Q23 - Editorial: Given the law

[debbie.d.park]

I am having trouble identifying subtle differences between answer choices C and D. They both seem to describe the flaw apparent in the stimulus. What am I missing here?

Thanks in advance for the guidance!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

You're definitely down to the best two answer choices. At this point then, you want to find reasons to eliminate one of the two answer choices, rather than look for reasons to support one over the other.

Notice that towards the end of the first sentence, the argument says, "although other types of economies might be able to achieve [maximum total utility]."

That claim can be used to eliminate answer choice (C). The argument never says that it's the only way to bring about the end, just that it's the way most likely to achieve that end, so answer choice (D) is correct.

I hope that helps, let me know if you still have a hard time seeing this one!

[debbie.d.park]

Thanks for your response.

But doesn't C (fails to consider that the way most likely to achieve a particular end may not be the only way to achieve that end) still imply that "other types of economies might be able to achieve maximum total utility"? Am I in a wrong page?

I can see why D is a better answer after 5-10 minutes of struggle, but am not so confident in my ability to sift through the subtle differences in between C and D and choose the right answer under tight time constraint - which is my biggest challenge to overcome.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

But doesn't C (fails to consider that the way most likely to achieve a particular end may not be the only way to achieve that end) still imply that "other types of economies might be able to achieve maximum total utility"?

It does and that is why this answer choice is wrong, because the argument doesn't fail to consider this possibility. It is alluded to in the stimulus and so the argument never failed to consider the possibility in answer choice (C) - in fact it is directly addressed.

The question asks us to find a flaw committed in the argument and since the argument didn't fail to consider this possibility, we cannot select answer choice (C).

[aidanmenzul]

I'm not sure if it was warranted but I thought C) was wrong because I didn't think he ever said that a pure market economy is the "most likely" way of achieving it on the basis of maximum total utility being assured ONLY in a PME. I just thought he did an apples to oranges comparison.

I think a simpler more analogous situation would be,

Premise: The purchase of a new sports sedan is assured for me only if I win the lottery, although there are other ways for me to achieve this.

Conclusion: Therefore, if I'm not playing the lottery I'm not acting in a way most likely to help me purchase a sports sedan.

Of course, I didn't think of that right away, but it's good to be keep this in mind for the future. Was I doing anything that was unwarranted here? What would be another way they would word some correct or trap answer choices for a question like this?

[nflamel69]

for some reason I keep seeing D is a reverse of the correct reasoning. so basically the flaw of the argument is a mismatch between the premise and the conclusion right?

[sumukh09]

Premise: Pure Free Market Economy --> Maximum Total Utility

Conclusion: ~ Pure Free Market Economy ---> ~ Maximum Total Utility

Highly controlled economy = ~ Pure Free Market Economy since a highly controlled economy is not a pure free market economy

So D) is just saying that because a Pure Free Market Economy is sufficient to bring about maximum total utility, it's nonexistence does not imply that maximum total utility will not result. The argument commits a mistaken negation which is an argumentative flaw.

The stimulus says that Pure Free Market economies "assure" maximum total utility BUT other economies might also be able to achieve it, and then it goes on to conclude that because there is no free market economy then there will most likely be no maximum total utility -- and this is an invalid argument.

[nflamel69]

you are emphasizing on the assure way too much, while assure may demonstrate sufficient condition, the only part also demonstrate necessary condition.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Mind if I join the conversation?

The first sentence seems to be debated point. "assures" = sufficient condition (generally true), "only" = necessary condition (we all agree that's in play here.

Does the first statement say:

free market <--> maximum total utility

or does it say

maximum total utility is assured --> free market

I offer the latter. Because the statement goes on to say that other types of economic systems might be able to achieve maximum total utility as well - taking away the possibility that maximum total utility depends on a free market.

