Q5 - Editorialist: Many professional musicians claim

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Music-sharing companies aren't to blame for the fact that musicians are getting deprived of royalties they deserve.
Evidence: Other people are also depriving musicians of royalties
(record companies, publishers, managers, etc. take an inequitably large cut)

Answer Anticipation:
"Bob can't have stolen anything from your store. After all, Peter, Paul, and Mary all stole stuff." Pretty silly argument.

To put it into abstract language, maybe something like "concludes that a certain party is not guilty of an offense on the grounds that other parties are guilty of that offense".

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Wow! That was pretty close to our prephrase. DOES THIS MATCH THE CORE? Yes, the author concluded music-sharing services aren't blameworthy (for depriving musicians of royalties), and the ONLY premise is (merely because) other people are ALSO depriving musicians of royalties.

(B) DOES IT MATCH? Nope, the conclusion is not "attempting to promote a particular behavior". It is saying "Music-sharing services are not to blame". No need to keep reading.

(C) DOES IT MATCH? Well, the conclusion DOES attack a position (the claim of many professional musicians). But the evidence doesn't attack the character of those professional musicians.

(D) DOES IT MATCH? Well, the conclusion DOES try to show that a position is false (the position of many professional musicians). But the evidence doesn't sound like, "BECAUSE musicians think that music-sharing services are robbing them, THIS negative thing happens to those musicians."

(E) DOES IT MATCH? No, this describes the Conditional Logic Flaw. You can't have the Conditional Logic Flaw unless there was a conditional statement in the evidence, but there was no such thing.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is a good example where people probably know that original argument is bad, but they may struggle to articulate HOW it's bad. The answer choices aren't always abstract on Flaw questions, but we should still try to consider an abstract prephrase in order to build the muscle of thinking of these arguments that way. Our prephrase could be, "Hey, author, the music-sharing services are still depriving musicians of money. You're just making me feel even worse for the musicians, since you're telling me OTHER people deprived them of money further upstream." or it could be "It is possible for more than entity to commit the same offense."

#officialexplanation

[brandonhsi]

I came down to (A) and (B).

(A): I thought A is wrong because the premise doesn't state ""another party is blameworthy."
(B): I thought B is wrong because of "attemp to promote" was not in the premise.

I thought both (A) and (B) are not perfect, but I chose (B) which is not a correct choice.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I think it's important to find the argument core here. The argument concludes that music sharing services are not to blame for the fact that musicians are deprived of royalties they deserve. Why? Because record companies, publishers, managers, and other intermediaries take an inequitably large cut of the revenues from music sales.

I hear that one group is not to blame, because another group is to blame--best expressed in answer choice (A).

Incorrect Answers
(B) asserts the wrong conclusion. The argument never attempts to promote a particular behavior.
(C) and (D) assert the correct conclusion, but incorrectly describe the evidence.
(E) falsely ascribes a condition to blameworthiness. The argument never appealed to a principle about blameworthiness.

[andrewgong01]

I am also not seeing what the previous poster posted about another party being worthy of blame because it does not seem like the author is saying publishers/managers etc are blameworthy.

My guess for the answer before seeing the choices was more so that music sharing services + publishers/managers are assumed to be the "same" where publishers/managers etc are justified in taking a share and hence therefore music sharing services are equally justified in taking a share.

Perhaps it was because of this and that "A" shows up first I eliminated "A" on the assumption that the argument was never saying the managers/publishers were blameworthy

[MayaM405]

Hi!

I am having a hard time understanding why D is false.

(D) DOES IT MATCH? Well, the conclusion DOES try to show that a position is false (the position of many professional musicians). But the evidence doesn't sound like, "BECAUSE musicians think that music-sharing services are robbing them, THIS negative thing happens to those musicians."

Could you elaborate on the explanation above? How does this answer choice improperly describe the argument? I see that the evidence does not sound like the example provided above, but I don't see why that is necessary for D to be correct.

Thanks!

[ohthatpatrick]

For any answer choice on Flaw to be correct, two things have to be true:

1. It accurately describes the argument

2. It points out a problem a logical move the author made


When an answer choice is structured like
concludes X on the basis of Y
infers X from the claim that Y
takes for granted that Y because X
tries to show X by pointing out Y

it's trying to describe the argument core. If the description doesn't match, then the answer is wrong. It would inaccurately describe the argument.


If we argued, "Chris isn't very tall. Thus, he must be very short", we know the problem with that logical move is that it fails to consider a middle ground between very tall and very short.

If an answer choice said
(A) tries to show that someone is very short by pointing out things that this person is incapable of reaching

we would get rid of that answer. We'd be like, "The argument didn't talk about things that Chris is incapable of reaching"


The position the author is trying to show is false is that "Unauthorized music sharing services rob musicians of royalties".

Did the author ever say that "People who believe that unauthorized sharing services rob musicians of royalties consequently experience X, which is harmful/hurtful/negative?"

Not at all, so we can get rid of (D) because it's a totally inaccurate description of what the argument did/said.

(D) would accurately describe an argument like this:
Many people claim that when you die, you cease to exist and are not rewarded for good behavior nor punished for bad behavior. While it is true that no one knows what happens when you die, these people are clearly wrong. After all, were you to believe what they believe, you would lose the incentive to behave morally.

Hope this helps.