Q21 - Political theorist: Newly enacted laws

[mturner]

I narrowed my answer choices to B and E. I chose E because B stated that the law should be retained "primarily on the long-term consequences". I was a bit wary of the word primarily.

I thought E was a better choice since the long-term consequences should be better than the short-term consequences.

Please explain why B is the better and the correct answer?

Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I agree that in some instances the word "primarily" can be a sign of language that is too strong or too specific. Typically that occurs in question types such as necessary assumptions and inference questions.

This is a principle question that asks us to "most justify" the argument. Think of this one like a strengthening question, but one that relates the evidence to the conclusion.

In this case, answer choice (B) establishes that the long-term consequences are more important than the short-term consequences. That would justify the argument's conclusion that newly enacted laws need a short period of immunity.

Answer choice (E) compares the wrong terms. It's not that the long-term consequences should be more beneficial than it's short term consequences, but rather that the long-term benefits are more important than the short term pains that are associated with the enactment of a law.

Does that answer your question?

[mlbrandow]

I chose (E) here, but I disagree that it's incorrect because of equivocation between benefits and consequences.

I think the larger issue with (E) is that it deals with the enactment of a law, whereas (B) deals with a law's retainment. If we accept (E), it tells us nothing about whether a law should be retained. It also doesn't preclude the possibility that short-term consequences are too harmful to warrant retainment.

I was also thrown off by (B)'s use of "primarily," and marked it, along with (A) as too strong, but that seems to be an advantage, rather than disadvantage in this question type!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Two great point mlbrandow! I agree with you on both.

To your latter point, the question stem seeks a principle that would most justify the argument. I often think of these as most similar to Sufficient Assumption questions as strength is an advantage.

On question stems that seek an argument that conforms to a principle, I often think of these as most similar to Necessary Assumption questions, where answer choices may be incorrect in that they are broader/go beyond the scope of the argument.

Nice work!

[dean.won]

where does the stimulus talk about the RETAINMENT of a law?

do we have to assume that if a law is repealed that 1) it's repealed indefinitely and 2) it was not retained?

[vincent.m]

I am having a difficult time understanding this argument, but here is what I have:

Premise: short-term consequences painful + long-term benefits initially obscure

Conclusion: Newly enacted laws need a period of immunity

I feel that I am leaving out too much with this one. Can someone help? Thank you!

[sumukh09]

I am having a difficult time understanding this argument, but here is what I have:

Premise: short-term consequences painful + long-term benefits initially obscure

Conclusion: Newly enacted laws need a period of immunity

I feel that I am leaving out too much with this one. Can someone help? Thank you!

I think you have all the key elements of the core there; what you have is all you need to arrive at answer choice B), so good work!

[tommywallach]

Absolutely. The core is almost never longer than what you wrote, Vince, so don't assume there's a problem just because you've cut out most of the passage!

-t

[WaltGrace1983]

Ok I need a lot of help with this one. I chose (A) but was cautious of the vague language of it. Here was my reasoning:

Short-term consequences are painful
+
Long-term consequences are obscure but advantageous
→
Newly enacted laws need a period of immunity

Is (A) wrong because it talks about "what the voters think its consequences will be" when the stimulus never specifically talks about it? The stimulus says that the short-term consequences are "painful" since "people are not accustomed to it" and long-term benefits are "obscure" because "people require time to learn how to take advantage of it." However, this doesn't really tell us what voters "think;" it instead tells us what is likely to/will happen - it's "likely" to be painful and the benefits are uncertain.

I guess I was over-inferring here. I took these descriptions of the short-term/long-term benefits and pains as descriptions of how the voters think. How is this for a modification of (A) to make it correct:

"Whether a law should be retained is independent of what its consequences will be."

I guess one thing that I don't like about this question too is that it never defines the length of the period of immunity. I think this question would make a little more sense if it said a "long-term period of immunity." What if the period of immunity is 7 days, much too short to get to the long-term consequences presumably.

Any more feedback on these thoughts would be great!

Also, here is some analysis of the wrong answers;
(C) We don't know anything about the difficulty of the law's passage. Even if we take this as true, this doesn't really do anything to the argument.
(D) So this is comparing the short-term consequences of the law's repeal and the short-term consequences of its passage. However, either way this doesn't show that we should have a period of immunity. In addition, we don't know anything about the short-term consequences of a law's repeal! Maybe the earth will implode?
(E) This, like (D), doesn't say anything as to why there should be a period of immunity. All this is doing is making a normative judgement on something that is not normative: we know that short-term consequences are likely to be painful; we know that long-term consequences are likely to be obscure but eventually advantageous. So why do we need to say anything about how this is the way it should or shouldn't be? We don't because it doesn't help to justify the conclusion. However, (E) could be much better I think if it said something like this: "The long-term consequences of the enactment of a law are more beneficial than its short-term consequences." This would help, but still perhaps not justify.

I don't think the problem with (E) is about the enactment. Why? Because that is what the argument is talking about in its premises! "Statutory change" = "enactment."

[rinagoldfield]

Hey Walt,

Is (A) wrong because it talks about "what the voters think its consequences will be" when the stimulus never specifically talks about it? The stimulus says that the short-term consequences are "painful" since "people are not accustomed to it" and long-term benefits are "obscure" because "people require time to learn how to take advantage of it." However, this doesn't really tell us what voters "think;" it instead tells us what is likely to/will happen - it's "likely" to be painful and the benefits are uncertain.

You are precisely right. (A) is wrong because the argument never talks about "what the voters think its consequences will be." The argument concerns what the consequences of the law ARE, not what voters presume the consequences WILL BE. It’s about actual consequences rather than guessed ones.


