Passage Discussion

[LSAT-Chang]

Can anyone give me feedback on my scale please?

Side A -- existence of conflicting values threatens orthodox legal theory (CLS movement)

Side B -- existence of conflicting values does not necessarily threaten orthodox legal theory (author, Meyerson)

This was a hard passage for me, so wanted to have a clear understading of the scale. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[demetri.blaisdell]

changsoyeon,

I think you've done a nice job on this scale for a very difficult passage. The proof is in the pudding, though. How did you do on the questions for this passage? If there was something missing from your scale, you probably would have struggled with the questions. Did you?

Demetri

[LSAT-Chang]

Hi Demetri!
I actually haven't answered any of the questions for this passage. I am currently working on just building good habits of actually reading for the scale and figuring out the central argument, so Mike suggested that I go through a bunch of passages and just try to figure out the scale! Now that I've done that for 40 passages, I'm going to go back to each of them and start solving them and see how I do! I haven't even looked at the questions for this passage, but I definitely thought this was a hard passage! Thank you for your feedback

[demetri.blaisdell]

Wow! The LSAT won't know what hit it next week. You will whip through the RC like a hot knife through butter. Keep up the good work!

[hyewonkim89]

Will someone breakdown this passage in greater detail please?

This passage is really difficult for me to understand and I have gone back to it several times...

Thanks in advance!

[csunnerberg13]

How do we know which side the author is on in this passage? He seems generally neutral

[tangdanni422]

Here is my tentative breakdown of the passage, correct me please

P1: CLS proponents criticize the traditional legal theory because it is inherently contradictory, but Meyerson thinks their criticism is implausible.

P2: further elaboration on the CLS's position and Meyerson's counter-argument. CLS proponents believe the conflicting values in the law lead to irrational decisions, implying no single right solution to legal cases and making cases irresolvable. Meyerson argues some such cases can be resolved by ranking the conflicting values.

P3: Meyerson further argues that even when a solution is not the single right solution, the solution can still be rational because we can compare those equally plausible solutions to other utterly unreasonable solutions.

P4: it looks like this somewhat abstract paragraph is an extension from the original argument between Meyerson and the CLS proponents. The CLS proponents believe the legal decision-making process implies the moral approval, but Meyerson uses a game scenario to illustrate using a decision-making process does not necessarily imply the moral approval. Then a possible counter argument from the CLS proponents is presented to say the scenario is not analogous because applying rules in a legal case requires approval of some external considerations, but Meyerson argues the scenario IS analogous because such external considerations are part of the rules of the game.

For the last paragraph, when I am about to attack the questions, I don't quite understand the details but I know Meyerson disagrees with the CLS proponents and I understand the scenario is used to show Meryerson's belief that applying rules does not imply the moral approval of the rules, and these are enough to answer questions 16 and 20. Question 18 probably needs some reading, but the reference nature of the question makes it handleable.

Sorry I don't know where the author tips his hand...

[ohthatpatrick]

Excellent summary! I particularly loved your sentiment about that most confusing last paragraph, because it's really important that even when we don't completely follow WHAT the author is saying, it's often enough to know WHY the author is saying it / what bigger idea the confusing detail is meant to support.

As several of you have indicated, the author is neutral in this passage (hence the lack of an attitude question and hence the verb 'describe' in the correct answer to Author's Purpose).

However, there is still an obvious scale to deal with between Denise Meyerson (DM) and CLS.

So it would pay to mentally organize the passage around them.

Side A:
Orthodox legal theory is threatened by internal contradictions and presupposes a belief in the moral authority of the law.
- CLS

Side B:
Orthodox legal theory is not threatened by internal contradictions and does not presuppose a belief in the moral authority of the law.
- Meyerson

I thought the previous poster's passage map was wonderful, but let's try to do one more that's a little more conversational.

P1 - establishes the scale and the underlying issue of whether orthodox legal theory is / isn't threatened by contradictions.

P2 - CLS's position about contradictions and Meyerson's rebuttal (ranking competing values isn't a contradiction)

P3 - Meyerson refines her position for particularly tricky cases of competing values (picking a winner in a "too close to call" situation isn't irrational)

P4 - CLS's claim that orthodox legal theory requires us to believe that the law has moral authority and Meyerson's rebuttal that it doesn't require that of us (you can understand and follow the rules of the game without thinking that the game is GOOD or FAIR).

So that's the big picture. Let me give a couple analogies for the actual legal points being discussed for those struggling to follow the issues.

CLS says that legal decisions are arbitrary or irrational, since a given case forces one to consider conflicting values.

Let's say you're trying to decide whether to go to Harvard or Stanford.

You want to go to Harvard because your mom went there, so you would make her extra proud.

You want to go to Stanford because you prefer the climate of Palo Alto.

These are conflicting values. Choosing Stanford means dealing with a less proud mom. Choosing Harvard means dealing with a less appealing climate.

CLS would say choosing Harvard vs. choosing Stanford are equally plausible but opposing answers. Thus, when you do finally choose one, you're making an arbitrary or irrational decision.

