Q12 - One can never tell

by **ManhattanPrepLSAT1** Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:39 am

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) answer choice (E) would not justify the argument.

The argument consists of a premise, a subsidiary conclusion, and a primary conclusion

One cannot know the motives
-------------------------
One cannot know if it's moral
-------------------------
Evaluate the consequences

On a sufficient assumption (what I think you mean by "justify") we would need to establish the primary conclusion. But since this is just a "most helps to justify" question, we can support either the subsidiary conclusion or the primary conclusion.

To support the subsidiary conclusion

If one doesn't know the motives, then one doesn't know if the action is moral - best expressed in answer choice (A) in the form of a contrapositive.

Answer choice (E) says if you know something is moral, then you must be able to evaluate the consequences. Remember "unless" negates the sufficient condition when put into if/then form. So while (E) sounds close, it actually can't be used to justify the argument because it's sufficient condition is not the same as the subsidiary conclusion.

If you changed the word "cannot" to "can" in answer choice (E), then it would have worked!

#Official Explanation

by **dheleg** Tue Dec 07, 2010 2:53 am

answer (E) is very tempting...

the contrapositive of (E) is:

if one doesn't know the consequences of one's actions then one doesn't know if those actions are moral. is that true?

if that's the case it would actually be true and justify the reasoning of the stimulus.

do you agree?

by **ManhattanPrepLSAT1** Thu Dec 09, 2010 9:57 pm

I agree that answer choice (E) is very tempting and you're correct about the contrapositive, but that still wouldn't make it the correct answer.

Is the following argument sound?

Example: If one doesn't know the consequences of one's actions then one doesn't know if those actions are moral. Juan doesn't know if Stephanie's actions were moral. Therefore Juan should evaluate the consequences of Stephanie's actions.

In the example, the evidence and the conclusion were meant to match the evidence and the conclusion of the stimulus. But if you add in your assumption, you can see that the conclusion does not follow. So answer choice (E) does not support the argument.

Does that answer your question?

by **Celeste757** Tue Apr 26, 2011 7:01 pm

hi, i got this one wrong on the practice. i picked D, thinking that that underlying moral would help to justify the reasoning. doesn't D exactly encapsulate what the paragraph is suggesting? is there a way to explain why A is correct other than the way above, am confused by that. thank you!!!!

by **ManhattanPrepLSAT1** Thu Apr 28, 2011 3:14 am

Sure, I'm happy to explain this one another way.

The question stem asks us for an answer that would do most to justify the conclusion. That means that we'll approach this question the same as we do every other Assumption family question; identify the argument core, evaluate the logic - looking for underlying assumptions, and then because we're asked to help justify the conclusion, we'll choose an answer that provides the assumption.

There are three claims in the stimulus that serve the following roles:

Premise ==> Intermediate Conclusion ==> Conclusion

one can never know another person's motives ==>
one can never know if an action is moral ==>
evaluate the consequences of an action

There are two gaps in reasoning, between the premise and the intermediate conclusion, and between the intermediate conclusion and the main conclusion.

Answer choice (A) bridges the gap between the premise and the intermediate conclusion. Notice how if you add answer choice (A) to the first statement, that the second statement follows.

interpreted for copyright purposes...

Knowing the motives of an action are necessary to knowing whether that action is moral. One can never know the motive. Therefore, one can never know if it's moral.

(D) is about good actions. That's way out of scope. The argument infers from the first that we'll never know whether an action is moral or not, so how could we say anything about "good actions?" We aren't certain about which actions are good. Likewise, it would be a flaw to assume that having "ulterior motives" equates to not being a good person.

Remember on Principle Support questions that the correct answer will bridge the gap between the evidence and the conclusion. It's not just looking to summarize the information.

Does that answer your question?

by **gotomedschool** Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:45 pm

great explanation... i had it between A and E, knew the structure was premise-->sc-->mc but I just did not think it through far enough to notice that after negating the "cannot" it turns into can know whether an action is moral =/= the SC........

sooooooooooo close!

this was a question I actually got right the first time I did it then after redoing got it wrong :lol:

by **nflamel69** Wed Jun 27, 2012 4:39 pm

2 questions: 1st, why is it unfortunately or fortunately the answer is not E, was there a typo on the answer key? (sorry if this is tangent) 2nd, I didn't think E was tempting at all, so I'm wondering if my reasoning was wrong: I Eliminated E because the argument said that since we can't evaluate morality, so we have to evaluate the consequences, its more like a between 2 choice reasoning, but E put morality and consequences in a conditional format, so I don't see how can it be right even if you change cannot to can.

by **ManhattanPrepLSAT1** Wed Jul 04, 2012 4:53 pm

nflamel69 Wrote:why is it unfortunately or fortunately the answer is not E, was there a typo on the answer key?

