Q23 - Although most people favor the bill

[kthalen]

I always seem to have trouble on principle questions like this one. I get confused with how the conclusion of the argument plays into finding the principle. Can someone explain how one should get to the correct answer (E) and how to know that the others are wrong.

Thanks!

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting this question, kthalen! Principle support questions are a critical branch of the assumption family, and mastering them will strengthen your mastery of the whole family.

Since this is in the Assumption Family, we're going to start with the core:

PREMISE
Situation: 1) most people favor the bill
2) it doesn't violate basic human rights
3) adversely affected are influential
Result: Bill will not be passed for many years, or never
CONCLUSION
Country is not a well-functioning democracy.

There's a lot going on in the premises!

We need a principle, or some sort of general rule, that helps us get from the premises to the conclusion. A rule that says when that situation/result occurs, you can't be in a well-functioning democracy. In other words, in a well-functioning democracy, that situation/result wouldn't have happened!

(E) steps right up to the plate. This general rule states that if you are in a well-functioning democracy, and #1 and #2 above are true, the bill would be passed promptly (i.e., the result above wouldn't happen).

Since that's what should happen in a well-functioning democracy, and that's not what happened in our stimulus situation/result, the conclusion that we can't be in a well-functioning democracy follows!


The Unprincipled
(A) This rule applies to bills that "benefit most people". Our stimulus bill doesn't say anything about that!

(B) This rule has a result that a bill will "eventually pass into law". This doesn't contradict our stimulus result. If this were the rule, our stimulus situation might still be happening in a well-functioning democracy.

(C) This rule takes a little parsing: In a well-functioning democracy, if majority-favored bills become law quickly then the opposition is not influential. In other words, if the opposition IS influential, a majority-favored bill would take a long time to pass. This is exactly the result in our stimulus. But this rule says this is what happens in a well-functioning democracy, while our conclusion states that we can't be in one!

(D) This rule states that in a well functioning democracy, all bills passed have characteristics #1 and #2. But it doesn't support the idea that any bill that had those characteristics would pass! This reverses the logic that we need!


Notice that every answer choice was a rule about what should happen in a well-functioning democracy. If a well-functioning democracy produces a different result than the stimulus result, then the conclusion that we can't be in a well-functioning democracy makes sense!

For Principle support questions, start with the core, and find the rule that helps you get from the premise to the conclusion!

Please let me know if this completely answers your question!

[tungj]

Thanks for posting this question, kthalen! Principle support questions are a critical branch of the assumption family, and mastering them will strengthen your mastery of the whole family.

Since this is in the Assumption Family, we're going to start with the core:

PREMISE
Situation: 1) most people favor the bill
2) it doesn't violate basic human rights
3) adversely affected are influential
Result: Bill will not be passed for many years, or never
CONCLUSION
Country is not a well-functioning democracy.

There's a lot going on in the premises!

We need a principle, or some sort of general rule, that helps us get from the premises to the conclusion. A rule that says when that situation/result occurs, you can't be in a well-functioning democracy. In other words, in a well-functioning democracy, that situation/result wouldn't have happened!

(E) steps right up to the plate. This general rule states that if you are in a well-functioning democracy, and #1 and #2 above are true, the bill would be passed promptly (i.e., the result above wouldn't happen).

Since that's what should happen in a well-functioning democracy, and that's not what happened in our stimulus situation/result, the conclusion that we can't be in a well-functioning democracy follows!


The Unprincipled
(A) This rule applies to bills that "benefit most people". Our stimulus bill doesn't say anything about that!

(B) This rule has a result that a bill will "eventually pass into law". This doesn't contradict our stimulus result. If this were the rule, our stimulus situation might still be happening in a well-functioning democracy.

(C) This rule takes a little parsing: In a well-functioning democracy, if majority-favored bills become law quickly then the opposition is not influential. In other words, if the opposition IS influential, a majority-favored bill would take a long time to pass. This is exactly the result in our stimulus. But this rule says this is what happens in a well-functioning democracy, while our conclusion states that we can't be in one!

(D) This rule states that in a well functioning democracy, all bills passed have characteristics #1 and #2. But it doesn't support the idea that any bill that had those characteristics would pass! This reverses the logic that we need!


Notice that every answer choice was a rule about what should happen in a well-functioning democracy. If a well-functioning democracy produces a different result than the stimulus result, then the conclusion that we can't be in a well-functioning democracy makes sense!

