Q7 - Politician: Unless our nation

[skapur777]

I was between B and E here. Looking at my answer sheet I wrote B correctly, but when I redid the problem I picked E.

I can see how B is correct due to the last line (it is our nation's responsibility to do whatever is necessary) of the stimulus. However the argument states that if we Alleviate>we redistributed Wealth.

So why isn't E correct? The argument doesn't explicitly state that the conditions of economic justice require anything beside that so why should we assume it does? Should I be immediately skeptical just because it says 'conditions of economic justice' and the stimulus says 'alleviate economic injustice'?

[peg_city]

I'll give this one a try

1) ~nrwV->~aei + iei

2) IEI - > V

combine the two ~nrwV->~aei + iei -> V

Conclusion
V~ -> AEI and its out nations responsibility to do so


b) Responsibility -> NRW

E) NRW -> AEI, which is the opposite of what we need

I hope that is right

[peg_city]

Can one of the geeks explain my the conclusion is V~ -> AEI instead of AEI -> V~? What indicator shows that the sufficient condition is negated instead of the necessary?

Thanks ahead of time

[sukim764]

In regards to the OP's question regarding answer choice E:

Choice E confuses a necessary condition for a sufficient, more specifically, it confuses the conditions of sentence 1. Redistribution of wealth is necessary to alleviate econ. injustice, but choice E states that such redistribution is sufficient to create 'conditions of economic justice,' aka AEI.

[alexg89]

The only relevant part you need to diagram is

First part : ~IEI > NRW

Second part : IEI > RV

Connect them taking the contrapositive of the second part
: ~RV > ~IEI > NRW

~RV > NRW

(AEI is not relevant to the conclusion)
(IEI = intolerable economic inquities)
(RV = resort to violence)

Now the conclusion says that we must do what is necessary to alleviate RV. Therefore if RV has not occurred they must have redistributed wealth.

A - out of scope "doesn't say anything about justifying violent remedies"
B - correct answer
C - out of scope "nothing about political expediency vs moral principles"
D -Economic injustice is never linked to causing violence
E - confuses being sufficient and necessary

[dean.won]

Can we assume 'create economic justice' = 'alleviate economic injustice'?
i elim'd E becuz i thought those two statements couldnt be assumed to be the same

[twitterguy]

First to answer the question directly above. Yes:

Alleviating economic injustice means creating conditions of economic justice. If we alleviate the in-justice, then we have justice.

And so, when we negate alleviating economic injustice (~AEI), what we are saying is NOT ALLEVIATE ECONOMIC INJUSTICE. In other words, we HAVE economic injustice.


It might be instructive to expand a little on the point about necessary and sufficient, and why answer choice E is wrong.

There is a distinct difference between sufficient and necessary. Visually, we know that sufficient is always on the left side of a rightward pointing error. In other words, the sufficient points to the necessary:

S --> N

What this relationship means is that the existence of the sufficient guarantees the existence of the necessary. In other words, if you have a sufficient condition, then you MUST have the necessary condition, as well.

P: A --> B
P: A
____
C: B

If A then B, the existence of A guarantees the existence of B.

Let's examine this logical relationship by way of a simple example. All practicing lawyers have graduated law school. If we want to think about this in IF, THEN terms, we can say: if he is a practicing lawyer, then he graduated law school (JD = law degree).

PL --> JD

Since this is an If, THEN statement we know that lawyers is sufficient and law school is necessary, but let's think about it more deeply. The premise means that if he is a practice lawyer, then he MUST have graduated law school and obtained his JD.

Indeed, it is not legal for someone without a degree to practice law. And if we think about this by way of the contrapositive the sufficient-necessary relationship is reinforced.

If he does not have a law degree (JD), then he is not a practicing lawyer.

~JD --> ~PL

That is the only thing we can say in terms of the sufficient-necessary relationship. This is true because we could envisage a situation where someone with a law degree does not practice law. Many law graduates enter into other fields of business. And that's the crux of the sufficient-necessary relationship - and the limits of that relationship.

