Q5 - Maurice's attempted refutation of Jane's argument is vu

[goriano]

Why is (C) considered a flaw? I read many times in the forums that one way to weaken a causal argument is to show the presumed effect (violent behavior) existing without the presumed cause (TV violence).

[ohthatpatrick]

Why is (C) considered a flaw? I read many times in the forums that one way to weaken a causal argument is to show the presumed effect (violent behavior) existing without the presumed cause (TV violence).

Good question. You're right, that IS a way to weaken a causal argument, but not a way to refute it. And Maurice, in saying "your claim that TV and movie depictions of violence cause violence is mistaken" is definitely trying to refute the idea that TV/movie violence causes violence.

If I were trying to convince you that giving Mary flowers causes her to be happy, could you refute me by saying, "Not so! I saw Mary happy the other day and there were no flowers in sight."

Of course not. I never said that giving Mary flowers was the ONLY thing that makes her happy. When you saw Mary happy the other day, her happiness must have been caused by something else.

Similarly, the violence among young people that predates movies and TV obviously couldn't be caused by movies and TV. But it's still possible that movies and TV nowadays do cause violence.

We could make an analogous argument:
Jane: Foods with high fructose corn syrup are causing people to become overweight.
Maurice: Hogwash! People were overweight before high fructose corn syrup was ever invented.

The phenomenon you were describing in which we show the effect happened without the cause (in order to weaken) typically shows up within a single experiment. For example:

Violent movies and TV cause young people to be violent. We know this because a recent study found that teenagers were found to act violently after having watched several hours of violent TV and movies.


Which of the following, if true, would weaken?
A) Teenagers in the study who watched several hours of nonviolent TV and movies were found to act just as violently afterwards.

This would be a correct answer. We're essentially showing that the control group (the group not exposed to the supposed cause) is still exhibiting the supposed effect.

Hope this helps. Let me know if it prompts questions.

==== other answers ====
A) 'presupposes' = 'assumes'. Did the Maurice have to assume that "an unpopular policy cannot possibly achieve its intended purpose"? No, that's way too extreme for anything Maurice was arguing.

B) the move from subjectivity to objectivity has nothing to do with Maurice's argument core. He moves from "violence predates movies/tv" to "movies/tv cannot cause violence".

D) The LSAT never asks us to worry about whether a statistic or historical fact can be verified. We're supposed to analyze the reasoning error that takes place as the author concludes something on the basis of that statistic or fact.

E) This is a frequent trap answer, suggesting that a certain "term" was used in two different senses. Unless you can substitute two completely different words for the two usages of the debated "term", you shouldn't pick this.

For example:
Love is blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Thus, Stevie Wonder is love. [the first "blind" meant "unconditional, non-judgmental". the second "blind" meant "unable to see with one's eyes". THIS would be trading on the ambiguity of the term "blind".]

[shaynfernandez]

I didn't have a problem with this question but I do have a question pertaining to causality and one of the answer choices in this question.

When I first started studying I used the LR Bible, but have recently made a switch to the manhattan books. In the LRB they tell you that when the author gives an example of causality the author is saying that the cause is the ONLY cause. I have not read this in Manhattan books but I was wondering what your take is on it.

Thanks

[ohthatpatrick]

Well, I haven't read the LR Bible, but I'm almost sure you're remembering that inaccurately.

The LR Bible no doubt would have mentioned that, at times, we need to be concerned about authors who are acting like one potential cause is the only cause.

But there's no way the LR Bible said that "any time an author believes that X causes Y, the author is committing to the idea that ONLY X causes Y."

There are just 2 different kinds of causal conclusions. Sometimes the author is concluding that a certain cause is SUFF to produce a given effect (in which case, the issue of other potentially sufficient causes is totally irrelevant). The only way to refute this conclusion is to show the cause being present and effect being absent.

Other times the author is concluding that a certain cause is NEC to produce a given effect. These are the types of arguments we could weaken/refute by providing alternative causes. (We refute these by showing the cause being absent, and the effect being present).

Quick examples:

i. In a study, students who chewed gum during their geometry quiz scored higher than those who did not chew gum. Clearly, chewing gum improves your ability to concentrate.

Am I arguing a Suff cause or a Nec cause?