For Principle support questions, start with the core, and find the rule that helps you get from the premise to the conclusion!

Please let me know if this completely answers your question!

I've reread your explanation a few times but answer B still seems so attractive. Is B be correct if the stimulus states the bill will not pass for sure?

[einuoa]

Thanks for posting this question, kthalen! Principle support questions are a critical branch of the assumption family, and mastering them will strengthen your mastery of the whole family.

Since this is in the Assumption Family, we're going to start with the core:

PREMISE
Situation: 1) most people favor the bill
2) it doesn't violate basic human rights
3) adversely affected are influential
Result: Bill will not be passed for many years, or never
CONCLUSION
Country is not a well-functioning democracy.

There's a lot going on in the premises!

We need a principle, or some sort of general rule, that helps us get from the premises to the conclusion. A rule that says when that situation/result occurs, you can't be in a well-functioning democracy. In other words, in a well-functioning democracy, that situation/result wouldn't have happened!

(E) steps right up to the plate. This general rule states that if you are in a well-functioning democracy, and #1 and #2 above are true, the bill would be passed promptly (i.e., the result above wouldn't happen).

Since that's what should happen in a well-functioning democracy, and that's not what happened in our stimulus situation/result, the conclusion that we can't be in a well-functioning democracy follows!


The Unprincipled
(A) This rule applies to bills that "benefit most people". Our stimulus bill doesn't say anything about that!

(B) This rule has a result that a bill will "eventually pass into law". This doesn't contradict our stimulus result. If this were the rule, our stimulus situation might still be happening in a well-functioning democracy.

(C) This rule takes a little parsing: In a well-functioning democracy, if majority-favored bills become law quickly then the opposition is not influential. In other words, if the opposition IS influential, a majority-favored bill would take a long time to pass. This is exactly the result in our stimulus. But this rule says this is what happens in a well-functioning democracy, while our conclusion states that we can't be in one!

(D) This rule states that in a well functioning democracy, all bills passed have characteristics #1 and #2. But it doesn't support the idea that any bill that had those characteristics would pass! This reverses the logic that we need!


Notice that every answer choice was a rule about what should happen in a well-functioning democracy. If a well-functioning democracy produces a different result than the stimulus result, then the conclusion that we can't be in a well-functioning democracy makes sense!

For Principle support questions, start with the core, and find the rule that helps you get from the premise to the conclusion!

Please let me know if this completely answers your question!

I've reread your explanation a few times but answer B still seems so attractive. Is B be correct if the stimulus states the bill will not pass for sure?

I thought about it a bit differently, but hopefully this will help.
To me it seems that although
1) most people favor the bill
2) bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights
the bill will not be passed for many years; if at all. So if the bill were to pass in a well-functioning democracy, it has to at least satisfy those two conditions.

Answer B neglects the fact that what if the bill violates basic human rights? Maybe that is the reason people are opposed to it? Even if it eventually passes into law, it doesn't mean it's a well functioning democracy.

I'm not completely sure if I can assume this or if this is right, if any LSAT geek would like to offer more explanation on this answer, that would be great!

[brandonhsi]

Hi Christine,

I am a little bit confused when you said "In other words, in a well functioning democracy, that situation/result wouldn't have happened!"

There are 3 situations, and one result listed. Which situation/result you meant wouldn't have happened? Maybe you meant, in a well functioning democracy, at least one of situations/result wouldn't have happened?

Also, situation #3: adversely affected are influential was not mentioned in the correct answer choice. Since we don't know if #3 situation happened or not, could we say the conclusion will follow?

We need a principle, or some sort of general rule, that helps us get from the premises to the conclusion. A rule that says when that situation/result occurs, you can't be in a well-functioning democracy. In other words, in a well-functioning democracy, that situation/result wouldn't have happened!

[christine.defenbaugh]

Thanks for posting, brandonhsi!

I actually meant the entire set of situations/result would not have happened! In other words, in a well-functioning democracy, if we had those three situations together, the bill would have passed promptly. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean we have a principle that touches all three situations, but rather, that the principle we're looking for will provide a rock-solid guarantee if we had those three situations in play.

You're right that (E) only gives us two of the three items. But if (E) is true, that's a guarantee in a well-functioning democracy that if 1) most people favor the bill and 2) it doesn't violate anyone's basic rights, then it will absolutely pass promptly. Because it is a guarantee (as a conditional), it doesn't matter whether the third situation occurs or doesn't - in either case, we're still assured that the bill would pass promptly. It is essentially saying "If you're in a well-functioning democracy, here's a promise about certain kinds of bills."