While the existence sufficient guarantees the existence of the necessary, the existence of the necessary says NOTHING about the existence sufficient. Think about that for a second.

P: A ---> B
P: B
_________
C: ????

In a basic sense, since the sufficient-necessary statement's arrow points from A to B, we understand that we can't point the other direction (from B to A). But what does that really mean? Let's turn back to our lawyer-law school example.

The fact that you have a law degree (our necessary condition) says absolutely nothing about your current profession. We might infer that you're a lawyer, but you may also be a marketer, an entrepreneur, or an elected official. In reality, we cannot logically deduce anything from the existence of the necessary.

The law graduate may well be unemployed.

Looking back at answer choice E, it states that "all that is required to create conditions of economic justice is the redistribution of wealth". Symbolically, this simply says:

RW --> AEI (alleviate economic injustice)

redistribution of wealth is sufficient, and alleviating economic injustice is necessary.

But that's exactly the opposite of what we determined the original premise to state. Originally, we determined that alleviating economic injustice is sufficient, and redistribution of wealth is necessary. The reason E is wrong is because we could imagine a society with redistribution of wealth that still suffers from economic injustice.

In the USSR, wealth was routinely redistributed, but economic inequality persisted. The existence of redistributed wealth did not alleviate economic inequality to any extent.


Summary: We originally concluded that if we have alleviated economic injustice, then we have redistribution of wealth.

AEI --> RW

The only logically valid deduction we can make is that not redistribution of wealth leads to not alleviating economic inequality.

~RW --> ~AEI

And that is why E is wrong.

[SandiD430]

When I read the answer choice in (E) [All that is required to create conditions of economic justice is the redistribution of wealth], I rephrase it as:

"To create conditions of economic justice, redistribution of wealth is required."

Create Conditions of Econ Justice--> Redistribution of Wealth.

This is very similar to the original premise:

Alleviate Econ Injustice--> Redistribution of Wealth

Can someone please explain why E is wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

If I said,
"All that is required to make Patrick happy is giving him a watermelon"
would you symbolize that as

If Patrick is happy ----> we are certain he has a watermelon

or

If Patrick has a watermelon ----> we are certain he is happy


It should be the second one.
"All that is required" = sufficient ........ (ironically)

Saying that "all that is required to make Patrick happy is a watermelon" is equivalent to saying "a watermelon is sufficient to make Patrick happy".

So (E) would be symbolized
"If we redistribute wealth --> conditions of economic justice"

The original sentence is saying
"If we don't redistribute wealth --> economic injustice will persist"

So (E) would be an illegal negation of the first sentence.
Beyond learning that proper way to diagram (E) as an If/Then, though, your other big takeaway here should be reminding yourself about how Inference questions work:

the correct answer on Inference questions is almost always (99% or more) derived by combining two or more ideas.

So when we see an answer like (E) and think, "well, isn't that basically saying what this sentence was saying?", we should be very wary.

We should be thinking, "Huh ... there must be some difference between (E) and between that sentence, since a correct answer to Inference in LR wouldn't just regurgitate one idea from the stimulus."

If you want a more conversational demonstration of the gap between the first claim and (E), consider this more relatable pair of ideas:
- Unless we get a decent score on LSAT, we will be unable to get into Harvard Law"
vs.
- All that is required to get into Harvard Law is a decent score on the LSAT"

[JeremyK460]

i don't think (E) has its condition flipped

(E) says...

all that is required to create conditions of justice is the redistribution of wealth

if i were to say...

all that i need to survive is food, water, sleep

and if i were to say...

the only thing i need to survive is food, water, sleep

wouldn't both compositions above be synonymous with (E)?

if they are, then organizing this would look like:
'survive only if food, water, sleep'

and (E) could look like:
'justice only if redistribution'

i think (E)'s insecurity is that it talks about 'creating conditions of justice/equity' while the stimulus asserts a necessity to 'alleviate intolerable injustices/inequities'

in other words, inequities/injustices still exist, just at a tolerable rate

this doesn't mean that by making injustice tolerable we've created conditions of justice