Q19 - Editorialist: Some people argue

[perfectparadise1]

This questions sucks. It makes me want to start a forest fire. How do you even go about breaking this down and then how do you justify D? I didn't like any of the choices. I see how the genetically malignant minds of LSAC rationalize D as the correct answer but it's a tough sell. I don't see how the argument hinges on this assumption and how I would even attack a similar question. Any insight would be much appreciated. IF I don't get an answer within 48 hours a tree will die . . . then another until I am appeased. I'm getting my Leatherface on.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Threats won't work here! That said, we still love to answer your questions!

The argument's conclusion is that we have no obligation not to cut down trees.

The evidence the argument offers in support of this conclusion is that we do not have an obligation towards trees - this can be inferred from the two statements stating that "if we have an obligation towards trees, then trees have rights. But trees don't have rights. So, we don't have an obligation towards trees.

Just because we do not have an obligation towards trees does not mean that we have no obligation not to cut down trees. We may have obligations say to other people who depend on trees. Maybe an obligation we have towards other humans is that we are obligated to not destroy their environment. In which case, we are not saving the trees for the trees' sake, but for our sake.

An assumption of the argument is that we are not obligated to not cut down trees for some other creature to which we are obligated.

If we negate (D) we get - "Avoiding cutting down trees is an obligation owed to some entity other than trees. This would totally destroy the conclusion. Remember if the negation of an answer choice would destroy the conclusion, then the answer choice was the right answer. So (D) is correct.

(A) is a reversal of a conditional relationship stated in the stimulus, but is not necessary to the argument.
(B) is irrelevant. We already know from the stimulus that trees are not the sort of thing that have rights.
(C) supports the claim that trees don't have rights, but we already knew that from the stimulus. Also, limiting rights to conscious beings is not necessary for this argument.
(D) is the necessary assumption. Without this assumption the conclusion would fall.
(E) is irrelevant. Even if we did have a "right" to cut down trees on our property, does not mean that we do not have an "obligation" not to cut down trees in general.

[missbernadette]

I'm trying to understand this argument but the negations are driving me crazy! Can you please simplify this sentence for me so that I can just understand the assumption, please???

An assumption of the argument is that we are not obligated to not cut down trees for some other creature to which we are obligated.

^^ Would this be saying that we can cut down trees even if we are obligated to some other creatures?

This section is confusing me:

Just because we do not have an obligation towards trees does not mean that we have no obligation not to cut down trees. We may have obligations say to other people who depend on trees. Maybe an obligation we have towards other humans is that we are obligated to not destroy their environment. In which case, we are not saving the trees for the trees' sake, but for our sake.

An assumption of the argument is that we are not obligated to not cut down trees for some other creature to which we are obligated.

In the first paragraph, I feel like you're saying that the assumption could be that we DO have an obligation not to cut down trees because other could depend on them, but then the second statement written seems to say something totally different. Can you please clear this up for me?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I can totally see your confusion. This assumption is stated in a negative which makes it hard to understand.

The assumption of the argument is simply that we don't owe it to to something or somebody else not to cut down trees.

We know that trees don't have rights. So we don't owe it to the trees, not to cut them down. But maybe we owe it to future generations of people not to cut down trees. The assumption is that we do not owe it something/somebody else not to cut down trees.

Does that help clear it up? I want to stay close to the language of the stimulus, which muddles the language a bit. But I hope this helps.

[aileenann]

Another assumption question on our hands here The core is:

Trees are not the sorts of things that can have rights -> therefore we have no obligation not to cut down trees.

I won't do it here unless I get a special request, but this would be a good one to diagram out in full with conditional logic. Anyone want to take me up on that challenge

Let's figure out which is a necessary assumption (they use the word "depends") for this argument.

(A) is not required. We already have its converse, and that doesn't seem to move the argument forward. Whether this is true or not, the rationale seems unaffected.
(B) is out of scope. This would only be helpful if we were trying to impose rights and obligations on trees or argue that trees had neither rights nor obligations.
(C) is out of scope, in the sense that we only care about trees.
(D) is interesting...hadn't thought of that! But now that I do, it seems like a good point. The author only covers trees not having rights - he must be assuming that this is the only entity that could have the relevant right. But imagine, for example, if some farmer had the right for his trees to be left alone. If we didn't rule that out, it would be a problem for this argument. Hence, the author must be relyong in this very assumption.
(E) is getting super specific in a way that isn't helpful (one's own property) and it also goes against the gist of the argument.