In our stimulus, that promise was broken - we had the bits in play for favor and non-violation of rights, and yet the bill will not be passed promptly. If (E) is a valid conditional, then the fact that the promise was broken has to mean we are not in a well-functioning democracy.

Imagine if we had this argument:

Joe didn't study for the test. He also showed up 20 minutes late. And yet, the jerk got an A. This proves the test is totally unfair.

A principle that said "On a fair test, a person who arrives late will never receive an A" would justify that argument. On a fair test, Joe's lateness would have prevented him from getting an A. But he got that A!

Similarly, a principle that said "On a fair test, a person who doesn't study will never receive an A" would ALSO justify the argument. On a fair test, Joe's lack of studying would have prevented him from getting an A. But he got that A!

A promise about ANY of the situations would cover the whole system!

There's also another way to look at the conditional in (E), for conditional logic diagramming geeks: there are three conditions listed, and if all three are met, a bill will be passed promptly.

IF:
1) in a well-functioning democracy AND
2) most people favor bill AND
3) bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights
THEN the bill will be passed promptly into law

In other words, this can be thought of as "If A & B & C --> D". The contrapositive of that would be "~D --> ~A or ~B or ~C". We know from the stimulus that ~D happen (the bill will NOT be passed promptly). We also know that B and C are true (most people favor, and no rights violations). So, to fulfill the contrapositive of the conditional, ~A must follow (NOT well-functioning democracy).

What do you think?

[magic.imango]

I'm having a hard time diagramming (E) properly. I read (E) as:

if the bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights AND most people are in favor -----> then the bill will be passed promptly into law in a well functioning society.

I eliminated (E) because I thought even though the sufficient conditions are being met (bill not violating basic human rights & most people being in favor, the necessary condition has been negated.

[jewels0602]

B and E really both seem attractive to me and even though I chose E (at the VERY last minute) i can't shake off B... I'm trying to justify it's elimination and could one of the geeks check to see if my reasoning is correct?

We can chop off B SOLELY because of the "eventually pass into law" the "..if at all" in the stimulus leaves a very tiny space open for the law to be passed in the future, and that little tiny space is left open for attack in AC B and we can't have that in principal-sufficient questions... if AC B said that the it will will pass into law in few years/soon, then would it be correct?

THANKS!!!!

[gabcap1]

I agree that (B) is quite a tempting answer choice. I think the point about "eventually" is well-taken, but would probably have been too subtle for me to notice when going through the ACs. I expanded on the human rights reason and came up with an additional one.

"Basic human rights" justification: If we take (1) most people favoring the bill + (2) the bill not violating basic human rights as the criteria for assessing whether or not the bill should be passed, then B is out, as it only covers (1). This misses the essence of the stimulus, as the point is not that majority rules in a well-functioning democracy; that is part of the point. But not violating human rights is right up there with it. Not only is the columnist upset that most people are in favor of this bill, which will "adversely impact" influential citizens, but, to add insult to injury, the bill doesn't violate basic human rights! (B) offers no guarantee of that. So, it's not simply who is in favor of and who opposes the bill, but the columnist also appears to be saying something about the content of the law.

"Influential people" vs. "most other people" justification: (B) says that "any bill" (this is uncomfortably broad) that is "opposed by influential people but favored by most other people will eventually pass into law." But there are a few red flags here.

1. We don't have direct evidence in the stimulus of how the influential people would vote on the bill. Making an inference that influential people who are adversely affected will all not support the bill is a leap. We should work with what we're given!

2. Let's say we make an assumption about the influential people's support for the bill. (B) is talking about "any bill that is opposed by influential people," but the stimulus leaves room for us to believe that just because influential people as a group are negatively impacted, does not mean that the group as a whole is not in support of the bill. Is it impossible to think that there are wealthy Americans who think that the wealthy should be taxed more than the poor? (B) unjustifiably rules out this possibility.

3. Finally, there appears to be subtle terms mismatch(es).

Stimulus: most people favor the bill vs. very influential people adversely affected by the bill
(B): most people who are not influential people favor the bill vs. influential people oppose the bill.

Again we see that (B) is making a claim about the influential people's stance on the bill, and is actually limiting the group of people in the country who could possibly support the bill! While the second point highlights influential people being excluded from favoring the bill, this terms mismatch alters, and narrows, the stimulus' language around who could constitute "most people" in the country who support the bill.

