#9 - Historian: Anyone who thinks that the terrors of the ancient regime of Q were exclusively the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen—Principle. The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[LeslyLSATinLA]

i thought the correct answer wasn't as a strong enough as answer choice B, which to me was essentially saying the same thing because fanaticism is connected to the murdering of people. Though I'm still having a hard time understanding why C is the correct answer.

[Robert Carroll]

LeslyLSATinLA,

The conclusion of the argument is the last sentence. Note that the argument never defined "murder". It is certainly not clear to me that causing the death of a person is always murder - legally that's not true, but commonsensically I think we can agree as well. Accidental deaths aren't murder. So the stimulus thinks certainly people were murderers, but never allows me to know when something counts as murder. It would be good if an answer choice would provide an appropriate definition, because that would then allow us to conclude (or at least, conclude with some more certainty than before) that some ordinary people of Q were murderers.

Only answer choice (C) actually does that. In fact, it shows that people doing exactly what some ordinary people of Q did are guilty of murder. That's what we want, so it's certainly a strong contender at this point.

Answer choice (B) doesn't define murder, but I think it's even worse - answer choice (B) says that the pursuit of paradise justifies fanaticism. Then...those ordinary people of Q were justified in their fanaticism, at the very least. Isn't that nearly opposite of the conclusion, which wants them to be morally culpable for their actions, not justified?

Robert Carroll