Q24 - Sociologist: Research shows, contrary to

[noah]

The argument's conclusion is that people who want to maximize their happiness should not get a pet. Why? Because those who have pets are less happy than those who do not. Since this is a weaken question, we should look for a gap. The gap lies somewhere between the two forms of measurement. The conclusion focuses on maximizing one's potential for happiness while the premise compares two groups.

Analogously: You should not take heart medication because in general, those who take heart medicine have more heart problems than those who do not. The problem here is that comparing these groups is probably not valid since those who take heart medicine are predisposed to have heart problems.

Similarly, perhaps those who get pets are generally less happy to start with (and thus they get pets in an effort to cheer up). However, if pets do tend to make you happier, as (D) indicates, regardless of which group you're in, you'll probably get happier, contrary to what the conclusion suggests.

(A) is incorrect because it only tells us about some people with pets; that may mean two people!
(B) is out of scope because wishing is not the issue, happiness is.
(C) is irrelevant. What does reasonably happy mean?
(E) is also irrelevant because feeling unhappy sometimes doesn't give us a sense of the overall tendency that we're concerned with.

[siliconrs]

Would the conclusion of the stim diagram as:

~pet -> happier?

I think this because its causal and the temporal issues matter. Am I close?

[noah]

As I mentioned above, I see the conclusion as "people who want to maximize their happiness should not get a pet." I guess this could be represented formally as "want max happy --> ~ pet" or "pet --> not max happy."

I don't see any temporal issue from reading over my explanation, but maybe I missed something when I first wrote that.

[siliconrs]

What's mucking me up is that I Powerscore's LR book a while back and they break casual and conditional reasoning into 2 categories. The former is temporal in nature and the second is not. So my confusion is this: As a conditional statement the last line looks like:

happier -> ~pet

But... would not the lack of a pet CAUSE maximum happiness this reversing the relationship to:

~pet -> happier

I see that the AC would attack the necessary condition by showing it's not really necessary, and thus a conditional approach works. My question is: how does one tell on the fly which way to look at a question like this?

[noah]

What's mucking me up is that I Powerscore's LR book a while back

Perhaps you should disregard at least that part of that book! You might be making things more confusing than they are. The stimulus shows correlation (pets and less happiness), and assumes causation (pet --> ~ happy). The correct answer calls into question the causation.

But... would not the lack of a pet CAUSE maximum happiness this reversing the relationship to:

~pet -> happier

I'm guessing you're drawing this from the premise, where happierness is correlated with not having a pet. The conclusion draws a causal conclusion (seeking happiness --> ~ pet) from this premise, why does it matter if you can draw a different one? You could just as easily draw a third one, about how both are caused by something else. The job in this question is to weaken the argument that the sociologist makes.

My question is: how does one tell on the fly which way to look at a question like this?

Do you mean whether to use diagramming? If so, I diagram when i can't easily "grasp" the argument and there's a lot of conditional logic. I don't see a lot of complex conditional logic here. I think diagramming is an over-used tool by many LSAT students.

I hope that's helpful!

[eapetrilli]

I felt that (D) could not be the answer becuase the stimulus dismisses any alternative considerations that might weigh on someone's happiness. So even if people feel happier about having pets, than something else about having that pet must necessarily offset that happiness, e.g. having the extra responsibilities.

[aznriceboi17]

Hi noah, I was thrown off by the part in the stimulus that said

all other things being equal, most people who have pets are less happy than most people who do not

Doesn't the all other things being equal part eliminate a situation where 'pet owners started off being less happy than non-pet owners'? The only difference we allow between these two groups is that one has pets and the other doesn't.

To revisit the heart medication example you gave: people who take heart medication and people who don't are different in a key aspect besides the fact that one takes heart medication and the other doesn't: namely one group has bad heart conditions in the first place that led them to take the medication.

EDIT:

I think my confusion stems from this: consider the general statement:

All else being equal, if Person X has more FOO than Person Y, then Person X has more BAR than Person Y

The implicit assumption of the 'all else being equal' qualifier is that we are actually EXCLUDING any dependent variables of the independent variable, namely we're not assuming 'ALSO assume BAR is equal' since we are varying FOO which will affect the BAR level.

In the case here, since HAPPINESS is a dependent variable of the independent variables (pet ownership being one of them), we don't include the initial happiness levels under the 'all else being equal' umbrella.

