he is at his job. As we can see from the examples above _ that’s a big assumption.

(B) is incorrect because Morgenstern’s assumption is that Brooks would be just as or less unhappy if he quit as he is at his job, which is not the same as assuming that he might as well quit.

(C) is incorrect because there is no mischaracterization of what Brooks said in our core

(D) doesn’t address the gap of our core. It’s not different types of risk we care about, but rather the possibility of different levels of unhappiness.

(E) is incorrect because there is no generalization based on a single case in our core.

--

(A) is exactly what we’re looking for. Morgenstern is failing to take into account that Brooks might be way more unhappy if he were unemployed and homeless than he is at his current job.

[Matt.Olsen5]

I have a quick question regarding the answer to this question. In the stimuli, Brooks states that he is unhappy "in my job." I read that as saying Brooks is specifically unhappy at his job, which does not necessitate that he is unhappy in the rest of his life (many people hate their jobs, yet still live fulfilling and happy lives). Yet from that statement, Morgenstern derives that there is no risk in quitting the job, as even if he loses a job, he will just be "pretty unhappy." That infers that Brooks would be be pretty unhappy in general (as he does not have a job to be unhappy at), yet we do not know if Brooks is already unhappy in his overall life, only that he is specifically unhappy at his job. This infers a risk, as Brooks' could lose the overall happiness that he could very possibly have. I read this as a mischaracterization of what Brooks says, as it takes Brooks' comment that he is unhappy at his job, and subsequently makes an argument based off the assumption Brooks is unhappy in his general life. I subsequently chose (c), but based off this line of thought I could also see (e) being a potential answer choice, as Morgenstern is generalizing Brooks' overall unhappiness from the fact that he is unhappy at work. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

[Incandenza]

I thought the fact that Morgenstern said "pretty unhappy" indicated that he is taking into account that unhappiness can vary because he used the modifier "pretty", similar to "very". So yeah, didn't pick (A) because I thought it was a trick. Went with D instead because nothing else looked good.

[Dannyboy3D]

How is there not a mischaracterization of what Brooks says, as answer C) suggests?

I believe one could argue that C) indicates Morgenstern is mischaracterizing Brooks' unhappiness.

[ttunden]

I think characterizes means misinterprets. Mogernstern isn't misinterpreting what Brooks says. He appears to understand proficiently what she was saying.

He addressed the risks, unhappiness, and quitting in Brooks statement.

So that's not really mischaracterizing. I think mischaracterizing may be similar to strawman argument or something of that nature.

B would be right is morgenstern only said you should quit, therefore you should quit. I would be really wary of answer choices like B. they are almost always wrong, and if they are not wrong then it is usually quite evident that it is a circular argument.

[rachellewrx]

Can anyone help with D, please?

I think the flaw in M's argument is that he assumes that there is only one risk in quitting the job. Then under this assumption, he says Brook is unhappy either way, so he should quit. But what if there are other risks in quitting? M jumps to his conclusion without considering other reasons that Brooks shouldn't quit his job. And Brooks did use the word RISKS.

Also, A talks about the the degree of unhappiness which is such an abstract term. It's like asking someone " are you sad or sadder?" It's hard to quantify the degree or intensity of such thing as unhappiness and sadness. And I thought LSAT was all about testing logics . A is just not a cool answer.

[maryadkins]

I'm with you that (A) isn't a cool answer, and I really like that you put that way.

What can I say, this is an annoying question.

I don't know, "two" in (D) was what signaled to me that it was wrong. Brooks talks about risks and Morgenstern tries to argue there's only one risk. But how is that conflating TWO DIFFERENT types of risk? There's not suggestion of what the other type of risk might be, and if anything, the criticism would be that there could be/are MORE risks than just one...it just doesn't match up. (A) at least cuts to the core of why M's argument is a mess.

[Camiller]

I have a quick question regarding the answer to this question. In the stimuli, Brooks states that he is unhappy "in my job." I read that as saying Brooks is specifically unhappy at his job, which does not necessitate that he is unhappy in the rest of his life (many people hate their jobs, yet still live fulfilling and happy lives). Yet from that statement, Morgenstern derives that there is no risk in quitting the job, as even if he loses a job, he will just be "pretty unhappy." That infers that Brooks would be be pretty unhappy in general (as he does not have a job to be unhappy at), yet we do not know if Brooks is already unhappy in his overall life, only that he is specifically unhappy at his job. This infers a risk, as Brooks' could lose the overall happiness that he could very possibly have. I read this as a mischaracterization of what Brooks says, as it takes Brooks' comment that he is unhappy at his job, and subsequently makes an argument based off the assumption Brooks is unhappy in his general life. I subsequently chose (c), but based off this line of thought I could also see (e) being a potential answer choice, as Morgenstern is generalizing Brooks' overall unhappiness from the fact that he is unhappy at work. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

Can an expert address this in regards to (C)? (Preferably Patrick)

[akshay.nelakurti]

I'm with you that (A) isn't a cool answer, and I really like that you put that way.

