Q8 - Trust, which cannot be sustained

[mrudula_2005]

For this question I actually have a question about the completeness of the logic within the stimulus itself. The last line states "If a personal relationship is to endure, it must be supported by the twin pillars of mutual respect and affinity." Musn't it ALSO be supported by trust since trust is a necessary condition to any long-lasting relationship (and for a relationship to endure it must at least be long-lasting, no?). If so, why would the stimulus leave that part out ?
thanks!

[giladedelman]

Tsk, tsk!!! Since when are LR stimuli under any obligation to say what we want them to say, or indeed to say anything in particular? This problem asks us to make an inference based on some statements. That's our job! We don't care about what it DOESN'T say, we care about what it says!

(Okay, now that I've given you a proper scolding:

We're told that

Long-lasting relationship ----> Trust
Trust -----> Mutual respect

So we could hook these together and say

Long-lasting relationship ----> Mutual respect

Then we're also told that

Personal relationship ----> affinity

So the stimulus is logically correct to put these together and say that

Enduring (i.e. long-lasting) personal relationship ----> Mutual respect and affinity

You're right that according to the statements given, it's also true that enduring personal relationships must be supported by trust. Okay, but the stimulus doesn't say that respect and affinity are the ONLY requirements, so if your question is whether the last sentence is logically valid, the answer is, yes. If your question is just, why doesn't the stimulus also say trust is necessary here, the answer is, because the stimulus is under no obligation to mention everything that's logically entailed.)

You dig?

[andrea.feuer]

I understand that they are saying that a long-lasting personal relationship will endure if it is supported by mutual respect (trust) and affinity. So I chose C because that's what I got from it because I thought - okay, I know what you need for a long-lasting relationship to last. Why is A correct? I thought I only knew what you need for it to last so how did they get to the not-lasting type of relationship?

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your question!

This goes to the heart of necessary and sufficient conditions. We're told that trust, which depends on mutual respect, is essential to a long-lasting relationship, and that personal relationships require natural affinity.

So we can put it all together and say that a long-lasting personal relationship requires these three things: trust, mutual respect, and natural affinity.

Those three things are necessary conditions for a long-lasting personal relationship. If you don't have them all, then you don't have this kind of relationship. That's why (A) is correct. If it's supported solely by trust and mutual respect, that means it's not supported by natural affinity. From what we just said, we can infer that this friendship, i.e., personal relationship, can't be long-lasting.

The basic problem with (C), apart from the fact that it doesn't mention trust, is that we can't say for sure that any relationship will be long-lasting. We know what a relationship requires to be long-lasting, but we don't know that the presence of those things will guarantee it. In other words, we have necessary conditions, but not sufficient ones. Maybe a long-lasting personal relationship also requires a bunch of other stuff! Maybe it requires money, or good looks, or shared preferences.

Does that answer your question?

[andrea.feuer]

Gilad, thank you very much. I wasn't seeing the sufficient v. necessary aspect of it and had it switched around. If I am going to have a long lasting relationship, then I need trust +mutual respect + affinity. Got it. I had the if/then reversed; all better.

[LSAT-Chang]

After reading the posts above, I can see clearly why (A) is obviously wrong (it doesn't mention the "natural affinity" part which is clearly laid out in the second sentence). However, could someone help me get rid of (B)?

So this is how I got (B)..

Our stimulus tells us that in a professional relationship, we have:

long lasting relationship --> trust --> mutual respect

And (B) tells us "mutual respect presupposes trust" in a professional relationship. I thought "presupposes" = "prerequisite" so mutual respect is a pre-requisite for trust, so we get:

trust --> mutual respect

Or is presupposes a sufficient indicator..? I get confused with all these "pre's".. Hmm but now that I think about it.. if we had something like "A presupposes B" then A comes before B, so I guess we would have A --> B .. but then I run into the question of "time" since we can't say just because A --> B, A occured before B since we could have something like "If I get sick tonight, then it is because of the food I consumed this morning" which would mean that B had to come before A.. so I don't know what "presupposes" exactly entails..

[giladedelman]

Okay, you didn't mean that (A) is incorrect, did you? The point above is that (A) is correct.

You've got (B) turned around. If mutual respect presupposes trust, that means trust is a necessary condition of mutual respect. It means if you have mutual respect, you must also have trust. So this answer reverses the relationship between trust and mutual respect.

[LSAT-Chang]

Okay, you didn't mean that (A) is incorrect, did you? The point above is that (A) is correct.

You've got (B) turned around. If mutual respect presupposes trust, that means trust is a necessary condition of mutual respect. It means if you have mutual respect, you must also have trust. So this answer reverses the relationship between trust and mutual respect.

Oops! You are right. I meant to say that I understand why (A) is correct because it is missing the "natural affinity" part.