Hope that helps!

[tommywallach]

Good points from gabcap. What do you think Jewels?

[jewels0602]

I agree that (B) is quite a tempting answer choice. I think the point about "eventually" is well-taken, but would probably have been too subtle for me to notice when going through the ACs. I expanded on the human rights reason and came up with an additional one.

"Basic human rights" justification: If we take (1) most people favoring the bill + (2) the bill not violating basic human rights as the criteria for assessing whether or not the bill should be passed, then B is out, as it only covers (1). This misses the essence of the stimulus, as the point is not that majority rules in a well-functioning democracy; that is part of the point. But not violating human rights is right up there with it. Not only is the columnist upset that most people are in favor of this bill, which will "adversely impact" influential citizens, but, to add insult to injury, the bill doesn't violate basic human rights! (B) offers no guarantee of that. So, it's not simply who is in favor of and who opposes the bill, but the columnist also appears to be saying something about the content of the law.

"Influential people" vs. "most other people" justification: (B) says that "any bill" (this is uncomfortably broad) that is "opposed by influential people but favored by most other people will eventually pass into law." But there are a few red flags here.

1. We don't have direct evidence in the stimulus of how the influential people would vote on the bill. Making an inference that influential people who are adversely affected will all not support the bill is a leap. We should work with what we're given!

2. Let's say we make an assumption about the influential people's support for the bill. (B) is talking about "any bill that is opposed by influential people," but the stimulus leaves room for us to believe that just because influential people as a group are negatively impacted, does not mean that the group as a whole is not in support of the bill. Is it impossible to think that there are wealthy Americans who think that the wealthy should be taxed more than the poor? (B) unjustifiably rules out this possibility.

3. Finally, there appears to be subtle terms mismatch(es).

Stimulus: most people favor the bill vs. very influential people adversely affected by the bill
(B): most people who are not influential people favor the bill vs. influential people oppose the bill.

Again we see that (B) is making a claim about the influential people's stance on the bill, and is actually limiting the group of people in the country who could possibly support the bill! While the second point highlights influential people being excluded from favoring the bill, this terms mismatch alters, and narrows, the stimulus' language around who could constitute "most people" in the country who support the bill.

Hope that helps!

Wow, thank you!... brilliantly explained, on all points, but esp. with the subtle terms mismatch, I can't believe I dropped the ball on that one.

[daijob]

Thanks for posting, brandonhsi!

I actually meant the entire set of situations/result would not have happened! In other words, in a well-functioning democracy, if we had those three situations together, the bill would have passed promptly. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean we have a principle that touches all three situations, but rather, that the principle we're looking for will provide a rock-solid guarantee if we had those three situations in play.

You're right that (E) only gives us two of the three items. But if (E) is true, that's a guarantee in a well-functioning democracy that if 1) most people favor the bill and 2) it doesn't violate anyone's basic rights, then it will absolutely pass promptly. Because it is a guarantee (as a conditional), it doesn't matter whether the third situation occurs or doesn't - in either case, we're still assured that the bill would pass promptly. It is essentially saying "If you're in a well-functioning democracy, here's a promise about certain kinds of bills."

In our stimulus, that promise was broken - we had the bits in play for favor and non-violation of rights, and yet the bill will not be passed promptly. If (E) is a valid conditional, then the fact that the promise was broken has to mean we are not in a well-functioning democracy.

Imagine if we had this argument:

Joe didn't study for the test. He also showed up 20 minutes late. And yet, the jerk got an A. This proves the test is totally unfair.

A principle that said "On a fair test, a person who arrives late will never receive an A" would justify that argument. On a fair test, Joe's lateness would have prevented him from getting an A. But he got that A!

Similarly, a principle that said "On a fair test, a person who doesn't study will never receive an A" would ALSO justify the argument. On a fair test, Joe's lack of studying would have prevented him from getting an A. But he got that A!

A promise about ANY of the situations would cover the whole system!

There's also another way to look at the conditional in (E), for conditional logic diagramming geeks: there are three conditions listed, and if all three are met, a bill will be passed promptly.

IF:
1) in a well-functioning democracy AND
2) most people favor bill AND
3) bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights
THEN the bill will be passed promptly into law

In other words, this can be thought of as "If A & B & C --> D". The contrapositive of that would be "~D --> ~A or ~B or ~C". We know from the stimulus that ~D happen (the bill will NOT be passed promptly). We also know that B and C are true (most people favor, and no rights violations). So, to fulfill the contrapositive of the conditional, ~A must follow (NOT well-functioning democracy).

