#19 - Essayist: Only happiness is intrinsically valuable;

[smile22]

I'm sorry, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding what this stimulus is saying and the argument that it is trying to convey. Could you please explain the stimulus to me? Additionally, could you please explain how to correctly answer the question?

[David Boyle]

I'm sorry, but I am having a lot of trouble understanding what this stimulus is saying and the argument that it is trying to convey. Could you please explain the stimulus to me? Additionally, could you please explain how to correctly answer the question?

Hello,

I'll be happy to explain it to you!
Putting the stimulus in diagrammy form:

(Essayist)
Intrinsically valuable ---> happiness
Valuable ---> contributes to happiness

(Philosophers)
Valuing happiness ---> happiness is deserved
Intrinsically valuable (SLASH -------->) happiness

(I put the slash through the arrow itself to show that just because something's intrinsically valuable, that doesn't *necessarily* mean that it needs happiness)


(Essayist again)
Happiness brought to others (CAUSAL ---------> ) happiness people deserve

So, answer (C). "the judgment that a person deserves to be happy is itself to be understood in terms of happiness", riffs well of the last part about happiness brought to others causing the happiness people deserve.
One could argue that answer (C) isn't terribly relevant to all the things before the last part, about "valuing happiness", etc.; if this is true, that's not a surprise, seeing that the LSAT often makes you go through extra diagramming and focus on irrelevant stuff instead of serving you up the answer on a plate!
(Though now that I look at it: the philosophers say that the idea of "deservedness" shows something extraneous to happiness, so that happiness supposedly isn't intrinsically valuable. But if deservedness itself *depends* on happiness in some way, you could say it's not really extraneous to happiness... Ugh! What a stimulus to have to deal with!! You have my sympathy!!!)

David

[smile22]

Thank you so much for your thorough response!

[LSATer]

After reviewing the above explanation, I am still having trouble with this one. I get the idea that the author's final sentence is suppose to in someway refute the philosopher's statement that "we do not approve of a bad person's being happy shows that we value happiness only when it is deserved."

I just don't see how answer C is doing that.

Thanks for the help.

[Adam Tyson]

Hey LSATer, let me see if I can help. I think what our essayist is actually trying to refute is this claim:

This supposedly shows that we find something besides happiness to be intrinsically valuable

That is, he wants to show that despite what the philosophers say, happiness is still the only thing with intrinsic value. He does this by telling us that the whole issue of who deserves to be happy is still just about valuing happiness and not some other thing.

The essayist isn't trying to refute the claim that we value happiness only when it's deserved, but is instead saying that even that claim is based on the intrinsic value of happiness itself. You only deserve happiness when you make others happy, so happiness remains at the root of it all.

Tough question, confusing stimulus!

[LSATer]

Yes, this is a tricky stimulus. I have a better understanding of what it's doing here. I see my mistake as well--I incorrectly identified the point the Essayist was trying to make. Thank you!

[tetsuya0129]

Hi there,

I had two questions:
1. Does "intrinsically" show a sufficient indicator since its definition is "by itself"?
2. Does "be determined by" show a sufficient indicator? I thought this phrase also shows a "sufficient cause" of a subject.

So I felt there might be another way to diagram the Essayist's argument as follows:

All H V
V(~H) H

(Objection)
~( H(bad person) V)
V(H bad person) D

D V

(Rebuttal to the objection)
D is determined by H

Answer Choice (C):
D is understood in terms of H.

Would you be so kind to help address my questions and assess my diagram?

Thank you very much for your time,

Leon

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Leon,

To your first question, no, "intrinsically" (standing alone) is not a sufficient condition indicator. Here's an example: Swimming is intrinsically healthy. What does that mean? Swimming is, in itself (in other words, as its natural character), healthy. But if you were to diagram that statement as, Healthy Swimming, you'd have made a serious mistake, since that statement doesn't mean that the only healthy thing is swimming. So you shouldn't diagram the first statement of the stimulus using a double arrow. Instead understand the first statement to be telling you that, if something is intrinsically valuable (not just valuable, full stop, but intrinsically valuable), then that thing must be happiness.

To your second question, in the particular context of the last sentence of the stimulus, something's "being determined by" something else means that thing is "fixed by" (i.e. "limited in extent or scope by") something else. There's certainly causal reasoning in there in the sense that the thing doing the determining (here, the amount of happiness you bring to others) is having a certain effect (limiting the amount of happiness you deserve). But there's nothing specifically conditional about that relationship. If you wanted to try to squeeze that into a conditional relationship, I suppose you could ("If you bring a certain amount of happiness to others, then you deserve that amount of happiness"). But I don't think doing that (or diagramming it) would help you very much here.

I'll be honest that I find your diagramming of the stimulus pretty hard to follow. I'm not sure how much light it's shedding on the correct answer here. I also don't think it's accurate in certain cases (e.g., I don't think there's any statement in the philosophers' argument that would give you a double-arrow relationship between being "deserving" and being "happy"). Focus on understanding the meaning of the statements, rather than on diagramming every single element. I think Adam's summary above does a very nice job of capturing the intention and meaning of the essayist's statements.

I hope this helps!

[tetsuya0129]

Hi Jeremy, thank you so much for the detailed explanation. I will try not to overthink this one too much.