[WaltGrace1983]

Hi noah, I was thrown off by the part in the stimulus that said

all other things being equal, most people who have pets are less happy than most people who do not

Doesn't the all other things being equal part eliminate a situation where 'pet owners started off being less happy than non-pet owners'? The only difference we allow between these two groups is that one has pets and the other doesn't.

To revisit the heart medication example you gave: people who take heart medication and people who don't are different in a key aspect besides the fact that one takes heart medication and the other doesn't: namely one group has bad heart conditions in the first place that led them to take the medication.

Hmmm I didn't notice that "all other things being equal" part. However, I still think that (D) would work.

Everything else being equal, most people who have pets are less happy than most people who don't have pets
→
If one wants to be as happy as possible, one probably shouldn't have a pet

Even if we say that the ONLY difference between the (pet) group and the ~(pet) group is the actual act of having or not having a pet, this - unless I am mistaken - still doesn't prove causation. This is still very much a correlation/causation issue in which the premise gives us a correlation and the conclusion infers something about causation; i.e. that not having/having a pet will cause some kind of effect.

In addition, we aren't talking about being happy per se, we are talking about being "happy as possible," meaning the highest levels of happiness. If we think about this idea and then we show that the people with pets feel happier because they have pets, then this would really weaken the argument that having pets would be a bad thing for happiness. Why? Because it shows that the people who are the happiest are that way due to one reason: having pets. In other words, for most people, having pets is sufficient to bring about being "happier." That's a great thing but it does weaken the argument that IF you want to be happiest THEN you probably shouldn't get a pet.

(A), (C), and (E) fail to establish any kind of causal connection and (B) doesn't relate to happiness.

[WaltGrace1983]

I felt that (D) could not be the answer becuase the stimulus dismisses any alternative considerations that might weigh on someone's happiness. So even if people feel happier about having pets, than something else about having that pet must necessarily offset that happiness, e.g. having the extra responsibilities.

1. It doesn't have to say anything about alternative considerations. While a good weakener may say, "but you forgot about one thing! The people that don't have a pet were actually already happy people to begin with." Or it could also say, "but you forgot that not having a pet can actually decrease one's happiness for most people. The people that don't have pets, while still happier than those that do, used to be a bajillion times more happy."

2. It is absolutely not necessary to say that some other considerations MUST offset the happiness of having a pet. Maybe having a pet only causes joy.

I am not sure if I am exactly following how you got to these deductions.

[oscey12]

I understand why D is right, but I just want to correct any assumptions that I have about A. A is wrong because the people who have pets (though it might only be one, and although more happy than most who have no pets) might actually be happier if they had no pet. Since the argument is maximum happiness, just being happier than most who have no pets does not mean that a pet owner is as happy as they could possibly be.
I don't think you can throw out A solely on the grounds that those who have pets and are happier than most non-pet owners might probably be an overwhelming minority. Otherwise that would not weaken the argument because the argument is not that there are more happy non-pet owners than pet owners, rather the means to establish maximum happiness.
Also, help me out if I'm wrong, but "all other things being equal" practically means nothing because while things are equal, in continues to talk about MOST. If all things are equal (any other factor affecting happiness is out) and the results are not the same anyways, that tidbit isn't very important, yes?

[seychelles1718]

If A is changed to "most people who have pets are happier than some people who do not," would this weaken the argument?

[ohthatpatrick]

No, that version of (A) wouldn't weaken.

Remember that "some" means "at least one".

If you say "most pet owners are happier than [at least one guy]", it's a pretty weak statement.

Let's say the unhappiest guy in the world happens to be pet-less.

Well, then by definition your sentence is true. If fact, you could even say "All people who have pets are happier than some people who don't have pets".

Because EVERYBODY's happier than "the least happy guy in the world".

So you could say these hollow truths all day,
"Everyone in 3rd grade is happier than someone who isn't in 3rd grade" (assuming our "least happy guy" is not a 3rd grader).

"Everyone whose birthday is on Nov 8th is happier than someone whose birthday isn't on Nov 8th" (assuming our "least happy guy" doesn't have that birthday)

These aren't powerful statements because you're just saying "There exists AT LEAST ONE DUDE who is less happy than most pet owners."

Hope this helps.