Q25 - Large inequalities in wealth

[peg_city]

??

I really don't get this one at all. Can someone break it down for me? I don't think I've seen a question like this before.

Thanks

[tamwaiman]

IMO, the structure is represented as follows:

A causes B, since C -> A and B -> C.

But I don't know whether the causation is a branch of conditional or they are irrelevant.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I see this one more as a valid argument that relies on a contrapositive and utilizes substitution.

The evidence is that true democracy depends on the equal distribution of political power. By substitution, we can say that true democracy depends on the equal distribution of wealth, since wealth is the basis of political power. This is still a correlation implied by the words "depends on."

Now by contrapositive we can conclude that if one does not have an equal distribution of wealth, then one will not have a true democracy - a rough paraphrase of the conclusion!

So what we want is something like:

A ---> B
B ---> C
------------
~C ---> ~A

(A) contains no substitution and does not involve a contrapositive so does not accurately reflect the logic in the stimulus.
(B) contains no contrapositive of a claim and so does not involve similar logic.
(C) does not contain two premises that can chain or utilize substitution so does not contain similar logic
(D) contains no contrapositive of a claim so does not involve similar logic.

This leaves us with answer choice (E). While the argument appears not to use substitution, it does use conditional logic:

good health ---> moderate exercise
moderate exercise ---> adequate leisure time
----------------------------------------------------
~adequate leisure time ---> ~ good health

This argument utilizes a contrapositive, and while the form of the second premise may not be exactly the same, it's not far off either and definitely represents the answer choice with the moste similar logic.

Hope that helps, and let me know if you still have a question on this one!

[qccgraphix]

I really liked your simple explanation tamwaiman. thank you!

[gplaya123]

This argument is very tricky because you have to synthesize the 2nd and 3rd premise.

True Democracy -> requires people to have equal PP
equal PP -> money

so if you synthesize them, you get:
True democracy -> equal distribution of money.
How did you get here?

True democracy -> requires people to have equal PP
requires people to have equal PP -> equal distribution of money.
---
~equal distribution of money -> ~True democracy

[MarkR495]

I was able to come up with the conditional relationship:

If ~ equal [inequalities] distribution of wealth ---> ~ true democracy [ability for true democracy to work not present]
If true democracy ---> Wealth equally distributed

by using the first sentence as a conditional relationship. Can the phrase 'always threaten' be used as a conditional trigger? Isn't that the same as 'depends on'? So you could say that if inequalities in wealth are present, that is sufficient to know that true democracy is not. From my understanding, the rationale I used to answer the question is different than substituting 'equal political power' with 'equal distribution of wealth'.

I want to make sure that this reasoning is okay to use, or if in this specific case, it is only permitted. I also used that with the phrase 'interfere with the requirements of good health', highlighting 'interfere with the requirements' as the conditional trigger.

If ~ adequate leisure time ---> ~ good health

If someone can provide some feedback on this, it would be very helpful for studying purposes!

Thanks' in advance!