#25 - Wealth is not a good thing, for good things cause no

[Brook Miscoski]

Dianpoo,

Here is a link to that question thread if you are still looking for an answer: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14122

[PVequalsnRT]

What's confusing me is that the stimulus mentions "cause". This led me to think that this was a PR cause and effect, which means the answer choice would need to be the same. Could you tell my why this is not?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi PVequalsnRT!

You're certainly right to take note of the word "cause" in the stimulus. Causation is tested over and over in the logical reasoning sections, so it's important to be aware of the times in which a stimulus mentions causation. Here, there's indeed a statement involving cause and effect--"good things cause no harm at all," or:

good thing harm

That is, if we know something counts as a "good thing," then we know that it causes no harm. The effect of a good cause is a lack of harm.

However, this alone doesn't necessarily give us the right answer in a parallel the reasoning question. Again, it's worthwhile that you took note of the causation in the stimulus, since it might turn out that this is essential for ascertaining the right answer choice. But it might also be possible for an answer to parallel the reasoning in the stimulus accurately overall without using subject matter that involves causation. This appears to be the case here. We have:

good thing harm

Next, the contrapositive of this is:

harm good thing

Finally, we have the conclusion, "Wealth is not a good thing," on the grounds that:

wealth harm

This argument uses the string,

wealth harm good thing

From this, it validly arrives at:

wealth good thing

This is the same form taken by answer choice (A): "Alex loves to golf, and no one in the chess club loves to golf. It follows that Alex is not in the chess club." In diagramming this, we would have:

chess club loves golf

The contrapositive of this would be:

loves golf chess club

Finally, we are told that Alex loves to golf, which allows us to create a chain:

Alex loves golf chess club

This chain can be reduced to:

Alex chess club

Thus, one can see that answer choice (A) parallels the same reasoning as the stimulus. Both of these take the form of a long chain, A B C, and reach the valid conclusion from this that A C.

[SGD2021]

Hello, can we immediately eliminate answer choice B because it is concluding the person IS that thing, while our conclusion was about something NOT being a certain thing? In other words, in general, for parallel reasoning questions, if we have a “NOT” conclusion, should we immediately eliminate any answer choices that don’t have a “NOT” conclusion?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

SDG, I consider that a flag for an answer choice, but not an automatic elimination. Here, it would be hard to match the exact reasoning without a negation, but you could see an argument that has a negative conclusion in the stimulus match a positive conclusion in the answer choice.

In this specific instance, since our conclusion is conditional, we know we'll want to see that conditional relationship in the conclusion of the correct answer choice. Our stimulus has a conditional in the form of A--->C, therefore both the statement and the contrapositive would have a negation in the necessary condition. I would expect to see that negation in the conclusion of the correct answer choice as well.

[queenbee]

Hi
Any chance you can help a little with my logic.
Here is how I diagramed the question:

Wealth != Good
Good != Harm
Wealth = Harm

I felt like it matched the following
Sarah's Dog != Daschund
Daschund != Hunt
Sarah's Dog = Hunt

The correct answer is below, but doesnt match as perfectly as Sarah's Dog
Alex = Golf
Chess ! = Golf
Alex != Chess

Any chance you can help?
Thank you!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi queenbee!

I'd be happy to help with the diagramming and correct answer.

We can start with the conclusion, "Wealth is not a good thing." Why does the author argue this? The author explains that "good things cause no harm at all," which can be diagrammed as:

Good Harm

It's worth noting that the above form of conditional statement (A B) can be rewritten as a double-not arrow:

Good Harm

If something is good, we know it's not harmful. And if something is harmful we know it's not good. In addition to this statement about the relationship between good and harm, the author tells us that wealth brings harm:

Wealth Harm

The stimulus doesn't exactly say that wealth harms everybody, but it does say that wealth causes some harm. As such it can't be a good thing because good things cause no harm at all. This is valid because it follows from the above statements, which we can combine into:

Wealth Harm Good

In shorter form, this is:

Wealth Good

Since this a parallel reasoning question, we're therefore looking for something that's of the generic form,

A B C

And from that arrives at the conclusion,

A C

Let's look at whether (A) matches this form. Answer choice (A) states, "Alex loves to golf, and no one in the chess club loves to golf. It follows that Alex is not in the chess club." So we have "Alex loves to golf":

A LG

Then we have, "no one in the chess club loves to golf," or:

LG CC

If someone loves golf, that person isn't in the chess club. If someone is in the chess club, that person doesn't love golf. Finally, we have the conclusion, "Alex is not in the chess club," or:

A CC

This is valid, and it additionally follows the same generic form of using A B C to infer A C. Thus (A) is the correct answer.

Answer choice (D) states, "Sarah’s dog is not a dachshund, for he hunts very well, and most dachshunds hunt poorly." This would be correct if it said "all" dachshunds rather than "most"; if it had been phrased like that, it would parallel the claim in the stimulus that (all) good things cause no harm. As answer choice (D) is phrased, however, it's actually not valid reasoning. Based on the premises that (1) "most dachshunds hunt poorly" and (2) Sarah's dog "hunts very well," we can't infer the conclusion that "Sarah’s dog is not a dachshund." This is possible but it isn't required by the premises. Since this isn't valid reasoning, it doesn't parallel the valid reasoning in the stimulus.

[ashpine17]

So i am aware most and some statements cannot be contraposed, but if it is the case that S's dog hunts very well doesn't that mean it is not most dachshunds when combined with that last statement?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

I'm having a bit of trouble following your question Ash, so please feel free to let me know if I'm misunderstanding your concern. A single instance of a dachshund who hunts very well would not change the idea that most dachshunds do not hunt well. From the idea of "most" we cannot rule out that one does not conform to the most rule.

Our stimulus has the idea that wealth "often" causes harm, and that "often" can feel like a most. But it's in the wrong place. Good things can cause no harm, so a single example of a thing causing harm rules out the idea that it's good. We don't have a parallel rule for dachshunds. We don't know anything about what ALL dachshunds can or cannot do. We just have a rule about what most dachshunds do. That isn't a parallel case, because it doesn't allow us to draw a conclusion about a single dachshund.

Hope that helps.

[Davepix]

If the stem indicated there were a flaw in the stimulus, would the following revert to Wealth sometimes Harm or would it remain valid as below and be a flawed question overall? I'm just wondering if based on the stem I should have been looking harder for the flaw or if it should have been more obvious.

Premise: Wealth is often harmful to people

W = wealth

W H

Some test takers may question this representation, arguing that it implies that wealth always causes
harm. However, the most accurate interpretation of this statement is that wealth is among those things
which cause any harm at all. This formulation is logically valid and can be appropriately manipulated to
reach the correct conclusion