#20 - Government official: Clearly, censorship exists if we

[nicholaspavic]

Hi Toby!

Great question. The initial mapping may be throwing you off a bit here as it has with other students. You are correct that "public unwillingness to provide..." is not the negation of "if other citizens are not permitted access..." Rather, the author is arguing in the conclusion that "public unwillingness" is not accurately "described" (i.e. not identical) to not permitting "access." In other words, the sufficient has not occured and is therefore negated for us, logically, in our mapping. That negation is part of the mistaken negation that the conclusion's stimulus makes. It's confusing, but it's the way that the LSAT likes to do it in certain stimuli, especially their harder questions.

Thanks for the great question!

[Toby]

Thank you! That helped clarify it for me.

[biskam]

I got this question right but it was kind of a fluke because I looked at structure rather than really understanding what the stimulus was saying. I've read all the posts in this thread but I am still SO confused with what these two statements literally mean:

1) or if other citizens are not permitted access to our communications at their own expense
2) public unwillingness to provide funds for certain kinds of scientific, scholarly, or artistic activities cannot, therefore, be described as censorship

Because I especially didn't understand the second statement, I couldn't see how it was a reflection of the first statement and thus couldn't come up with a conditional reasoning statement for the conclusion.

I would really appreciate any help I could get

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Biskam,

1) or if other citizens are not permitted access to our communications at their own expense

You can interpret this statement to indicate a situation similar to the government banning access to a certain website, or banning the purchase of certain books. The reason that the speaker inserts this premise is to say that even if a government allows you to write and try to sell whatever you want, the government still censors if it bans people from buying your book.

2) public unwillingness to provide funds for certain kinds of scientific, scholarly, or artistic activities cannot, therefore, be described as censorship

This one is a bit more straightforward. Imagine a government deciding to cut all funding to the BBC or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The speaker is stating that we cannot call it censorship if the government decides to stop subsidizing these activities.


Beyond this, I want you to let me know what you mean when you say that these two statements are a "reflection" of each other. As Nicholas wrote above:

"public unwillingness to provide..." is not the negation of "if other citizens are not permitted access..."

[biskam]

Hi Biskam,

1) or if other citizens are not permitted access to our communications at their own expense

You can interpret this statement to indicate a situation similar to the government banning access to a certain website, or banning the purchase of certain books. The reason that the speaker inserts this premise is to say that even if a government allows you to write and try to sell whatever you want, the government still censors if it bans people from buying your book.

2) public unwillingness to provide funds for certain kinds of scientific, scholarly, or artistic activities cannot, therefore, be described as censorship

This one is a bit more straightforward. Imagine a government deciding to cut all funding to the BBC or the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The speaker is stating that we cannot call it censorship if the government decides to stop subsidizing these activities.


Beyond this, I want you to let me know what you mean when you say that these two statements are a "reflection" of each other. As Nicholas wrote above:

"public unwillingness to provide..." is not the negation of "if other citizens are not permitted access..."

Thanks for the explanation I guess I'm confused how the gov't official can equate "Public unwillingness..." to "if other citizens are not permitted access to our communications at their own expense." I see no relation, substance-wise, to these two ideas. In other words, I thought "public unwillingness" was so out of left field that I couldn't even understand how it fits in with the previous conditional statements.

I'm sorry I'm confusing everyone right now

[Adam Tyson]

There doesn't need to be a connection, biskam! Nobody said the argument has to make sense, and in fact that is part of the issue here, recognizing the flawed nature of the stimulus and matching the flaw in the correct answer.

Answer D also brings up something new and disconnected - reputation. What does that have to do with what came before? Nothing!

Approach this one in the abstract and your problems with it will fade away. The stimulus says:

X Y

Therefore

Z Y

In other words, the author presumes that since one thing is sufficient for another, a third thing cannot also be sufficient for it. Flaw! That's all you need to concern yourself with, so don't get caught up in the specifics of what those conditions are.

Good luck!

[Mariam]

I don't really see the mistaken negation in this argument. It sounds like just one conditional relationship is presented as a premise (the lack of ability to communicate or lack of access to communication--> censorship). I thought the flaw was that the conclusion is not really supported by the premise. The conclusion is about public funding and the premise mentions nothing about that..or at least does not directly connect the two ideas. Is my reasoning wrong? I am confused by this question and don't really understand the mistaken negation aspect.

Thanks!!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Mariam,

You're right (and both Adam and Nick mention this above) that the "public unwillingness to provide funds" portion of the conclusion isn't a direct logical opposite of the sufficient conditions in the premises (citizens not being allowed to communicate at our own expense, or others not being allowed access to our communications at their own expense). And in that sense, there's a term shift problem that you're noticing between the premise and the conclusion.

That term shift problem is definitely happening in the context of a conditional argument, though. It's as if the author said (as Adam notes): "If X (citizens not being allowed certain things at their expense) happens, then Y (censorship) happens. Therefore, if Z (the new idea of "public unwillingness to provide funds") happens, then Y (censorship) does not happen."

Answer choice D does something similar to that: "If X (risking own life) happens, then Y (heroic deed) happens). Therefore, if Z (the new idea of "risking reputation") happens, then Y (heroic deed) does not happen."

The technical Mistaken Negation description isn't entirely necessary (though if you and I had 20 minutes to sit down together, I could walk you through why it's actually a reasonably accurate description!). Focus on how the original premise went from a certain sufficient condition to a necessary condition. And how the conclusion goes from a different condition to the negation of that necessary condition. That's enough of an abstract description of the flaw to arrive at answer choice D!

Hope this helps!

Jeremy