Q17 - Ethicist: The penalties for drunk

[noah]

Tricky answer choices to this one! I agree with theaether's analysis. But, let me do a full write-up for the record.

Let's breakdown the argument.

Conclusion: Legal responsibility is different than moral responsibility.

Premises: Moral Responsibility is based solely on intention. Legal responsibility sometimes depends on factors other than intention. For example, drunk driving + injury receives a stiffer penalty than drunk driving without injury.

We're asked to identify the role of the example. The example is of a situation in which something other than intention is used to determine legal responsibility. (D) nails it.

(A) is too extreme - the argument doesn't say that legal responsibility is based only on unintended features - there's no discussion of all the factors that go into legal responsibility. There might be some intended factors that go into legal responsibility.

(B) is tempting! The part in question is used to explore the criteria of legal responsibility, however the conclusion is not that the criteria that legal responsibility uses includes the factors that moral responsibility uses; the conclusion is that the factors are different.

(C) is incorrect because drunk drivers, causing injury or not, are legally responsible. The issue is that the severity of the penalty changes.

(E) is tempting! We do learn that moral responsibility depends solely on intentions, but the example we're looking at is not used to support that. In fact, that fact is a premise that is stated without support.


#officialexplanation

[alinanny]

I was debating between C and D and went for C. Isn't it an illustration or an example of an action a person would be morally responsible without being legally responsible.
D sounds like a better choice.
Help me eliminate C.
Thanks

[theaether]

I think here in both cases, the author is assuming that the drunk driver is legally responsible. Whether he hurts someone else or not. We can infer this from "the penalties are far more severe." So if in both cases the driver is legally responsible, then C can't be right, since it assumes that in one of the instances, the person would not be legally responsible at all.

The argument boils down to legal and moral responsibilities being different in a certain way. D is saying that the drunk driver example supports the claim that the two things are different in a specific way.

[redcobra21]

Thanks for the explanation Noah! I'm working on this problem in Manhattan 15 and just a quick clarifying question.

When I first did this question, I identified that the part being referenced was being used as an example to illustrate a point, and that's why I narrowed my answer choices down to (B) and (C) because they included the phrase "offered as an illustration." For future purposes, is it alright to say that something "offered as an illustration in support of the claim" is the same thing as a "premise offered in support of the claim"? Does the semantic difference between B/C and D/E actually do anything?

Thanks!

[noah]

Thanks for the explanation Noah! I'm working on this problem in Manhattan 15 and just a quick clarifying question.

When I first did this question, I identified that the part being referenced was being used as an example to illustrate a point, and that's why I narrowed my answer choices down to (B) and (C) because they included the phrase "offered as an illustration." For future purposes, is it alright to say that something "offered as an illustration in support of the claim" is the same thing as a "premise offered in support of the claim"? Does the semantic difference between B/C and D/E actually do anything?

Thanks!

Good question.

I'd say that "premise offered in support" is broader than "offered as an illustration" -- does the illustration serve as a premise? Yes. However, you can have illustrations that are not premises. Men are greedy, therefore men are weak, just like Jim.

Regardless, I don't think you'll get a lot of traction out of that issue--focus instead on what it's an illustration/supporting premise of.

[andrewgong01]

How did we know in the drunk driving case that intentions did not play a role? Choice "D" would be implying that the intentions played no role since it says legal liability depends on factors "other than the agent's intention"

However, my view of the stimulus intention was not the sole determining factor in determining the punishment. Regardless of if injury is involved, there is still a penalty; the variation in penalties is due to the consequences of the action but what caused the initial lowest tier of punishment? The level of punishment is based of the injuries caused but what if no injuries occured and there is still a penalty?

In other words, since there will always be a penalty regardless of if injury involved how did we conclude here that intentions played no role in the drunk driving example; it merely only shows that intention did not play a 100% role in determining the punishment. This is why I picked "B" where it allows for some overlap between both camps --moral intentions and the legal outcome view whereas "D" does not allow the overlap. In all, I am not sure how we concluded that the example illustrates that intention was not a factor in determining the liability of the drunk driver.

