Q18 - Editorialist: In all cultures

[Laura Damone]

Hi William!

One of the things that makes this question so hard for folks is that they take "almost universally accepted" to mean "can't be over-ridden." But this isn't actually the case. For one thing, that "almost" gives you some wiggle room. "Almost universal" won't ever translate into an absolute on the LSAT.

But more fundamentally, a thing being universally accepted doesn't imply that it cannot be over-ridden. And for good reason! Think about a courtroom scenario in which a man is being charged with driving his car on the sidewalk. Let's say a traffic light camera caught him in the act. Illegal? Definitely. It's universally accepted that driving on the sidewalk is illegal. But is this worthy of conviction? Well, that depends. What if the camera also captured footage of a child running in the street in front of the car? If driving on the sidewalk was the only way to avoid running over the child, the driver was faced with two conflicting absolute legal imperatives: don't drive on the sidewalk and don't run over children. He couldn't satisfy them both, so he had to choose.

The same logic applies to this question. Even though it's almost universally accepted that we should project family members from harm, other universally-accepted obligations might outweigh the duty to family in certain situations. The Editorialist fails to consider that possibility, and that's why answer B is correct.

Hope this helps!

[WilliamS670]

Hi William!

One of the things that makes this question so hard for folks is that they take "almost universally accepted" to mean "can't be over-ridden." But this isn't actually the case. For one thing, that "almost" gives you some wiggle room. "Almost universal" won't ever translate into an absolute on the LSAT.

But more fundamentally, a thing being universally accepted doesn't imply that it cannot be over-ridden. And for good reason! Think about a courtroom scenario in which a man is being charged with driving his car on the sidewalk. Let's say a traffic light camera caught him in the act. Illegal? Definitely. It's universally accepted that driving on the sidewalk is illegal. But is this worthy of conviction? Well, that depends. What if the camera also captured footage of a child running in the street in front of the car? If driving on the sidewalk was the only way to avoid running over the child, the driver was faced with two conflicting absolute legal imperatives: don't drive on the sidewalk and don't run over children. He couldn't satisfy them both, so he had to choose.

The same logic applies to this question. Even though it's almost universally accepted that we should project family members from harm, other universally-accepted obligations might outweigh the duty to family in certain situations. The Editorialist fails to consider that possibility, and that's why answer B is correct.

Hope this helps!

Since my initial response got deleted, I will try responding to this post again. You did not understand the initial post I made. I did not claim that near-universal acceptance of a duty means the duty can't be overridden. What I claimed is that if, as the Q stem states, "....it is almost universally accepted that one has a moral duty to prevent members of one’s family from being harmed.", then it follows that it is almost universally accepted that one has a moral duty to prevent one's family members from being harmed in all cases, i.e. without exception. In other words, it's almost universally accepted that the duty can't be overridden. If that's the case, other moral principles wouldn't be "widely recognized" as overriding the duty to prevent family members from being harmed, because it's almost universally accepted that it can't be overridden. At best, other moral principles could be recognized to override the duty to protect family from harm by a number of people less than the number in the population minus the number constituting "almost universal acceptance". In other words, a fraction of the population far below the fraction necessary for "wide recognition".

[WilliamS670]

Revising (to make the meaning more clear, not to change the meaning) the second sentence of the initial post:

'The first sentence implies the duty to prevent harm to family members is almost universally accepted as absolute, i.e., almost universally accepted to be incapable of being overriden'.

[Laura Damone]

This is definitely a very hard question, but I don't think it's a flawed one. The duty to prevent harm to family members is almost universally accepted. That "almost" tells us explicitly that this is not an absolute. Furthermore, even if that duty was universally accepted, that doesn't mean that it's always the overriding consideration. We all agree that you shouldn't drive on the sidewalk. That's universally accepted. But if a kid runs in front of your car, is it acceptable to swerve onto an empty sidewalk to prevent hitting the kid? Absolutely. The duty to protect life overrides the duty not to drive on the sidewalk. Even though both are universally accepted, one can override the other when they come into conflict.