So now the argument...

maximum total utility is assured --> free market
--------------------------------------------------------
~free market --> ~way most likely to bring about maximum total utility

The argument fails to consider that for a controlled economy, switching over to a free market could be rough (think Russia mid 1990's). Maybe for a controlled economy, the way most likely to bring about maximum total utility is something other than a free market. While a free market may be the only economic system that assures maximum total utility, trying to get to a free market economy may not be the most likely way of getting to maximum total utility.

Correct Answer
Obviously, the gap is between the way most likely to bring about maximum total utility and the assurance of maximum total utility. We can see that gap addressed in answer choice (D).

Incorrect Answer
(A) creates a false choice, not assumed in the stimulus. While only those two systems are discussed, the argument leaves open the possibility of other economic systems.
(B) is untrue. No comparison about the relative importance of total utility and the way in which it is distributed is made.
(C) is untrue. The argument suggested that other economic systems may also be able to achieve maximum total utility.
(E) is true, but so what? The argument never concluded anything beyond whether a country was acting in the way most likely to bring about maximum total utility. It never went on to say that a country with a controlled economy should actually pursue one based on a free market.

[nbayar1212]

I've been thinking about this for 30 minutes now and I really don't see how AC D is correct - it seems like they have it backwards. I think the correct version of this AC would say:

presumes, without providing justification, that trying to bring about a condition that is most likely to achieve a particular end, must always be the condition that ensures the achievement of that end.

This seems to be getting to the problem that Matt identified i.e. for the controlled economy, the most likely way to achieve maximum utility is by staying a controlled economy - hence the Russia example. And so, just because they are not acting in the way that "assures" that they ultimately maximize total utility, they still may be acting in the way that makes it most likely that they achieve that particular end.

If I am wrong, what am I missing?

[timsportschuetz]

Key to understanding this is an often overlooked conditional logic inference. Stating, for example, A --> B, does not tell you that ONLY B is necessary for A to occur! A could you have a billion unstated necessary conditions in addition to B! So, concluding that B is the most likely to bring about A is completely faulty logic! You CAN infer that B is necessary in order for A to occur... however, you cannot state that B is the most likely. This is due to the aforementioned issue of having unstated necessary assumptions of A! Since A could have unstated necessary assumption C, D, G, Z, and X, how could you ever conclude that B is the "most likely"? You cannot!

Reversing the above logic, you can also never correctly infer that B is necessary ONLY for A! B could be necessary for a billion other unstated sufficient conditions. Since B could be assured by, for example, Y, U, W, and Q, how could you ever assume that A is the "most likely" to be sufficient for B? You cannot!

[ohthatpatrick]

While I agree with everything just said, I think it might not clarify why the previous poster was struggling with (D).

(D) is set up as a conditional statement, but an incredibly confusing one.

Normally, 'Must' indicates something required, and required things go on the right.

But the structure here is weird. I think it's actually an ambiguous structure.

I would say
"squares must always be rectangles"
NOT "rectangles must always be squares"

I want to see
square -> rectangle, not the other way around

So it seems like if I say
X must always be Y
I would diagram it as
X --> Y

And yet, if I say
"Taking the LSAT must always be done by law school applicants", I actually get a statement that conveys that "taking the LSAT" is required.

This means that we get
Law school applicant --> take LSAT

So it seems like if I say
X must always accompany Y
I diagram it as
Y --> X

I'm not quite sensing how we can filter between the square/rectangle example and the LSAT/applicant example.

They seem like the same syntax, but they convey different conditional meanings.

At any rate, somehow LSAT wants us to interpret (D) as
"trying to bring about a condition that ensures an end" must always accompany "the most likely way to achieve an end".

giving us
most likely way -> bring about condition that ensures end

And the contrapositive of this fits the argument
~trying to bring about condition that ensures --> ~most likely way

To be honest, I'm searching for a logical/grammatical leg to stand on, because it seems a little arbitrary how we interpret the conditional in (D).

If I say "Presidents of the US must always be 35+"
I get
Pres --> 35+
But if I say, "Surprise endings must always be the way an M. Night movie ends"
I get
M. Night --> Surprise ending

I think there's something about the word "the" that's doing it, that switches the meaning into something definitional for the 2nd idea.

