Q20

 
jm.kahn
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Q20

by jm.kahn Sun Oct 04, 2015 8:46 pm

Suggestion in passage-A: harmless liar’s tall tales not sufficient reason to lie to him.

Para-1 psg-B: to act toward a liar in the same manner is to treat that person as a rational human.

Incompatibility: why is a behavior that is done to treat a pathological liar as a rational being not justified?


This question seemed very tricky to me.

A is wrong because para1 in psg-B is about rationality of liar and not one’s own irrational behavior. If responding to someone’s lie through a lie is irrational then it may explain why one shouldn’t respond to pathological liar with a lie but it doesn’t do anything to make para-1 psg-B compatible with suggestion in Line 23-24 of psg-A. Choice A is in fact counter to to what para-1 psg-B says.

D is wrong because even though it is compatible with both psg A and para-1 psg B, it requires the assumption regarding the notion of right vs duty that’s explained in other parts of psg-B but not in para-1 psg-B. Since D needs additional assumptions regarding the difference between right and duty, it alone doesn't make the two views compatible and therefore it is wrong.

B is correct because if true it makes the argument in para-1 psg-B moot. So the incompatibility disappears because now para-1 psg-B no longer applies to the behavior where one lies to a pathological liar. This makes both views compatible.

Experts, is the reason above for eliminating D correct?
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ohthatpatrick
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Re: Q20

by ohthatpatrick Sat Oct 10, 2015 7:03 pm

Yup, I think you pretty much nailed it. Great write-up!

The idea expressed in (D) really comes from the author of Psg B, as he defends his interpretation of Kant's argument.

We need to use the ideas that KANT himself gave us.

=== complete explanation ===

Should you lie to a pathological liar?

Psg A - the liar doesn't deserve the truth, but you probably shouldn't lie to him. After all, lying to him may harm YOU, society, the underpinnings of public trust, yada, yada.

Kant (Psg B) - you certainly are authorized to lie to him, as a sign of respect for his rational choice to lie. It shows that you respect him as a rational agent to reciprocate his rational choice to be a lying liar. So lying to a liar is treating him as a rational being.

I hate this question because I don't consider the passages too far apart in message: you have a RIGHT to lie to the liar, but we're not saying you SHOULD!

In LSAT's mind, there's at least some difference in tone / emphasis between the last P of psg A and the 1st P of psg B.

The former feels a little more like "you still shouldn't lie to him".
The latter feels a little more like, "Yeah, lie to him. That shows you respect him as a rational being."

The question stem wants us to harmonize psg B with psg A, so in order to make Kant's criterion for lying moot, we want to stop having to worry about treating this liar as a rational being.

(A) Some may hear this even going AGAINST Kant ... it sounds like lying to a liar is suddenly IR-rational. However, lying to a pathological liar is not PATHOLOGICAL behavior, so this rule isn't even applicable to our situation.

(B) Nice! If this pathological liar isn't rational, then we don't have to worry about Kant's desire to "respect his rationality" by lying back to him. Kant would now be more aligned with Psg A, thinking there's no good reason to lie to the liar.

(C) This goes the opposite direction of (B).

(D) This comes from the 2nd paragraph. In part that's a concern because it's not something Kant said directly but rather something the author is saying about Kant's philosophy. The other concern for me is that we already know this answer! Any question stem structured as "which of the following, if true" should give us some NEW gamechanger.

Because of this part of psg B, I didn't really think that psg A and Kant ever WERE in conflict or incompatible.

But in order to understand what this question stem is fishing for, we have to first identify where LSAT thinks there is friction between psg A and B. And the only way we could make sense of that task is to kinda go overboard with thinking that psg A is saying "DON'T lie to the liar" and Kant is saying "DO lie to the liar".

(E) This sounds like the beginning of Psg A. Kant would disagree with this, and say that as long as you're dealing with a rational thinker, modeling your thinking after theirs is to consistently employ rational standards.


Hope this helps
 
jm.kahn
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Re: Q20

by jm.kahn Sun Oct 11, 2015 5:01 pm

ohthatpatrick Wrote:
(D) This comes from the 2nd paragraph. In part that's a concern because it's not something Kant said directly but rather something the author is saying about Kant's philosophy. The other concern for me is that we already know this answer! Any question stem structured as "which of the following, if true" should give us some NEW gamechanger.

Because of this part of psg B, I didn't really think that psg A and Kant ever WERE in conflict or incompatible.



Why does D being stated somewhere else in passage B other than its first paragraph be a reason for its elimination?

The question stem is only referring to "Kantian argument" in "first paragraph of passage B" for incompatibility between it and the suggestion in passage A line 23-24. The q stem asks which one if true will remove incompatibility. So if D were true and removes incompatibility then it can be a right answer. Just because author has already mentioned it in the passage B shouldn't really have an effect on this question because of the question only refers to Kantian argument in the "first para of passage B" and D is stated somewhere else in passage B.

Wouldn't anything that can make the passage-A line 23-24 and 1st para of passage B compatible be a right answer? It's not clear why is the question stem structure of "which of the following, if true" require a new gamechanger as the question stem's scope for passage B is limited to its 1st paragraph.
 
rachel.miklaszewski
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Re: Q20

by rachel.miklaszewski Wed Nov 30, 2016 9:17 pm

I still think that D seems more correct. The relationship is that if someone is a rational actor then you treat them as they have acted toward others. You also could say that if you are not treating them as they have acted toward others, then they must not be a rational actor.

However, just because someone is irrational doesn't mean that you should not treat them as they have treated others. There could be additional things that would propel you to treat them as they treat others (i.e. they are habitual offenders, it upholds a common morality, etc.) Therefore B doesn't work. Just because a pathological liar is not rational doesn't mean that you must abstain from lying to him.

Whereas, answer D, having the right to lie is not the same as a duty is another way to explain the compatible of excluding a pathological liar - you can lie to pathological liars, but you don't have too. Therefore, you could say that there is not a sufficient reason (you don't want to) to lie to pathological liar.

Does this make sense? What are people's thoughts?