Q8 - Caldwell: The government recently

[giladedelman]

Okay, I've figured it out. In my defense, my copy of PT52 includes an experimental section, so this section is labeled as 4 instead of 3. The implication for you forum-users out there is clear: make sure to include as much of the first line of the argument as you can, as I've edited this post title to show.

ANYWAY, let's check out this argument. Caldwell concludes that the government's decision to demolish the naval base and its facilities was immoral because using the facilities for the good of the community would have benefited everyone. Well, the pretty major assumption is that if alternative A would benefit everyone, then alternatives B-Z are immoral.

(A) is correct, as you said, because it identifies Caldwell's assumption: he fails to consider that just because one choice would benefit everyone, that doesn't mean any other choice is immoral.

(B) we can rule out because Caldwell definitely takes the practical consequences of the government's actions into consideration. His beef is that the community could have used the facilities that got demolished -- certainly a practical concern.

(C) is out of scope entirely. Efficiency is not the issue, morality is.

(D) is the opposite of what Caldwell believes, since he tells us this particular action was efficient but not moral.

(E) is incorrect because nowhere does Caldwell suggest that these were the only two options.

Does that answer your question?


#officialexplanation

[clarafok]

haha can someone still explain this?

I chose B instead of A. is A the answer because even if the government could have used the facilities to benefit the community (alternative course of actions is to everyone's advantage), it doesn't mean the action (demolishing the naval base) is not morally permissible?

i don't really understand why B is wrong tho...is it wrong because the argument doesn't say clearly why the consequences are?

thanks!

[chiach2]

Im struggling to see how "E" is wrong and can conclusively be ruled out. I see why "A' is correct, but in regards to "E" dosent Caldwell assume that there are only 2 possible courses of action?
What if the government demolished the naval base to build something for the good of the community that was better than what was already there in the complex?
From my understanding of the stimulus Caldwell seems to only assume that there are only 2 ways to use the naval base (knocking it down or keeping it as is), when there can be another use the government had for it that would be of more good to the community.

Someone please explain to me in detail how my reasoning is flawed.
Thanks

[tzyc]

It seems (A) just deny the conclusion..."fails to consider that possibility".
By the way,
(D) is incorrect because it's the same as
~X→~Y(stimulus)
X→Y((D))

Is this correct?

[tommywallach]

Hey Everybody,

Two separate issues here, so I'm going to take them one by one. First, Chiach on answer choice E.

I see your point here, but you're stretching the boundaries of credibility. If you demolish a facility worth tens of millions of dollars (Which it would have to be, given everything they described), even if your plan is to build something better, that's deeply inefficient and even (if you accept the argument, which we know is a bad one) immoral. To assume they might have a third plan that the argument is ignoring is going too far. Particularly because he makes a much bigger mistake (jumping to the assumption that it is immoral NOT to do something that would help lots of people). Does that make sense?

Now, for you, Mr. Strawberry:

First off, I'm not sure what you mean by it "just denies the conclusion." Do you mean that as a complaint against (A), or a defense of it? It's not denying the conclusion, it's pointing out why the conclusion is a bad one. Similar, but not quite the same.

And as for your explanation of (D), I'm not sure it's that simple. The argument never creates any kind of causal connection between efficiency and morality. It separates the two, saying that demolishing the base was both of them. So I wouldn't go to a causal/conditional relationship (which is what we use the arrow for when outlining), because the argument doesn't. The problem, in fact, is that the stimulus has no relationship between efficiency/morality, while answer choice (D) suddenly implies one. It's not backwards, though.

Let me know if you have any further questions!

-t

[donghai819]

I got a little bit confused about answer choice A.
the CORE: Not demolishing the complex would have benefited everyone------> Government's action that demolished the complex is immoral.

EVEN IF in answer choice doesn't make any sense for me---"fails to consider that an action may be morally permissible even if an alternative course of action is to everyone's advantage."

It sounds like: Person A would have got an A even if he had studied harder.

It seems would make better sense if it is addressed this way: "fails to consider that an action may be morally permissible if an alternative course of action is to everyone's advantage."

Can anyone point out where I am getting wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

"Even if" is not a conditional idea; it is more an expression of irrelevance, as opposed to certainty.

Consider this argument:
Paul will not get the promotion. After all, he has been late to work in the past year.

Can you think of any flaw / assumption?

Would this answer choice work?
(A) fails to consider that someone may get a promotion even if they have been late to work in the past year.

It would. We're essentially saying, "Dude, your PREMISE does not prove your CONCLUSION."

Your CONCLUSION could be false, even if your PREMISE is true.

The idea you had going of "If PREMISE true, then CONCLUSION false" is overly demanding. You're trying to concoct the opposite of a Sufficient Assumption (Sufficient Destruction?). You're looking for a logical rule that proves the conclusion is false.

All we have to do is show that it doesn't have to be true.

[GaelM793]

Can we please get an official explanation for this question?

[ohthatpatrick]

There already was a post labeled #officialexplanation at the top.

It just doesn't have the formatting of some of the other ones.

CONC: the govt's decision to demolish a naval base was inefficient and immoral.
why?
EVIDENCE: Had they opened up the naval base to the community, the community would have benefited from the gym, the pool, the gardens, etc.

OUR EVALUATION:
We have to be the other lawyer and think, "Even if I accept the evidence, how can I reject the conclusion?"

Even if we accept that the public could've benefited from this former naval base,
how can we argue that the govt's action was NOT "inefficient and immoral".

The easier attack point there seems to be this crazy-loaded idea of IMMORAL. Whoa, whoa whoa. It's IMMORAL for the government to demolish their own building, over which they have legal rights to do whatever they want?

It might be un-generous, but calling it immoral seems unfairly demanding. Is it immoral every time we scrape the remaining food off our plate into the trash? Clearly, that food could have benefited someone hungry, but is our action immoral?

CORRECT ANSWER:
(A) this gets at the heart of our objection -- "just because it would've benefited the community if the govt had decided to let THEM have the naval base, it was still morally permissible to demolish their own property.

TAKEAWAYS / PATTERN:
When you read a flaw paragraph and don't recognize any of the 10 famous flaws (at least 50% of them aren't famous flaws), then just think about how you'd argue the Anti-Conclusion. If you were trying to make a case that the government's action wasn't "inefficient and immoral", the easiest thing to argue is that it wasn't immoral. LSAT agreed that we should be attending to this low-hanging fruit.

We could have also argued that this action was reasonably efficient ... maybe the govt needed to built a secret bunker and this location was perfect for it. It might be that demolishing this old naval base and building a secret bunker on this site is more efficient for them than it would have been to donate this naval base to the community and build a secret bunker somewhere else.