Meyerson would say, "which do you care about more: the climate or your mother's pride?" If you clearly care more about climate, you'll choose Stanford. There will be nothing arbitrary or irrational about that. It will be reasoned and reasonable.

P3 is discussing a situation in which you CAN'T clearly say that climate outweighs mother's pride or vice versa. At that point, choosing Stanford vs. Harvard is arbitrary, but it's not irrational. If you choose Harvard, you still DO have a reason for choosing it ... making your mom proud.

An irrational decision would be saying, "I don't know whether climate is more important or my mother's pride is more important, so I'm going to go to Clown College in Amsterdam." THIS is an utterly unreasonable answer.

P4 is basically talking about whether knowing and playing by the rules of a game means that you endorse their fairness.

If you are 100% sure that your mom would be prouder of you if you went to Harvard, does that mean that you think she's RIGHT to be prouder of you for going there?

Not at all. You might think she is being stupidly loyal to her alma mater, that she should be equally pleased if you went to Stanford. Nonetheless, you might choose to go to Harvard to secure her extra pride, even though you think it's dumb that she feels that way.

Meyerson is saying the same thing about orthodox legal theory. You can understand how the rules work, what outcome will result given a certain set of facts, without endorsing the outcome or endorsing the rules.

Hope this helps.

[hnadgauda]

Scale

CLS proponents:
-there are conflicts in the law and this means that any legal solution is arbitrary and there's not really a "right" solution
-to find solutions, law has moral authority

Meyerson:
-thinks CLS debunks the law and exposes contradictions where none exist
-thinks CLS makes conflicts a bigger deal than they really are
-thinks conflicts in the law are OK and that they can be resolved by thinking rationally and ranking the conflicting values

The author is not on any side of this scale.

[JorieB701]

Can someone explain the last two sentences of the 4th and final paragraph?

[ohthatpatrick]

If you think that a given system identifies a clear winner, does that mean that you endorse that winner? i.e. that you find the winner to be the morally correct choice?

CLS is saying yes.
Meyerson is saying no.

Legal formalism thinks that legal problems do have clearly defined winners, according to applicable laws.

CLS says, "Well then we are endorsing those winners ... thereby saying that our laws / legal process have moral authority."

Meyerson says, "No, we're just saying that the current laws / legal process do establish clear outcomes. The laws in the early 1800s might have established a clear outcome that a runaway slave should be returned to his/her owner. Just because the applicable laws of the time provided a clear legal outcome doesn't mean that we think the legal process is always morally right (as it clearly wasn't in this case)."

The last two sentences are a reaction to Meyerson's stealing game analogy. The 2nd to last sentence is saying, "CLS would probably respond by saying: that analogy isn't fair. In the case of the stealing game, the rules were what they were. In the case of the legal system, the rules are informed by our society's broader sense of purpose, policy, and value."

Meyerson would say, "No the analogy is fair. The purpose/policy/value that went into making the laws can still be seen as part of the rules of the game."

For example, back to the runaway slave example, Meyerson could say that an external consideration such as "protecting the assets of plantation owners" went into the policy of returning runaway slaves.

We're not saying the legal system was acting morally there; it was just creating laws that conformed to certain (awful) values, such as "the rights of plantation owners are more important than the rights of slaves".

These awful values were just part of "the legal game", not something that invested the legal process with transcendent moral authority.

[JoP960]

If you think that a given system identifies a clear winner, does that mean that you endorse that winner? i.e. that you find the winner to be the morally correct choice?

CLS is saying yes.
Meyerson is saying no.

Legal formalism thinks that legal problems do have clearly defined winners, according to applicable laws.

CLS says, "Well then we are endorsing those winners ... thereby saying that our laws / legal process have moral authority."

Meyerson says, "No, we're just saying that the current laws / legal process do establish clear outcomes. The laws in the early 1800s might have established a clear outcome that a runaway slave should be returned to his/her owner. Just because the applicable laws of the time provided a clear legal outcome doesn't mean that we think the legal process is always morally right (as it clearly wasn't in this case)."

The last two sentences are a reaction to Meyerson's stealing game analogy. The 2nd to last sentence is saying, "CLS would probably respond by saying: that analogy isn't fair. In the case of the stealing game, the rules were what they were. In the case of the legal system, the rules are informed by our society's broader sense of purpose, policy, and value."

Meyerson would say, "No the analogy is fair. The purpose/policy/value that went into making the laws can still be seen as part of the rules of the game."

For example, back to the runaway slave example, Meyerson could say that an external consideration such as "protecting the assets of plantation owners" went into the policy of returning runaway slaves.

We're not saying the legal system was acting morally there; it was just creating laws that conformed to certain (awful) values, such as "the rights of plantation owners are more important than the rights of slaves".

These awful values were just part of "the legal game", not something that invested the legal process with transcendent moral authority.

I think I can understand the meaning of paragraph 4, but I still get confused by how this paragraph connected to those previous paragraphs? I think those paragraphs are talking about conflicting values and how those values affect legal choices. But I don't think the last paragraph is talking about the same thing. I think it's just bring up something new. But that's conflicting the main point of Meyerson's which mentioned in paragraph 1.