Q11

[jpchris3]

Hello,

Why is C incorrect? Doesn't this answer choice undermine the idea that legal systems contain a significant degree of intellectual authority?

[bbirdwell]

In some ways, this is a tough question because it requires a rather broad scan of the passage. When faced with a question task that asks us to weaken the author's contention, we should approach it just like a logical reasoning problem, meaning here that we need to find out what our author considers "intellectual authority" and then attack that somehow.

In the 4th paragraph, line 46, the author says "when a judicial decision is badly reasoned... the notion of intellectual authority is introduced: judges reconsider, revise... or throw out the decision.... the reconsideration of decisions [means that] legal systems contain intellectual authority."

This is directly challenged by the correct answer, (E), which says that the judges don't actually rectify their decisions, making the "reconsideration" mentioned above meaningless.

(C) is not relevant to any claims or definitions of "intellectual authority" made by the author. In fact, if anything, this choice actually supports the idea of intellectual authority -- "judges throwing out bad decisions" is exactly what the author claims to define intellectual authority in the lines mentioned above.

[timars.chan]

But doesn't answer choice C challenge the author's contention by offering an alternative explanation for why judges throw out inappropriate precedents?
The author says that judges do so because there is significant intellectual authority in the legal systems, and answer choice C says that it's actually because of opposition from citizens ("decisions are thrown out ONLY AFTER citizens began to voice oppositions to them"). Also I think the fact that judges are rarely willing to rectify the examples of faulty reasoning (answer choice E) doesn't necessarily challenge the author's point; the author explicitly said that the process of reconsideration shows the tension between intel authority and institutional authority, which could be supported by the reluctance on the judges part. Finally, the fact that the judges are "rarely willing" to rectify the examples doesn't mean that they don't do so, couldn't they be compelled by their intellectual reasoning despite being unwilling to change the faulty precedents?
Thanks in advance!

[WaltGrace1983]

I could be wrong (I am just starting to really tackle RC) but I'll see if I can help! Hopefully a Geek will chime in and validate/invalidate my reasoning.

I attacked this question a little differently. I just thought to myself, "I'm going to try to find an answer that says that legal systems DO NOT contain a large degree of intellectual authority." I didn't think about the specific example of intellectual authority in the passage like Brian did (should I have?)

The main problem I see with (C) is that it doesn't offer any reasoning for or against these decisions being intellectual or institutional. In other words, we have no idea if the "legal decisions" being talked about are well-reasoned (intellectual) or ~well-reasons (~intellectual). We do know that these legal decisions are "socially inappropriate," but what does that tell us exactly? In my opinion, nothing!

We simply need more information in (C). Don't get me wrong, it is clearly the second-best answer but (E) is much better because it actually connects itself to the reasoning behind the legal decision ("faulty reasoning," i.e. ~intellectual).

(C) Would be much better, from my perspective, if it would have said, "Many poorly-reasoned legal decisions are thrown out by judges only after citizens begin to voice opposition to them." I think this would be better because it shows that the law is mainly run by institutional authority, the group of citizens (institutional authority) who voice their strong opposition to them.

What do you guys and girls think?

Also I think the fact that judges are rarely willing to rectify the examples of faulty reasoning (answer choice E) doesn't necessarily challenge the author's point; the author explicitly said that the process of reconsideration shows the tension between intel authority and institutional authority, which could be supported by the reluctance on the judges part. Finally, the fact that the judges are "rarely willing" to rectify the examples doesn't mean that they don't do so, couldn't they be compelled by their intellectual reasoning despite being unwilling to change the faulty precedents?
Thanks in advance!

One thing that I think is really important in (E) is that it gives us two things: (1) these decisions are indeed faulty reasoning; and (2) the judges discover this faulty reasoning.

This "discovery" aspect is huge! It basically tells us that these judges willingly acknowledge that these decisions aren't reasoned well. What do they do in consequence? Nothing!

Didn't the author say that we should understand precedent as being able to be overturned by reason? Isn't this exactly the evidence that the author was basing his/her claim on that these courts do have SOME intellectual authority?

[851869412]

My rationale to eliminate (C) is because of the word "many".

When we do LR questions, my understanding is that "many" merely means more than zero. So, even if "many" bad legal decisions are thrown out due to reasons that are not relevant to intellectual authority, we still can not conclude that a significant amount of bad legal decisions are thrown out exactly because of intellectual authority.

Does that make sense?

[LolaC289]

I think the "many socially inappropriate legal decisions" in (C) belongs to what the author has addressed in line 47-49, in that although we don't know if it is indeed "badly reasoned", it conforms to the "simply no longer applies in the face of evolving social standards or practices" part. So I consider it a possible weakener.

However, in the presence of (E), (C) has two shortages. First, as mentioned, "many...only after" is too weak comparing to "rarely...willing to"; Second, if you think about it, what (C) has brought about may not necessarily constitutes an alternative explanation in place of intellectual authority. (C) says "problematic decisions thrown out only after citizens begin to protest...", but this is just introducing a temporal element. We may be tempted to think, so it's the civic protest, but not the judge's reconsiderations, that made it happen. But these two things are not mutually exclusive, at least we can't tell from this passage. It's quite possible that citizens made a voice, pushes the judges to reconsider the awful precedents, and the precedents be thrown out as a result. In other words, the citizens' voice can totally act as an impeller, but not a replacement, of judicial reconsideration, and the intellectual authority still comes into play.