A sufficient cause. Would it weaken this argument to say, "listening to classical music improves your ability to concentrate"?

No, because I never said that chewing gum was the ONLY thing that improves your ability to concentrate.

ii. In order to get Mary's father to allow Mary to go to prom, Steven needs to get him in a good mood. Thus, Steven will have to get Mary's father drunk.

Here I'm arguing a Necessary cause. (by the way, no one I know of uses the terminology of Sufficient Cause or Necessary Cause, I'm just using it here to stress the difference between these two types of causal arguments)

Would it weaken this argument to say, "Playing backgammon with Mary's father puts him in a good mood"?

Yes. If there is another possible cause of the father's good mood, then Steven doesn't HAVE to get Mary's father drunk.

Hope this makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't. If you can find anything in the LR Bible that says that "any cause the author argues for is depicted as the ONLY cause", please let me know.

That way I can warn people not to read the LR Bible.

[shaynfernandez]

I may not have been specific enough, it says this in regards to causality when in the conclusion.
Here is a paraphrase of what it say:
Whenever an LSAT speaker/author concludes that one event causes another, they are assuming that the said cause is the only possible cause of the said effect and as a consequence that cause will always produce that effect.

Your information on sufficient and necessary causes is very helpful and I am glad that I can now use that in determining causal conclusions!

[ohthatpatrick]

Hey-o. Yeah, you were plenty specific the first time. I knew that your paraphrase is what you were accusing the LR Bible of saying. I was just skeptical they would really say that. And if they do, I wanted to assure you that that is an incorrect statement.

When authors conclude that "therefore, it MUST have been this cause.", then they are definitely assuming that there are no other causes.

But if an author just concludes that "X can cause Y", then he is making no such assumption.

Hopefully, the distinction makes sense to you. Let me know if not.

[adrienna.vandiermen]

The problem I have is that Maurice offers TWO issues against Jane's claim: censorship AND violence predating movies and TV. Answer C addresses only the latter as if 'censorship' could not be a refutation from a moral or legal standpoint.

Much of these LSAT questions are simply poorly worded and most university English professors would not condone their phrasing. Far too often I find myself trying to "think like an LSAT question writer" than coming to a conclusion that is undeniably accurate.

[kfitz]

I have actually been searching for explanations of "sufficient and necessary causes" and came across this thread. Thank you ohpatrick for explaining the difference.

I want to re-affirm that PR DOES use "the only" when referring to basic causality.

And actually, shaynfernandez was remembering it accurately...

Under the 'Central Assumption of Basic Causal Conclusions', we read the following:
"When an LSAT speaker concludes that one occurrence definitively caused another, that speaker also assumes that the stated cause is the ONLY (italicized) possible cause of the effect and that consequently the stated cause will ALWAYS (italicized) produce the effect" (Killoran, 2014, Powerscore's LSAT Logical Reasoning Bible).

However, the Bible qualifies this statement by showing instances when it would not apply later in the chapter... i.e. possible & probable causes, partial causes & multi-cause scenarios etc etc.

The intention is to apply this principle & its associated attack in more basic causality questions.

[roflcoptersoisoi]

P: Violence among teens predates the purported cause of violence among teenagers.
C: Jane's claim that television and movie depictions of violence cause violence among teenagers is mistaken.

Flaw(s):
Fails to consider that despite the fact that violence among teens predates violent movies and television, the latter may in fact be the new or another cause of the pis phenomenon.
Takes for granted that because the phenomenon predates the purported cause, that it cannot be the present cause of the phenomenon.

(A) Maurice doesn't presuppose this. We don't even know if Jane's conclusion is an unpopular policy
(B) Maurice's argument doesn't do this. This would be correct if he misinterpreted Jane's conclusion which is arguably a subjective private judgement of moral permissibility, to be an objective description of something that occurs in society. This doesn't appear to be the case. In his retort he refers to her conclusion/proposition as a recommendation and is therefore cognizant of the fact that it's not a social fact.
(C) Bingo
(D) We have no idea if his premise can be verified or not. Even if it wouldn't this isn't why it's wrong. We're suppose to concede that it's true, so whether or not it can be verified is irrelevant.
(E) He doesn't equivocate as to the term violence.