[ohthatpatrick]

To clarify, we're saying the drunk driver didn't intend to injure someone.

I think you're talking about whether the drunk driver intended to drive drunk. When you're saying, even if no one is injured, there would still be a penalty, you're referring to a penalty for drunk driving.

The first sentence is saying "the EXTRA penalty", "the EXTRA legal punishment" you get for injuring someone while drunk driving has nothing to do with whether you intended to injure someone.

(We know they didn't intend to injure because it says "the drunk driver accidentally injures people")

You should also keep in mind that (B) is saying
"the first sentence was used to illustrate a claim [the argument never made]"
while
(D) is saying
"the first sentence was a premise in support of a claim [the argument actually made]"

If you're picking (B), you're either thinking that
"X is different from Y" = "the criteria for X include, but are not the same as, those for Y"

or you're missing the idea that we can eliminate an answer choice if it accuses the argument of having made a claim that the argument never made.

[Jayh507]

Take on question analysis-

Q#17 ID the Role

Conclusion: Legal responsibility is different than moral responsibilities (depending on factors other than the agent’s intentions).
Premise: Penalty for drunk driving is more severe if you injure some than if you don’t. (So, if I’m DD and no one is injured, I will get off with community service. If 1 person suffers a concussion, then I will do jail time.)
Premise 2: Moral responsibility depends solely on the intentions of the actions and not the results (if I purposefully rammed my car into a store front then I’m morally responsible versus if I becoming temp blinded and drive into a store front)
Pre-phrase: Role of the claim that “drunk driving are far more severe…” What its not: the conclusion, anti-conclusion. What it is: some type of support that coupled with another “supporting statement” supports or provides justification for the conclusion.

A.) It is a premise but it’s not supporting this claim. The claim is hard to understand but “solely based upon features” is overstated
B.) I chose this answer choice but the “include” makes this wrong. We don’t know if the criteria “includes but is not the same.” This would look like- legal responsibility is based on X, Y, and Z. Moral responsibility is based on X, Y. Legal respon includes the criteria for MR but it’s not the same. The argument doesn’t present any overlap between LR and MR
C.) Unsupported- argument doesn’t say you will held morally respon if not legally
D.) Correct- It is a premise- it does support this next statement: legal respon. Depends on factor’s other than intentions
E.) Text confusion- mixes term with wrong definition- legal respon to moral respon definition

[LewenW112]

This is not strictly related to what this question is testing, but can someone explain the difference between the word "premise" and the word "claim" in LSAT? I was struggling between choosing (B) and (D) and the use of "premise" and "claim" tripped me out a bit. Thank you!

[AnnaT620]

Hello -

Apologies in case I am missing something very obvious or reading too much into this - but I am really struggling with seeing how the question doesn't make the argument that "the criteria of legal responsibility for an action include but are not the same as those for moral responsibility", as the conclusion of the argument says: "legal responsibility, depending as it does in at least some cases on factors other than the agent's intentions, is different than moral responsibility."

The premise notes that "moral responsibility for an action depends solely on the intentions underlying the action", so wouldn't that include the agent's intentions?

Sorry, I spent ages thinking about this and feel like I'm going in circles at this point!

Thank you very much!

[Laura Damone]

You're gonna kick yourself for this: The argument never implies that the criteria for moral responsibility are included among the criteria for legal responsibility. The conclusion is just that the two things are different. If you removed the words "include but" from (B), it would be a contender.

That said, I'm wary of the idea that the claim plays the role of an illustration of another claim. The drunk driver facts are stated, and from that, the argument concludes something. That's not the same as the argument stating a claim and then providing an illustration of that claim. So even though you could write an argument that uses the drunk driver example to illustrate the claim about legal vs. moral responsibility, I'm not convinced that this is that argument. The "premise offered in support of" phrasing in answers A, D and E strikes me as preferable to the "It is offered as an illustration of" phrasing in B and C.

Hope this helps!