You rewrote (A) like this: "Whether a law should be retained is independent of what its consequences will be." I’d tweak this because the argument is, in fact, concerned with consequences. It’s just concerned with long rather than short-term consequences. I’d rewrite this to way "Whether a law should be retained is dependent on its long-term consequences rather than its short-term consequences." This is basically what (B), the correct answer, says.

I guess one thing that I don't like about this question too is that it never defines the length of the period of immunity. I think this question would make a little more sense if it said a "long-term period of immunity." What if the period of immunity is 7 days, much too short to get to the long-term consequences presumably.

^These are worthy concerns, but they aren’t the argument’s concerns. Our task is to evaluate the connection between the author’s premises (short term consequences are painful while long term consequences can be beneficial) and the author’s conclusion (some kind of period of immunity!) Sure, the conclusion could’ve been more precise. But to get to "let’s have a long period of immunity" we need to pass "let’s have any old period of immunity." The author’s current conclusion is a necessary stop on the way to a more refined conclusion, and is therefore valid.

--Rina

[mkd000]

Can a LSAT Geek give me a detailed run down of this answer and the answer choices? I'm having a really hard time understanding this one. Why is it that long term consequences are more important than short term ones?!

Thanks in advance

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type: Principle-Strengthen

Task: Which answer choice, if true, does the most to help get us from PREM to CONC

Tendencies: Most examples of this question type act like Sufficient Assumption — the correct answer is a conditional statement that takes us from something we know from the PREM to what we’re trying to prove in the CONC. The atypical examples of this type just act like Strengthen … the answer choice helps get us from PREM to CONC.

Note: You NEVER need to worry about strong language if the question stem says
“Which of the following … if true / if valid / if assumed”
For any question stem like that, the stronger an answer choice is, the more effect it could potentially have (that’s what we want).

Argument Core:
Conc - When you enact a new law, you should give it a period of time during which the rule is “We can only repeal this new law if there are DIRE circumstances.”
(why?)
Prem - With any new law (statutory change), you’re likely to have painful short-term consequences (that would make people mad and make them want to repeal the law), whereas the long term benefits will probably be hard to see (but those benefits are why people would ultimately want to keep the law).

Basically, the author is suggesting that when you have a new law, people immediately see the bad short-term effects of the new law, but they don’t immediately see the good long-term effects of it.

Hence, the author wants the new law to have temporary immunity so that people don’t have a knee-jerk reaction to the short-term bad stuff and repeal the law before they’ve even had a chance to see / consider / benefit from the long-term good stuff.

(As a modern specific example, people might have said this about the Affordable Care Act … supporters would say “don’t repeal the law just because of the initial hiccups and discomfort — the website problems, the paperwork, the confusion — let’s see how it’s working a few years from now and see whether our national health care expenditures have actually gone down.”)

A counterargument to this author would sound like, “What! Give a new law a period of virtual immunity? That’s ridiculous. If people are suffering in the short term, let’s get rid of the law! Why on earth should we force ourselves to stick with it through some trial period?”

The correct answer, (B), answers this objection: we should force ourselves to keep with the law through the initial discomfort because whether a law should be retained depends primarily on the long-term consequences of its enactment.

That’s how (B) strengthens and why it’s the correct answer.

—— Switching from a conversational explanation to a more formulaic explanation ——

Correct answers connect what we were talking about in the PREM to what we’re trying to prove with the CONC.

The CONC is about whether or not new laws should be allowed to be immediately repealed or whether they should be protected for some period of time as long as circumstances aren’t dire.

The PREM is saying that protecting the new law initially is important because in the short term the law may stink, but in the long term it may be awesome.

(A) This principle would help you decide whether to keep a law, based on what voters think the consequences would be. I would probably keep this on a first pass. This hits the CONC (Whether the law should be retained) but misses the PREM (we never talked about what voters THINK the consequences will be, although maybe we could assume that they think the law will have mainly negative consequences since the short-term is painful and the long-term benefit is obscure).

(B) This locks in better than (A). It hits the CONC with identical wording, but it does a better job of explicitly connecting to the PREM by mentioning long-term consequences.

(C) This principle would help you decide how hard it should be to repeal a law, based on how hard it was to pass the law. Our author IS concerned in the CONC with making it hard to repeal a law (initially), but the PREM does not discuss how hard it was to pass the law.

(D) This principle helps you decide how carefully you should consider the immediate consequences of repealing a law. This doesn’t connect to the CONC. The CONC is about whether you should be able to repeal a law, not about what the consequences of repealing a law would be.

(E) This principle helps you decide how to write a law: you should focus more on long-term consequences. This doesn’t connect to the conclusion. The CONC isn’t about how to write the law, it’s about whether you should be able to repeal a newly enacted law.

Hope this helps.

[mharr]

That was an extremely helpful explanation, ohthatpatrick! The argument and correct answer choice make sense now. Thank you!!

[BarryM800]

I've difficulty comprehending this argument. What does it mean when a law has "immunity"? It's not enforced? Or the law only has provisional power - i.e., not final, and subject to change? Thanks!

[Laura Damone]

If the LSAT uses an obscure legal term, it is almost always defined for you on the spot. They're not testing you on whether you know the term. They're testing you on whether you can encounter an unfamiliar word and decipher its meaning from the information given. In this case, the "period of immunity" is defined by the text that immediately follows it: it's a period during which a law may only be repealed if circumstances are dire. So, it is the law itself that is immune: immune from repeal. The author goes on to explain the reason behind this: laws have growing pains, and while these can really smart, the gain from the pain is less immediate. Thus, we should hold off on repealing laws for a while so we can really evaluate their long term benefits. Make sense?