Sorry I don't have a complete answer. If I have a mental breakthrough later, I'll add it (or if anyone else has an opinion, let me know).

[gaheexlee]

If I may add my two cents, I found it most easy to differentiate (C) and (D) by thinking of it as the following:

The premise says maximum total utility can happen ONLY when there is a pure free market (so pfm is a necessary condition).

Then the conclusion says that if you don't have a pure free market, you aren't using the MOST LIKELY way of bringing about maximum total utility. There is a scope/definition shift! Something that is the ONLY way doesn't have to be the MOST LIKELY way.

For instance, I may cheer up after a breakup ONLY if I have ice cream but who's to say that the ice cream is the MOST LIKELY way? Maybe 10 brand new Chanel bags would suffice. So there is a slight but subtle shift.

Going back to the question, (C) actually REVERSES this shift. (C) identifies the flaw as saying that the premise said X to be the MOST LIKELY way, therefore the conclusion is saying it's the ONLY way.

But clearly, the premise says something is the ONLY way, therefore it's the MOST LIKELY way - (D) says this perfectly.

(C) is an attractive answer choice because it has all the right words! But it switches things up so that it is actually saying the reverse of what we want.

If anyone wants extra practice, PT22 S2 #10 is very similar.

Hope that helps someone

[Mab6q]

The fact that the other answer choices are absolutely terrible makes it easy to choose D and move on, but I have reservations about D, and they don't stem from the conditional language.

Technically speaking, if something is the only "assured" way to do something, isn't it also the most likely way to that that thing. Assured means you have a 100% percent guarantee that it will happen. How can something that is not assured have a greater likelihood of occurring than that??

Maybe I'm playing right into the LSAT's hands here, but the logic seems to match up.

assured --> pure market economy. So, if you go with anything besides a pure market economy, you won't have a 100% percent chance, the most likely way, of getting maximum total utility.

Can someone please make sense of this for me.

[ohthatpatrick]

Sorry for the delayed reply.

Great question. The answer has to do with multiple probabilities.

So IF we have a pure free market economy, we have 100% odds of getting maximum total utility.

But what are the odds of getting a pure free market economy?

Let's say they are 50%.

Meanwhile, we'll say that Patrickian market economies have an 80% chance of getting maximum total utility.

And, there's a 70% chance we could achieve a Patrickian market economy.

Well,
70% of 80% = 7/10 * 8/10 = 56/100 = 56%

That beats
50% of 100% = 5/10 * 1 = 5/10 = 50%

I know it sounds INSANE to be running these numbers, but that's the real answer to your question.

If you've played the card game Hearts, picture a pure free market economy as "Shooting the Moon" (incredibly risky strategy, but if you achieve success, you guarantee victory)

If you've seen/read Harry Potter, and know the game quiddich (?) .... I've only seen the first movie so forgive me if I both this ... picture a free market economy as trying to catch "The Golden Snitch". If you HAPPEN to catch this incredibly elusive ball, you automatically win. But that doesn't mean that going after that incredibly elusive ball is your best chance at winning.

Make sense?

[ying_yingjj]

First of, the time spent on this question is not worth it. Seriously. I spent 1 hour dwelling on this question, but (D) just does not make sense.

if you contra (D), that's not the editorial presuming.

Time wasted. Move on to other questions.

[BairnOwl]

While I agree with everything just said, I think it might not clarify why the previous poster was struggling with (D).

(D) is set up as a conditional statement, but an incredibly confusing one.

Normally, 'Must' indicates something required, and required things go on the right.

But the structure here is weird. I think it's actually an ambiguous structure.

I would say
"squares must always be rectangles"
NOT "rectangles must always be squares"

I want to see
square -> rectangle, not the other way around

So it seems like if I say
X must always be Y
I would diagram it as
X --> Y

And yet, if I say
"Taking the LSAT must always be done by law school applicants", I actually get a statement that conveys that "taking the LSAT" is required.