It's just my way of saying that I know a lot of people missed this one. In sets of 100 test takers only 25-35% of people will select answer choice (A).

nflamel69 Wrote:I didn't think E was tempting at all, so I'm wondering if my reasoning was wrong: I Eliminated E because the argument said that since we can't evaluate morality, so we have to evaluate the consequences, its more like a between 2 choice reasoning, but E put morality and consequences in a conditional format, so I don't see how can it be right even if you change cannot to can.

A conditional statement is exactly what most principles are. Answer choice (A) is a conditional too, so that (E) is a conditional statement should not be grounds for dismissing it. What's more answer choice (E) does get the outcome of the conditional relationship correct, just not the trigger.

Hope that helps!

by **shirando21** Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:04 pm

mattsherman Wrote: Remember "unless" negates the sufficient condition when put into if/then form. So while (E) sounds close, it actually can't be used to justify the argument because it's sufficient condition is not the same as the subsidiary conclusion.

If you changed the word "cannot" to "can" in answer choice (E), then it would have worked!

I thought we only use negation rule for necessary assumption questions. We use that for sufficient assumption as well?

And what actually is the gap between intermediate conclusion and the main conclusion?

by **ManhattanPrepLSAT1** Sun Sep 16, 2012 12:16 am

We definitely do not use the Negation Test on Sufficient Assumption questions. The negation discussed was how to deal with the tricky language cue "unless."

The gap between the intermediate conclusion and the main conclusion is "if one does not know whether someone acted morally, than you must evaluate the consequences of the action."

Let me know if you still have further questions on this one!

by **shirando21** Sun Oct 07, 2012 2:05 pm

Got this one wrong again. But I think I understand now. A is a perfect contrapositive.

E is wrong because it states:

Know whether one acted morally-->
should know consequence

what we need is the opposite, which would be

does not know whether one acted morally-->
should know consequence

by **wj097** Sun Nov 11, 2012 3:58 am

mattsherman Wrote:
Answer choice (E) says if you know something is moral, then you must be able to evaluate the consequences. Remember "unless" negates the sufficient condition when put into if/then form. So while (E) sounds close, it actually can't be used to justify the argument because it's sufficient condition is not the same as the subsidiary conclusion.

If you changed the word "cannot" to "can" in answer choice (E), then it would have worked!

I have a different opinion on that. Even if we change "cannot" to "can" I do not see how that bridges the gap.

Gap: one can never know if an action is moral ==>
SHOULD EVALUATE the consequences of an action
New (E): one can never know if an action is moral ==>
KNOWS the consequences of an action

(E) seems more like a necessary assumption, and doesn't really justify the argument...

However, it is fair to say that it does to some degree help...so would it still be a valid answer choice for "most help justify principle" questions??

Thx

by **samuelfbaron** Fri May 31, 2013 12:58 am

I have an alternative interpretation to this:

One can never know a persons motives

It is therefore impossible to tell if someone is acting morally.

Therefore one should evaluate the consequences rather than morality.

(A) intention indispensable to evaluating morality --> I would also like to note that both the premise and intermediate conclusion use extreme language like 'impossible' and 'never'. This matches (A). I never looked at this selection from a formal logic angle. I just viewed this choice as simply strengthing the logical relationship between the premise and intermediate conclusion.

As for (E), the stimulus says NOTHING about being able to evaluate the morality of someone's actions based on consequence. In fact the stimulus says that "it is impossible to tell if someone acted morally". We should seek out an answer choice that supports this. (E) goes against this sentiment completely.

by **GingerB823** Thu Aug 17, 2017 1:13 pm

I had the same reasoning as the poster directly above and I found the discussion on the incorrect conditional relationship confusing. I'd just like to clarify if any of the discussion on incorrect conditionality matters if E is an irrelevant point altogether.

It seems irrelevant because the point of evaluating consequences is not to determine morality ("one should evaluate consequences of an action rather than its morality"...not "in order to determine its morality"); instead, the point of evaluating consequences is to provide an alternative of how to judge actions, since one cannot determine morality, as the stimulus argues.

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