What can I say, this is an annoying question.

I don't know, "two" in (D) was what signaled to me that it was wrong. Brooks talks about risks and Morgenstern tries to argue there's only one risk. But how is that conflating TWO DIFFERENT types of risk? There's not suggestion of what the other type of risk might be, and if anything, the criticism would be that there could be/are MORE risks than just one...it just doesn't match up. (A) at least cuts to the core of why M's argument is a mess.

My first thought on seeing (D) was that, when Brooks says that he "doesn't know if he can accept the risks involved in quitting", he immediately implies multiple risks, so he's not just talking about the risk of being unhappy. The next risk that comes to mind is the risk of financial difficulties associated with not having a job. There could be others too.

This leads me to believe that Morgenstern mixed up two different kinds of risks. But as you said, "two different kinds of risks" is too specific regarding the number of risks (there could be more than two). This led me to choose option (C), Morgenstern mischaracterizes or misinterprets what Brooks meant by the word "risks".

How can we decide for sure that A is a better fit than C?

[ohthatpatrick]

This is definitely an annoying set of answers, because our objections to Morgenstern's argument are so multifarious that we could potentially stretch a lot of these answers to fit our 'story'.

I'm assisted in problems like these by thinking to myself, "If I were playing Devil's Advocate, what would I say?"

Devil's Advocate, a.k.a. "Opposing Counsel", only relates to the conclusion.

What is the conclusion?
"You might as well quit"

What would Opposing Counsel be arguing?
"You shouldn't quit"

If I were standing nearby and trying to argue that Brooks should NOT quit, I'd say something like,
"I don't know, Brooksy. You might be even unhappier if you were in the downward self-esteem spiral of being jobless. Wouldn't you rather have this crappy job than no job at all?"

Overall, Morganstern is grossly oversimplifying the complex life decision Brooks is contemplating. That's why (C) feels right.

But to 'mischaracterize' what someone says is to actually assign them a point of view they didn't have.

B: I think we should raise the minimum wage, because it currently keeps to many people in poverty.
M: Well I think people should have to work their way out of poverty, and you're saying that the government should just give people free money whenever they want it.

THAT's mischaracterizing what someone said.

We could pick (C) if it said something more like
(C) does not substantively respond to the full complexity of what Brooks says
or
(C) oversimplifies the risks that Brooks was worried about

-------------

For (D), people are reacting too much to Morgenstern's first sentence. Yes, it's a crappy idea. Yes, Brooks would probably disagree and say, "There were more risks I had in mind than simply not finding another job."

But --- that's not playing the LR game properly. The first sentence is a premise. We don't fight it.

The "so" shows us the conclusion, and we're just thinking about why we don't like the conclusion.

ANALOGY
Should we do X? The only risk in doing X is that we could lose money. But we're already losing money. So we might as well do X.

OBJECTION: Maybe X is a dumb move because you'll be losing MORE money than if you had not done X.

OBJECTION: Maybe quitting your job is a dumb move, because you'll be MORE unhappy than if you had kept your crappy job.

If we're focused on the argument core, we can't say that (C) is the problem with our argument -- Morganstern characterized Brooks as "already unhappy", and Brooks DID say he was unhappy in his job.

That's not a perfect fit, since a job is only 5/7 of your week, but it's not really a mischaracterization.

(A) points to a reasoning flaw ... a bad logical move ... "just because two options both result in unhappiness doesn't mean those two options are equally good/bad"

(C) could be a reasoning flaw in a different argument; we often see author's responding with some irrelevant point that doesn't get to the heart of what the first person was worried about. Perhaps we could call that a mischaracterization, but the problem here isn't that Morgenstern is distorting the truth in calling Brooks unhappy. The problem is that he assumes "unhappy w/ job = unhappy w/o job" in order to arrive at his conclusion.

[akshay.nelakurti]

Thanks, that helped a lot!

[WesleyC316]

Why not D? I chose (D) because the man first said the only risk was being unemployed, and then indicated that unemployment's only consequence was unhappiness and since M already had it he might as well just quit. He clearly conflated two different types of risks, the material type (not having income) and the emotional type (not being happy). I get why (A) is correct, just want to know why (D) is not. Would really appreciate it if someone could shed some light on it!