This means that we get
Law school applicant --> take LSAT

So it seems like if I say
X must always accompany Y
I diagram it as
Y --> X

I'm not quite sensing how we can filter between the square/rectangle example and the LSAT/applicant example.

They seem like the same syntax, but they convey different conditional meanings.

At any rate, somehow LSAT wants us to interpret (D) as
"trying to bring about a condition that ensures an end" must always accompany "the most likely way to achieve an end".

giving us
most likely way -> bring about condition that ensures end

And the contrapositive of this fits the argument
~trying to bring about condition that ensures --> ~most likely way

To be honest, I'm searching for a logical/grammatical leg to stand on, because it seems a little arbitrary how we interpret the conditional in (D).

If I say "Presidents of the US must always be 35+"
I get
Pres --> 35+
But if I say, "Surprise endings must always be the way an M. Night movie ends"
I get
M. Night --> Surprise ending

I think there's something about the word "the" that's doing it, that switches the meaning into something definitional for the 2nd idea.

Sorry I don't have a complete answer. If I have a mental breakthrough later, I'll add it (or if anyone else has an opinion, let me know).

The word "must" indicates a necessary condition and goes on the right. The only times it doesn't are when our brains don't interpret it that way. Here is the example you used, along with the literal translation:

X must always accompany Y
X --> Y

The reason you would translate this sentence as Y --> X is because we interpret the statement as actually being "Y must always be accompanied by X."

Here's a real-world example. Imagine you're at an amusement park:

A parent must always accompany a child.
Parent --> accompanies a child

Yet we don't understand this sentence as saying that if we have a parent, they must be accompanying a child. Maybe that parent left their kid at home instead. When we read the sentence, we actually interpret it as saying:

A child must always be accompanied by a parent
Child --> accompanied by parent

As an aside, the words "must" and "must always" are interchangeable for our purposes, with the distinction being that the latter explicitly takes into account the temporal component and the former simply implies it. So I'll just be using "must" from here.

Here's another example:

Cats must eat fish
Cat --> eats fish

Yet if you read the sentence with the emphasis placed on the fish instead of the cat, you could interpret it as saying:

Fish must be eaten by cats
Fish --> eaten by cat

Let's talk about this example you gave: "Surprise endings must always be the way an M. Night movie ends."

The only way it makes sense to interpret this sentence is as follows:

M. Night movies must always be ended by surprise endings
M. Night movie --> ended by surprise ending

This is because we know that surprise endings should not be a subset of M. Night movies; rather, M. Night movies should be a subset of surprise endings. I think this is generally the case with abstract concepts. Consider this example:

Eventually, happiness must find widows.
Widow --> found by happiness

It doesn't make sense to think of happiness as being a subset of widows, because happiness is a broad, universal concept, so interpreting the statement with widows as the sufficient condition works better.

So you should always interpret X must Y as X --> Y unless the Y --> X interpretation is required for the statement to make sense.

[EricW539]

You're definitely down to the best two answer choices. At this point then, you want to find reasons to eliminate one of the two answer choices, rather than look for reasons to support one over the other.

Notice that towards the end of the first sentence, the argument says, "although other types of economies might be able to achieve [maximum total utility]."

That claim can be used to eliminate answer choice (C). The argument never says that it's the only way to bring about the end, just that it's the way most likely to achieve that end, so answer choice (D) is correct.

I hope that helps, let me know if you still have a hard time seeing this one!

How is D actually correct though?

The stimulus states that: if Max Utility is Guaranteed -> Pure Free Market

Yet D says they are trying to to bring a condition that ensures an end. Pure free market was never stated as sufficient condition, it cannot ensure anything. It only states in cases where max util is guaranteed, you must have a free market. A pure free market does not guarantee max util.

If it had said trying to bring about a condition required, I would agree.

How am I not understanding correctly?

[JeremyK460]

While I agree with everything just said, I think it might not clarify why the previous poster was struggling with (D).

(D) is set up as a conditional statement, but an incredibly confusing one.