What do you think?

So when doing contrapositive, the situation part remains without being negated? Since it is a principle question I thought we combine all using conditional sentence, so all will be negated when doing contrapositive...

[dhlim3]

Stimulus:

Premise 1:
Most people favor the bill
+
Basic Human Rights not violated
-----------------------------------------------
Bill not passed

Premise 2:
Influential people adversely affected

Conclusion:
Not a well functioning Democracy


Conditional Statement:
(Most people favor + Basic human rights not violated ==> Bill not Passed) + Influential people adversely affected ==> Not a well functioning democracy


Answer E states:
Well functioning Democracy ==> (Most people favor + Basic human rights not violated ==> Bill gets passed)

Note that Answer E is basically the contrapositive of the stimulus in the form of -

Stimulus:(A + B ==> ~C) + D ==> ~E
Contra: E ==> (A+B ==> C) OR ~D (*Note: D does not have to be negated)

[bashanchushui]

B is quite a tempting answer choice.

But there are two points we should know: 1) it drops out a premise "the bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights"; 2) B says that "any bill that is opposed by influential people but favored by most other people", that is different from the premise "most people favor the bill", I think the "most people" in the premise is not as the same as the "most other people (except the influential people who opposed) ". Does that sounds right?

Hope that helps.

[Aquamarine]

I kept reading the explanations above for several times, but I still don't understand why B is wrong.
Can someone enlighten me?
Thanks in advance!

[ellylb]

I kept reading the explanations above for several times, but I still don't understand why B is wrong.
Can someone enlighten me?
Thanks in advance!

I think the answer to this question relies on using conditional reasoning in a slightly unconventional way. Hear me out.
This is what we know

Code:
MFB - Most people favoured bill.
/VHR - doesn't violate human rights.
/BP - bill not passed

1. MFB
+
/VHR ----- > /BP

So, what do we now know of this situation in it's totality? Well, The above conditional reasoning leads us to the conclusion that this is NOT a well functioning Democracy

So on that note, what IS a well functioning democracy?
Well, the antithesis to the above. Therefore, the same variables (MFB) and (/VHR) do NOT lead to /BP (bill not passed). In other words, It leads to the bill being passed.


This is what answer E states. A bill that most people favor will be passed promptly into law in a well-functioning democracy if the bill does not violate anyone's basic human rights.

So now we have

MFB +
/VHR -----> BP

Can't argue with that. Let me present it as an analogy. Say for example if I say my ex boyfriends treatment of me was unfair. Why? Because although I was kind to him and invested years in our relationship, he still left me for a younger model. This equals unfair treatment.
So what would be fair? Well, naturally, it would be that I was kind to him and invested years in our relationship and he DIDN'T leave me for a younger model. This leads to our conclusion: Fair. In other words, as stated above.. the same variables occur but it does not lead to the thing that makes it unfair (him leaving me).

PS this never happened to me don't worry.

As for why B is wrong, the answer choice says will "eventually" be passed into law. This could mean in 20 years, but the condition for a well functioning democracy must be that it's passed into law promptly or at least within the next few years

[andrewgong01]

I am still confused with how "E" was diagrammed. How do we know it was If well functioning democracy then factored by most people and not the other way around? I read it as the other way around where it was If most people favour + passed then it's a well functioning democracy .
There isn't any clear conditional logic triggers to hint at what suffices for the condition.

[doncosper]

I could tell #B was wrong simply because it used the term "any bill" rather than "a bill". "Any" goes way overboard. #C is the only other option other than #E that doesn't use the term "any bill", but it's too strong with the use of "only if".

[NatalieC941]

The explanations above still do not make sense.

First off, the main reply above -

What do we do with the first part of the phrase, "If this country is a democracy at all, it is not a well-functioning one"? This isn't included in the premise/conclusion set-up. If there a particular way to diagram this to make sense of it and eliminate the other answers to ensure they are incorrect?

[alejandrac29]

Can someone explain the thought process behind eliminating D? If the qualifications that a bill will pass in a well-functioning democracy are that most people support it and it doesn't violate human rights, won't all bills passed in a well-functioning democracy have those two qualities? Does it have to do with the prompt-ness of having the bill passed?

Thanks in advance!