Q24 - It has been claimed that an action is morally good onl

[lhermary]

Can one of the geeks explain to me how on earth the answer is E? The answer doesn't address whether reasonable forethought would have shown that the action was likely to cause harm. She was playing.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for the question.

So here are our principles:

1. An action is morally good ONLY IF it benefits someone else and is intended to cause such benefit.

2. An action that harms someone else is morally bad IF such harm is intended or could reasonably be expected to occur.

Notice that because we are only given necessary conditions for a morally good action, there is no way we can judge for sure that any action is morally good. This allows us to rule out (B) and (C). Also, (C) brings in the issue of consequences of a morally good action, which doesn't come up in our principles.

(A) is tempting, but the problem is that Pamela's action didn't cause the harm it intended, and our principle is only about when a harmful action is morally bad. We don't know anything about actions that don't successfully bring about the harm they intend.

Now we're down to (D) and (E), and I think this question wouldn't turn up on a modern LSAT because it requires an unusual amount of outside assumptions. Specifically, (D) is incorrect because the man choking on the sandwich is not really foreseeable using "reasonable foresight," whereas (E) is correct because Jonathan should have known that if he let a three year-old play without watching her, there would be a good chance of her getting hurt. Again, the point is not that she's playing, but that he is not watching her. That's the action that we're saying could reasonably be expected to cause harm.

Anyway, don't beat yourself up over this because I really think any new LSAT would craft the answers more tightly.

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