Q18 - People cannot be morally

[wayne_palmer10]

I was wondering if you'd diagram this question? I was thinking (A) would be correct but the language is too strong. Not exactly sure why (E) is correct.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

It's a tough call in terms of whether to diagram this or not -- I personally would not recommend it, but it is a very verbose argument, and, if you think diagramming will help you clarify your understanding, and won't take too long, maybe you go for it.

The reason (E) is correct is because the argument tells us that everyone performs actions that are consequences of things they had no control over, and therefore have no moral responsibility over.

(A) is very attractive, but the argument is specifically about the treatment an infant receives. In theory (though not in real life), an infant can decide to do something mean, say, and therefore be morally responsible for it.

[b91302310]

But answer (E) mentions every action he or she performs, regardless whether an action is over or under adults' control. So, is it too far for a inference to be made?

Could anyone clear it up?

Thanks !

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

Good question -- here's an example of where the "every" has a different impact than what we might assume. Note that it's generally not the strength of the wording in the answer that should alarm you on a question like this, but, more specifically, the strength of the assumption required.

Notice the exact wording of the conclusion "No adult should be held morally responsible for every action he or she performs."

Notice that the conclusion is actually a negation of the "everything" concept -- what do we need in order to prove that (E) is true? We just need to show that adults have some actions for which they should not be held responsible.

Since we're told that everyone has some actions they are not responsible for, we can prove (E) using the argument.

Hope that helps clarify. Please feel free to follow up if it doesn't!

[tamwaiman]

Since the stimulus tells us "Everyone, however, sometimes acts in ways that are an inevitable consequence of treatment received as an infant", does "sometimes" equal "some"?

I wonder what role the time adverb "sometimes" plays in the logic form.

Thank you.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT2]

I think you can think of "sometimes" and "some" as being very similar.

[unmrkny]

Can you say "the treatment one is receiving" is equivalent in meaning to "action he or he performs"?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Not exactly. You could infer that some actions people perform are an inevitable result of the treatment they received. In a way they're connected - but not entirely. And we probably should not call them equivalents, but rather loosely connected.

[weiyichen1986]

hey there,

I also got wrong on this one, i pick C. Is it because "adults who claims"? I mean the stimulus sounds like a general statement....

Thank you for cleaning this up.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Absolutely. The issue with answer choice (C) is that the stimulus never commits the author to anything about what "adults who claim that they have no control over the treatment they receive."

Let's just take a look at all the incorrect answer choices, all at once:

(A) is too strong. We know that infants cannot be held responsible for the treatment they receive - but this answer choice is about any sort of action.
(B) is unsupported. Where does the stimulus discuss commonly performed actions?
(C) is unsupported. Where does the stimulus discuss adults who claim to have no control?
(D) contains the negation of an implied relationship. A common trap for creating wrong answer choices that contain conditional relationships.

Hope that helps!

[alovitt]

I narrowed this one down to A and E, but picked A. The reason I picked A was because the last sentence says infants cannot control, and we know from the first premise, if thing over which people cannot control then cannot be morally responsible for that thing, and therefore should not be held morally responsible for any inevitable consequences of such things. So, if an infant (a person) performs an action (which is a thing) and we know "infants clearly cannot control" then how could it be the case that an infant should be held responsible for any action they perform?

The only way this is possible is if "infants clearly cannot control" is not a universal claim, but it's clear that the stimulus applies it as if it were universal. What am I missing here?

For E, I understand now how that could be inferred, but it seems to depend upon the exact same logic as A because some actions are inevitable consequences and if they are inevitable then they shouldn't be held responsible.

[timmydoeslsat]

The stimulus tells us that people cannot be held morally responsible for the inevitable consequences of things that come about due to no control.

So for example:

~ No control over thing ---> ~ Morally Responsible ---> ~Morally Responsible for consequences of thing

Although we know that infants have no control over the treatment they receive...that doesn't mean there are not other things that they may have control over.

It is true that infants are not morally responsible for consequences of treatment they receive, but they could be responsible for high-pitched screaming lets say!

We are told that everyone sometimes acts in ways that are inevitable consequences of treatment as infants.