[WilliamS670]

This is definitely a very hard question, but I don't think it's a flawed one. The duty to prevent harm to family members is almost universally accepted. That "almost" tells us explicitly that this is not an absolute. Furthermore, even if that duty was universally accepted, that doesn't mean that it's always the overriding consideration. We all agree that you shouldn't drive on the sidewalk. That's universally accepted. But if a kid runs in front of your car, is it acceptable to swerve onto an empty sidewalk to prevent hitting the kid? Absolutely. The duty to protect life overrides the duty not to drive on the sidewalk. Even though both are universally accepted, one can override the other when they come into conflict.

The reasoning for my position on the question is still not being addressed. It would be interesting to see what an instructor's thoughts are on the actual logic of my position, which is not addressed here.

[Laura Damone]

Hey William,

Sorry for the multiple repeating posts here! We had a technical issue that wiped out a bunch of old posts, including one of my replies to you and your most recent posts, and I didn't realize these had been restored when I posted earlier.

So let me make sure I'm understanding you: You don't think the duty can't be overridden, you just think that there can't be other duties widely recognized as overriding?

[WilliamS670]

Hey William,

Sorry for the multiple repeating posts here! We had a technical issue that wiped out a bunch of old posts, including one of my replies to you and your most recent posts, and I didn't realize these had been restored when I posted earlier.

So let me make sure I'm understanding you: You don't think the duty can't be overridden, you just think that there can't be other duties widely recognized as overriding?

I think in the opinion of whatever number of people in the sample (the population sum of all cultures, it seems) is equivalent to "almost universal acceptance", the duty to prevent harm to family members is unconditional. If in the eyes of an "almost universal" segment of the sample, the duty is unconditional, it won't be "widely recognized" that other moral principles can override it, i.e. a view that makes the duty to prevent harm to family members conditional won't be "widely recognized". Maybe I am missing something. To me, having a "duty" means "you have this obligation in all circumstances" and not "it is not true that you will never have this obligation". If you want to make having a "duty" conditional, there has to be a qualifier. "You have the duty to do X under circumstances Y or Z".

[Laura Damone]

Ahhh, I see what you mean. Unfortunately the LSAT can be nasty like that: Sometimes they'll give you text that you could reasonably infer to mean one thing in a real world interaction, but that you can't infer to mean that thing on the LSAT.

For example, if a waitress tells you that you can have peas or carrots with your meatloaf, you could reasonably infer that you can't have both. In the real world, we use "or" to mean "either one or the other, but not both."

But say the same waitress told a diner in a logical reasoning problem that they could have peas or carrots with their meatloaf. Which of the two claims below can we infer from that?

A) If the diner has peas, the diner doesn't get carrots.

OR

B) If the diner doesn't have peas, the diner does have carrots.

The answer: just B. "Or" on the LSAT means "at least one of the two," so if you don't have one you get the other. It does not imply that if you get one, you can't have the other, even though that's how we use "or" in the real world.

The same is true for the problem in question. In the real world, if a duty can be widely recognized as being overridden by other duties, you'd probably qualify it. You'd say "You have a duty to prevent family members from harm unless it would potentially cause greater harm to a greater number of people" or whatever other qualification you wanted to put on it. But on the LSAT, calling something a duty, even a universally accepted duty, doesn't imply that there aren't other duties widely recognized as overriding it.

And as frustrating as that is, it does make sense. The legal profession is full of competing duties and laws that come into conflict with one another. And I think the driving on the sidewalk analogy still holds. We universally accept that people shouldn't drive on the sidewalk. The fact that we universally accept that the duty to protect life overrides the duty not to drive on the sidewalk is also true. These things can be true at the same time.

Hope this helps!

[VanessaO186]

For this one I prephased: what if the crime committed by the family member that is being protected caused some other family immense pain? Would it still be morally right in that instance to obstruct police work? I was alluding to essentially what the first post stated, that being morality does not supersede law.