Q8 - the senator has long held

[paulinoinny]

I am a little confused by answer choice (E). I know it's not the right answer, but I was wondering if anyone knew what it meant. I guess now that I look at it again, an irrelevant consideration is not in the stimulus, but need some clarification. I can see now why the answer is really (D).

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting paulinoinny!

An appeal to an irrelevant consideration would be anything that was unrelated to the logic of the argument. For instance, I might try to justify my position that pie tastes is better than cake by bringing up that the word pie has fewer letter than cake does. The number of letters in the word is totally not relevant to the taste of the food! The senator never brings up some random thing, so (E) cannot be right.

Here, the senator justifies his principle by trying to tear down the counterexamples. But how does he tear down the potential counterexamples? By saying that IF they are truly obscene THEN they cannot be art. If that's true, then they would not disprove the principle.

But wait! The principle is identical! The principle says that no art is obscene - in other words, if something is obscene then it cannot be art. So, we have to accept the principle first in order to accept that the counterexamples don't disprove the principle. If we were to reject the principle at the beginning, then there's no basis for claiming that the counterexamples aren't art.

This is a classic example of circular reasoning. You have to accept the conclusion in order for the evidence to support the conclusion! In other words, you have to assume the conclusion to be true first. This is precisely what (D) says.

Let's take a quick spin through the remaining incorrect answers:
(A) There's no emotional appeal here.
(B) Nothing is implicitly contradictory.
(C) The senator never relies on himself as an explicit authority.


I hope this helps clear things up a bit!

[WaltGrace1983]

I would like to add a little bit to this explanation because sometimes (especially for flaw questions) I think too hard and I admittedly took too long to answer this question. I want to further break down what Christine is saying here for my own - and hopefully others' - understanding.

No true work of art is obscene
+
Some people bring up counter-examples: well-known works that are generally viewed as obscene
→
Senator rejects claim, saying that if these works are obscene then they cannot be works of art

Now this question is a flaw, asking what is wrong with the senator's reasoning in rejecting the claim regarding these works. I think there are a few things that can really help someone understand this problem. First of all, understand that there is a lot of conditional reasoning in this stimulus. The first premise says the following: (Work of Art → ~Obscene). conclusion states the following: (Obscene → ~Work of Art). Now from this, you should be able to see the BIG problem that jumps out. The problem is that one premise supports an identical conclusion or perhaps you could say that the conclusion is merely a restatement of the premise. This is unquestionably circular reasoning. This is otherwise known as assuming what it sets out to prove. Why is this circular reasoning?This is circular reasoning because the conclusion is merely the contrapositive of the premise. The premise says (A→~O) and the conclusion, reversing and negating this, says (O→~A). All in all, this is the flaw.

In addition, the stimulus says this critical phrase: "The senator justifies accepting the principle by saying that..."This phrase is critical. Why? Because it so clearly shows that the senator is justifying his conclusion of (O→~A) with the premise of (A→~O). Huge red flag!

[WaltGrace1983]

I personally got stuck with (C) a bit and I do have a question about it. Would (C) be correct if the senator was not appealing to a "general principle" but rather his "own principle?" For example, if the senator said "I believe it to be true that all art is not obscene" and followed it by saying the conclusion, would that be an example of relying on his own authority?

[christine.defenbaugh]

I personally got stuck with (C) a bit and I do have a question about it. Would (C) be correct if the senator was not appealing to a "general principle" but rather his "own principle?" For example, if the senator said "I believe it to be true that all art is not obscene" and followed it by saying the conclusion, would that be an example of relying on his own authority?

I'm not really sure that that would be enough, actually. Generally, relying on authority is framed like:

"Because my grandfather say X, X must be true!"

So, odd as it seems, relying on your own authority would likely be something like this:

"Because I said X, X must be true!"

Because that is just.....so odd....I would never expect it to actually happen on the LSAT. However, creative argument construction could always prove me wrong.

Does that help?

[WaltGrace1983]

Long overdue thanks, Christine!

By the way, what would (A) look like? Are there any questions that actually have this flaw because I haven't seen any that I remember.

[christine.defenbaugh]

Long overdue thanks, Christine!

By the way, what would (A) look like? Are there any questions that actually have this flaw because I haven't seen any that I remember.

I can't recall ever seeing an argument where this would be a valid criticism. It happens in real life all the time, but rarely on the LSAT. I think the reason for that is that "by emotional means" simply doesn't have a technical definition. What qualifies as 'emotional means'? How do I know that's what the author is actually trying to do? What if something is potentially emotional, but also logically relevant?

For an argument to be guilty of this, for certain, it would really have to be blatantly obvious. Something like: "You should vote for Candidate A. If you don't, then you'll make orphans cry. LOOK AT THESE PICTURES OF ORPHANS CRYING!!

Even then, I'd be more likely to characterize the flaw as 'assumes the voters should sacrifice other priorities to help keep orphans from crying'.

This answer choice shows up regularly as a wrong answer early in the section. I'm pretty sure I've never seen it as a correct answer, but anything is possible (just unlikely).