Normally, 'Must' indicates something required, and required things go on the right.

But the structure here is weird. I think it's actually an ambiguous structure.

I would say
"squares must always be rectangles"
NOT "rectangles must always be squares"

I want to see
square -> rectangle, not the other way around

So it seems like if I say
X must always be Y
I would diagram it as
X --> Y

And yet, if I say
"Taking the LSAT must always be done by law school applicants", I actually get a statement that conveys that "taking the LSAT" is required.

This means that we get
Law school applicant --> take LSAT

So it seems like if I say
X must always accompany Y
I diagram it as
Y --> X

I'm not quite sensing how we can filter between the square/rectangle example and the LSAT/applicant example.

They seem like the same syntax, but they convey different conditional meanings.

At any rate, somehow LSAT wants us to interpret (D) as
"trying to bring about a condition that ensures an end" must always accompany "the most likely way to achieve an end".

giving us
most likely way -> bring about condition that ensures end

And the contrapositive of this fits the argument
~trying to bring about condition that ensures --> ~most likely way

To be honest, I'm searching for a logical/grammatical leg to stand on, because it seems a little arbitrary how we interpret the conditional in (D).

If I say "Presidents of the US must always be 35+"
I get
Pres --> 35+
But if I say, "Surprise endings must always be the way an M. Night movie ends"
I get
M. Night --> Surprise ending

I think there's something about the word "the" that's doing it, that switches the meaning into something definitional for the 2nd idea.

Sorry I don't have a complete answer. If I have a mental breakthrough later, I'll add it (or if anyone else has an opinion, let me know).

The word "must" indicates a necessary condition and goes on the right. The only times it doesn't are when our brains don't interpret it that way. Here is the example you used, along with the literal translation:

X must always accompany Y
X --> Y

The reason you would translate this sentence as Y --> X is because we interpret the statement as actually being "Y must always be accompanied by X."

Here's a real-world example. Imagine you're at an amusement park:

A parent must always accompany a child.
Parent --> accompanies a child

Yet we don't understand this sentence as saying that if we have a parent, they must be accompanying a child. Maybe that parent left their kid at home instead. When we read the sentence, we actually interpret it as saying:

A child must always be accompanied by a parent
Child --> accompanied by parent

As an aside, the words "must" and "must always" are interchangeable for our purposes, with the distinction being that the latter explicitly takes into account the temporal component and the former simply implies it. So I'll just be using "must" from here.

Here's another example:

Cats must eat fish
Cat --> eats fish

Yet if you read the sentence with the emphasis placed on the fish instead of the cat, you could interpret it as saying:

Fish must be eaten by cats
Fish --> eaten by cat

Let's talk about this example you gave: "Surprise endings must always be the way an M. Night movie ends."

The only way it makes sense to interpret this sentence is as follows:

M. Night movies must always be ended by surprise endings
M. Night movie --> ended by surprise ending

This is because we know that surprise endings should not be a subset of M. Night movies; rather, M. Night movies should be a subset of surprise endings. I think this is generally the case with abstract concepts. Consider this example:

Eventually, happiness must find widows.
Widow --> found by happiness

It doesn't make sense to think of happiness as being a subset of widows, because happiness is a broad, universal concept, so interpreting the statement with widows as the sufficient condition works better.

So you should always interpret X must Y as X --> Y unless the Y --> X interpretation is required for the statement to make sense.

the argument attempts a contrapositive

max utility assured --> only free market
not in a free market --> most likely no max utility

but the the conclusion's terms are a bit particular
the conclusion should be max utility NOT assured
which is universal in regards to probability
'NOT-assured' could mean 'least likely' or 'most likely'

(d) is biconditional

trying to X must always be the most likely to Y
the most likely to Y is trying to X
X will always be the most likely to Y

analogy argument:
sneezing assured --> only jeremy
anyone else --> not the most likely to sneeze

if anyone else is NOT 'the most likely' to sneeze
i'm assuming...
that jeremy must always be the most likely to sneeze

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