So, we know that everyone is going to be able to have at least one action that they are not morally responsible for.

That means E would be a valid inference. Every adult is going to have at least one action that they have ~moral responsibility. So not every action an adult makes will be one that is morally responsible for them.

[alovitt]

I figured out where my reasoning went wrong. Honestly, the structure of the last sentence is very bizarre. The "and infants clearly cannot control" part is situated between two commas as if it were an additional stand alone premise and not merely a qualification. I think it would be much more coherent if it said "which" instead of "and." Or it should say "and infants cannot control that treatment." Then again it is followed by another set of commas, so I guess it is grammatically correct, but very strange. Anyway, thank you!

[Multanik.24]

I have no idea what's going on with this question. Why is D incorrect? And why is E correct?

[gplaya123]

There are two statements that need to be focused:

1) Any inevitable conseq (Ic) ->~ Morally Responsible (MR)
2) Everyone sometimes act (some of their actions) -> that results from IC
They can be combined (bear in mind that the second statement is a quantified statement, meaning the necessary and sufficient conditions can be interchangeable)

IC -> ~MR
IC ->(some) of their actions

Some of their actions -> ~MR

If you decipher this diagram, it says some of the actions that people perform shouldn't be held morally responsible, which is what precisely E says. Tricky part is that first of all, they switch "everyone" to "adults" in E... And second, it's a strongly worded AC. But, if you read it, it's not that strong: it is just saying that not all actions that adult perform cause them to held morally responsible.

The reason A is wrong, which is the AC that I chose... is because stimulus talks about that infants are not MR for the treatments they receive, not the actions they perform.

For the other AC:

B) uh we don't know whether there are exceptions...
C) partial responsibility was never discussed
d) That is the inverse of the first statement.

Hope this helps

[economienda]

What does this sentence mean: "...adults have no control over the treatment they are receiving..." Specifically, what is meant by "treatment they are receiving"???

[mwalton444]

I had the same thought, where did this "treatment" come from?

[donghai819]

Hey mwalton444. I think the "treatment" is just a meaningless symbol that the author uses to substitutes "things" in the first sentence. It may be simply an additional twist to make this stimulus more complicated. Plz correct me if I'm wrong.

[tl1049a]

I just came across this question and fell for answer D. I diagrammed No Control - > Not Morally Responsible.

"Everyone, however, sometimes ats in ways that are inevitable consequences of TREATMENT RECEIVED AS AN INFANT, and infants clearly cannot control,
and so are not morally responsible for, the treatment they receive."

Is the author of this passage calling adults infants? I am extremely confused and the explanations above were of no use to me.

[Misti Duvall]

Question Type:
Inference (Must be True)

Stimulus Breakdown:
- control --> - moral responsibility --> - moral responsibility for consequences
everyone --> some actions consequences of treatment recieved as infant
infant --> - control treatment recieved --> - moral reponsibility for treatment recieved

Answer Anticipation:
Yikes, this is one dense stimulus. With this much conditional logic, it can help to diagram. For must be true Inference questions, the answer must be 100% provable from the information given in the stimulus.

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) This is tempting, and seems like a logical extension of the idea that infants can't be responsible for the treatment they receive. But be careful: this answer is about the actions infants perform, and there's no connection in the stimulus between the treatment infants recieve and the actions INFANTS perform.

(B) We have no information about "commonly performed"actions, so we can't prove anything based on them.

(C) Also nothing in the stimulus about adults who claim to have no control.

(D) If we diagram, this means: control --> moral responsibility for consequences, which is an illegal negation of part of the information in the stimulus.

(E) This diagrams to: adult --> - moral responsibility for every action, which fits the information given in the stimulus. If everyone has some actions that are consequences of treatment they recieved as an infant, over which they had no control and therefore no moral responsibility, then it follows that there must be some actions for which adults have no moral responsibility. In other words, they're not responsible for EVERY action.

Takeaway/Pattern:
If you have a dense stimulus with conditional logic, diagram it! It can make understanding the stimulus, and evaluating the answers, easier.

#officialexplanation