I hope this helps. Questions/comments always appreciated

[jennifer]

can you break down the conditional logic thanks

[gotomedschool]

"Just because we do not have an obligation towards trees does not mean that we have no obligation not to cut down trees. We may have obligations say to other people who depend on trees. Maybe an obligation we have towards other humans is that we are obligated to not destroy their environment. In which case, we are not saving the trees for the trees' sake, but for our sake."


Boom. This nailed it for me. Thank you very much!!!

Although, I would still like to see somone do the formal logic as you challenged in the other thread... I would but I suck at it

[kdeclark]

This is only semi-formal, but this is basically what's going on in premise/conclusion form:

1. If I have an obligation to some x --> x has a right (stipulated)
2. Thus, if I have an obligation to tree t --> t has a right (from 1)
3. But t can't have a right (stipulated)
4. Thus, I can't have an obligation to t (from 2 and 3)
5. Thus, I can't have an obligation not to cut down t.

This is actually valid from 1-4. The problem with the argument is the move from 4 to 5.

Note that 4 says that I can't have an obligation TO t. That follows from what comes before it. However, 5 says that I can't have an obligation "not to cut down t." The previous premises were all about who the obligation COULD BE OWED TO. The conclusion is about whether we could have an obligation to perform some particular action.

The only way to bridge the gap from 4 to 5 is to assume that there is nobody else to whom we could owe this obligation, for that would leave only the trees, and we just saw that we can't owe obligations to trees.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

that's perfect kdeclark!

[geverett]

Tough question. Do you think C would classify as a sufficient assumption?

[Dannyboy3D]

Tough question. Do you think C would classify as a sufficient assumption?

I personally think C) is a sufficient assumption.

*****************

To answer this question, I first diagrammed it...

P) ~CT: O (Some say not cutting trees is an obligation we have)

P) O --> R (But if we have an obligation to something, then that "something" must have rights. For example, if we have an obligation to trees, then trees have rights)

P) T: ~R (But trees can't have rights--that's crazy!)

C) ~CT: ~O (Thus, not cutting trees is NOT an obligation we have)

*************

So why is D) the necessary assumption? D) says Not cutting trees isn't an obligation to something else.

Well what if IT IS? What if your obligation isn't to the trees, but to something else? What if that something else requires you to not cut them down? What if that something else has the obligation--and therefore the right--to stop you from cutting down the trees? D) is a necessary assumption that is attacking the conclusion in the stimulus.

The negation would be: Not cutting trees IS an obligation to something else. That totally kills the conclusion in the stimulus! (I trust that you know how necessary assumption questions work)

Their obligation might not be to the trees, but it might be to something else! And if it is--and that something else has a right--then you better not be chopping down those trees!

*************

This is a BRUTAL question, but it's to your advantage to learn how to deal with it. A heads up: Hopefully you QUICKLY eliminated A) & B) when you realized their meanings are EXACTLY the same!

[nflamel69]

I Disagree with the statement that A and B means the same thing. If you read closely, A is taking about a right tocertain treamtents belongs to certain entity, which is never mentioned. and B is talking about a right that belongs to certain entity. In addition, C cannot be an sufficient answer choice. Because it doesn't address the gap that whether we have any obligation to any other entity in this scenario. Even if C is true, we still don't know. Maybe there are other live animals that we owe it to not to cut down the trees. Let me know if anyone else sees it differently.

[T.J.]

After review, I'm still struggling with (C).
Here is how my thinking goes: the negation of (c) is that NOT only conscious entities are the sort of things that can have rights. Tree is not a conscious entity, so does it mean a tree, though unconscious, has rights? So this is going against what it says in the premise.
I could sorta rebut myself in the following way. So even if there are some other things beside conscious entities that have rights, trees don't have to be among them. We can say that flowers have rights and trees still don't, which means the negation of (C) does not impact our argument at all.
You guys think? I would appreciate a rebuttal of (C) from a different perspective, say argument core.