Thanks for the explanation for (B)! I wasn't sure what the word "presupposes" was referring to, but if I think in abstract terms, A pressuposes B, I could see that A comes before B, so if A then B.

But what do you think of my last point that I made above? Quote:

"but then I run into the question of "time" since we can't say just because A --> B, A occured before B since we could have something like "If I get sick tonight, then it is because of the food I consumed this morning" which would mean that B had to come before A.. so I don't know what "presupposes" exactly entails.."

Should I just think everything I see the word "presupposes" whatever comes after is a necessary condition and not a sufficient one?

[Raiderblue17]

Ok, so here is what I think, and, here is why I STAND by this conclusion: Don't waste time writing out statements if you're not comfortable 100% of the time. I'm a proponent of reading to understand first and foremost.

Now off of my soap box:

We learn that Trust is ESSENTAIL (Must HAVE) for a long lasting relationship. ADDITIONALLY Personal relationships (Friendship and marraige) REQUIRE (MUST HAVE) natural affinity.

So A says: Friendship (Personal realtionships) supported by Trust and MUTUAL RESPECT will not be long lasting.

We know that personal relationships must have TRUST and AFFINITY to be long lasting. So we know that A is true becuase it doesn't fit the NECESSARY CONDITION, or as I simply put it 'the rules' of long lasting relationship.

I missed this bc i took too long to diagram when i was better off simply reading to comprehend.

[giladedelman]

Thanks for your post! I am also a proponent of reading to understand first and foremost. Sometimes I diagram questions in my explanations that I wouldn't necessarily diagram while taking the test. But, as you suggested, it depends on your comfort/facility with translating conditional logic.

[T.J.]

Hey guys,
When I was doing this question, I felt very fuzzy about what "presuppose" means. So I put it aside and looked for other hints.

What tips me off is the phrase "any professional relationship". While I've become increasingly cynical about absolute words like this, I still went back to the stimulus, looking for a solid reason. Note that it says trust is essential to any "Long-lasting" relationship whereas B mentions "any" professional relationship. It stands to reason that professional relationship can also be short-lived, to which trust is not necessarily essential. For instance, I somehow hate my boss so much that I quit my job; thus, this professional relationship does not really entail any trust.

However, I still want to inquire into what "presuppose" really means in this question. On one hand, I get giladedelman's point --

If mutual respect presupposes trust, that means trust is a necessary condition of mutual respect. It means if you have mutual respect, you must also have trust. So this answer reverses the relationship between trust and mutual respect.

On the other hand, I couldn't really argue with

If I get sick tonight, then it is because of the food I consumed this morning" which would mean that B had to come before A.. so I don't know what "presupposes" exactly entails.."

Should I just think everything I see the word "presupposes" whatever comes after is a necessary condition and not a sufficient one?

Thanks in advance for any insight into this point.

[tommywallach]

X presupposes Y means that X is a necessary condition of Y.

Done!

-t

[T.J.]

Well Tommy, as much as I would like to agree with you, if what you said is true, then your answer goes against your collegue's reply above. What's your reason of eliminating B then? Is it the same as mine? Thanks for replying.

[tommywallach]

Hey T.J.,

Oops. I totally got it backwards. Presuppose is just a synonym for require. X requires Y means that Y is a necessary condition of X. Apologies to the ghost of Gilad (he's not dead, just not on the forums much these days)! : )

-t

[lolandrew321]

Hello, can someone explain to me why "C" is wrong? I'm guessing having mutual respect and affinity support personal relationship is not sufficient for it to last long? So, is answer choice "C" an inverse relationship of the premise?

[tommywallach]

Gilad answered this at length above.

[JigyasuP507]

It’s better to use abbreviatons to make it easier.

X—> Trust, which can’t be sustained in the absence of mutual respect.
Y—> long-lasting relationships, personal or professional.
Z—> twin pillars of mutual respect and affinity.

Three premises are given:-
1. Y—> X
2. PR(personal relationship)—> NA(natural affinity)
3. Y—> Z
Relationship is to endure is same as long lasting(Y).
Anticipation — so we can’t find any chain like (X->Y->Z) from which we can infer something like
(X-->Z). Or there could be the possibility of contrapositive of any of the premises given. Therefore, we have to go to the answer choices.
A— If a friendship supported only by trust(X) and mutual respect i.e. affinity is excluded, then a friendship can’t be long-lasting. Yeah that has to be true. Bcz for long lasting relationship both trust(X) and mutual and affinity(Z) are required.
But, we can infer from this AC(a friendship supported only trust and mutual respect) that a friendship is not supported by affinity.
Y—>X
Y—>Z
/Z
————-
/Y
Contrapositive of last premise given.
B— redundant.
C— mistaken negation (Z—>Y)
D— comparison statement, we have no information to compare two ideas.
E— unsupported.
Hope that’d help!!