- Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:14 pm
#14117
I find the stimulus of that question interesting, Smile, and I can see how it might cause some difficulty. It's not entirely conditional, since it uses the phrase "tends to", making the relationship between each condition less than absolute. It's causal, too, in that it uses active language like "decreases" (which can be paraphrased as "causes a decrease"). So how do we approach it?
Rather than get caught up in the mechanics of either conditionality or causality, let's take a more holistic approach. The stimulus draws a link between the harshness of penalties and the likelihood of feeling guilt, and another link between feeling guilt and committing a transgression. The conclusion then draws a new link from harsh penalties, an already familiar term from the premises, and a new term, ignoring the welfare of others.
The assumption here is going to have to be a supporter assumption that supplies the missing link. Whether we look at it conditionally, causally, or as an exercise in pure logic, we should still come to the same prephrase - that either guilty feelings or committing transgressions is somehow associated with ignoring the welfare of others.
Taking this holistic approach we can be very mechanical about analyzing the answers - anything that fails to mention "welfare of others" and either "guilt" or "committing transgressions" must be a loser. That eliminates all but answer B, which is of course the correct answer. This, by the way, is one of the strategies we recommend for many Justify the Conclusion questions - when faced with challenging logical relationships we can step back and just look for the "rogue" elements in both the premises and the conclusion and just link them up. That approach also works well with supporter assumptions, which may or may not justify the conclusion but nevertheless fill in a gap in the argument.
Hope that helps!
Adam M. Tyson
PowerScore LSAT, GRE, ACT and SAT Instructor
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