[WaltGrace1983]

I Disagree with the statement that A and B means the same thing. If you read closely, A is taking about a right tocertain treamtents belongs to certain entity, which is never mentioned. and B is talking about a right that belongs to certain entity. In addition, C cannot be an sufficient answer choice. Because it doesn't address the gap that whether we have any obligation to any other entity in this scenario. Even if C is true, we still don't know. Maybe there are other live animals that we owe it to not to cut down the trees. Let me know if anyone else sees it differently.

This, to me, is an absolute SLAM DUNK!

(A) and (B) are certainly very similar, especially in their wording. However, the problem is that, while (A) and (B) have basically the same vocabulary, they are both talking about totally different things.

(A) says: (Right to a certain treatment → Obligation to treat it that way). This is so close to what is happening in the original argument but it is actually flipped around. We want it to say: (NO Right to a certain treatment → NO Obligation to treat it that way). This to me would represent a correct assumption because we are looking an answer choice that reflects the idea that IF something does not have rights THEN we don't have a certain obligation to that thing. We can eliminate (A) right off the bat because we know that "trees are not the sort of things that can have rights."

(B) says: (Rights → Obligations). This commits the same flaw as (A) in the sense that we are looking for (NO Right → NO Obligation). Thus, (B) - like (A) - is flipped around too. However, (A) focuses on having a specific right/obligation to something while (B) talks about rights/obligations in general. This distinction is important because we don't have care about the obligations that trees have, we care about the obligations that we have toward the trees or other entities. The obligations of trees is way out of scope (and quite frankly a hilarious thought).

(C) is absolutely not sufficient. Why? Because in order to draw a sufficient assumption from this stimulus, we would absolutely have to have something to do with having "no obligations." If a new idea is put forth in the conclusion ("no obligation not to cut down trees") then we must address it. (C) merely talks about rights. Okay...but what about obligations? That is the meat of this argument!

After review, I'm still struggling with (C).
Here is how my thinking goes: the negation of (c) is that NOT only conscious entities are the sort of things that can have rights. Tree is not a conscious entity, so does it mean a tree, though unconscious, has rights? So this is going against what it says in the premise.

Let's simplify this. What you are trying to do is attack a premise. If you negate (C), you get "NOT only conscious entities have rights" or in other words "There are SOME ~conscious entities that have rights." You are absolutely correct that trees does not have to be a part of this "some" and thus you could probably eliminate it for being irrelevant.

However, you can also eliminate it because it merely talks about the premises. We want to attack the GAP between the premises and the conclusion. This does not talk about "obligation" and that is something absolutely essential to the correct answer.

Hope that helps.

[brandoncbias]

I was with you until you mentioned why C isn't a sufficient assumption. According to your interpretation of the stimulus, it definitely attacks the argument core. C essentially creates another necessary assumption for having rights and therefore having obligations as well.

Can have obligations --> Can have rights --> Is a conscious entity

Contrapositive:

Is not a conscious entity --> Cannot have rights --> cannot have obligations

Trees are obviously not conscious entities, which I think is also a pretty safe assumption to make in the LSAT world. Therefore, trees cannot have rights nor obligations, which consequently would validate the conclusion.

The problem is that this has still not accounted for the author's shift in emphasis from "obligation not to cut down trees" to "obligation towards trees". There could still be an obligation to something other than the trees that could destroy the argument! Watch out for those tricky changes in topic!

[roflcoptersoisoi]

Ok so I've tried diagramming this in conditional form and i've think got it, however feel free to correct me if i'm wrong.

~ CT --> O ( Not cutting down trees is an obligation we have, which is what the first sentence, i.e. the opposing point is trying to convey)
O --> R ( However there can be no obligation unless that entity has a corresponding right).
OT --> R (If we have an obligation towards trees than trees have rights).
T --> -R ( Trees are not the sort of things that can have rights)
------------
~CT --> -O ( Not cutting down a tree is not an obligation to us, is essentially what the conclusion is.


So how do we get from ~CT to ~O? We need to link up out conditionals so in the end we get:

~CT --> O --> R --> ~T --> ~ O

So as we can see above, to get to ~O from ~CT we need to assume that if ~T then ~O, in other words if it is not a tree then we don't have an obligation to it which is essentially what D) says. Not sure if this is right, but tried my best.

[tianchentong]

(C) supports the claim that trees don't have rights, but we already knew that from the stimulus.

(C):we do not know that from the stimulus that trees don't have rights.