#20 - Principle: One should criticize the works or actions

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion—PR. The correct answer choice is (A)

The principle states that one should criticize another person only if the criticism does not harm the person criticized and the critic expects to benefit someone other than himself. Since "only if" is a necessary condition indicator, both of these requirements must be met in order for the criticism to be sanctioned.

• Criticize Criticism does not harm the person criticized AND Critic expects to benefit someone other than himself

Note the distinction between fact and opinion in the two prongs of this principle: the first necessary condition is a matter of fact (no harm done); the second necessary condition is a matter of opinion (the critic expects to benefit someone else). To trigger the contrapositive, if either of these two requirements is not met, then one should not criticize the other person.

The application of the principle states that Jarrett should not have criticized Ostertag. The only reason given is that the defects were so obvious that pointing them out benefitted no one. This has no bearing on whether Jarrett’s criticism is warranted or not. In order to justify the conclusion, we need to show either that Ostertag was seriously harmed by the criticism, or that Jarrett did not expect his criticism to benefit anyone.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. If Jarrett knew that the defects were obvious and that pointing them out would benefit no one, he clearly could not have expected that his actions would benefit anyone else. By the contrapositive property of the principle stated above, Jarrett should not have criticized Ostertag’s essay.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice suggests that if Ostertag were aware of the defects in his essay, then Jarrett’s criticism would not have benefitted him. However, we cannot know whether Ostertag had any awareness of these defects. Furthermore, even if he did, it is irrelevant whether anyone actually benefited from Jarrett’s criticism. What matters is whether Jarred himself believed that anyone would benefit from the criticism. This answer choice does not provide any information about Jarrett’s beliefs.
Note that the conclusion can also be proven by evidence showing that Ostertag was seriously harmed by Jarrett’s criticism. All we know, however, is that Ostertag did not benefit from it. This is not enough to show that Ostertag was seriously harmed by Jarrett’s criticism.

Answer choice (C): Even if Jarrett knew that the criticism might antagonize Ostertag, this does not establish that the criticism would seriously harm Ostertag and therefore does not prove the conclusion.

Answer choice (D): The hope of gaining prestige is not the same as believing the criticism would benefit someone other than Jarrett. This answer is therefore irrelevant to the conclusion.

Answer choice (E): It does not matter whether Jarrett did or did not expect his criticism to benefit Ostertag. To prove the conclusion, we must know that Jarrett did not expect to benefit anyone other than himself. It is entirely possible that Jarrett expected his criticism to benefit other people in the class (just not Ostertag). Therefore, this answer choice does not trigger the contrapositive of the principle and fails to prove the conclusion.

[lathlee]

Admin edit: due to LSAC policies and copyright law, complete LSAT questions cannot be posted online. However, posting in this section of the forum (Test Explanations) immediately identifies the question, and eliminates the need for the text to be posted. Note: you can quote small sections of the question as needed for your question.

I know A) and E) are the correct ones since the applicant has reversed this conditional reasoning , only two answers that fit into this category is A) or E)
Breakdown:
Sufficient premise 1: the criticism will seriously harm the person criticized and one doesn’t do so
Or
Sufficient premise 2: one does not do this so in the hope or expectation of benefiting someone other than oneself.
Conclusion: one should not criticize the works and actions of another person
If the criticism will seriously harm the person criticized and one doesn’t do so Or one does not do this so in the hope or expectation of benefiting someone other than oneself then, one should not criticize the works and actions of another person

If the criticism will seriously harm the person criticized and one doesn’t do so Or one does not do this so in the hope or expectation of benefiting someone other than oneself then, one should not criticize the works and actions of another person

Since E) also fits in the category, I do not understand why E) is n't correct answer. Answer sheet said A) is the correct one

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi lathlee,

Thanks for the question.

First off, please do not post the original content of the question. As mentioned above, due to LSAC policies and copyright law, complete LSAT questions cannot be posted online. However, posting in this section of the forum (Test Explanations) immediately identifies the question, and eliminates the need for the text to be posted. In the title of your post, please identify the question number, along with the first few words of the stimulus. See the revised title of your post.

As far as the principle contained in the stimulus is concerned, I'm afraid your understanding of it contains a Mistaken Reversal. Read official question explanation in the next post.

Let me know if this helps.

Thanks,

[mjb514]

I'm having a hard time understanding why D is wrong.

[Luke Haqq]

Hi mjb514,

On this question, we're given the following principle: "One should criticize the works or actions of another person only if the criticism will not seriously harm the person criticized and one does so in the hope or expectation of benefiting someone other than oneself." This could be diagrammed as follows:

Principle: Criticize Seriously Harm AND Hope Benefits Others

The application is that Jarrett should not be criticized--to be able to see how we can get to that, we would need to take the contrapositive of the principle:

Seriously Harm OR Hope Benefits Others Criticize

Answer (D) states, "Jarrett hoped to gain prestige by criticizing Ostertag." If Jarrett hoped this, it wouldn't give us either of the sufficient conditions (Seriously Harm OR Hope Benefits Others) that could get us to Criticize.

However, answer (A) does this. the application in the stimulus makes clear that Jarrett's actions did not benefit others; answer (A) adds that he hoped/expected that it would not benefit others--which is the variable we needed. Given that he did not hope to benefit others, we can infer from the contrapositive that he should not criticize.

[Foti]

I apologize if I am being redundant. I have read this thread over and over again and I am still having difficulty seeing why E is clearly incorrect. I believe my problem is found within my contrapositive translation. This is how I translated the stimulus:

criticize others --> ~harm person criticized and hope/expect criticism to benefit someone other than oneself

~hope/expect criticism to benefit someone other than oneself or harm person criticized ----> ~criticize others

Answer choice E states that Jarrett didn't expect the criticism to be to Ostertag's benefit. I understand that Ostertag doesn't embody EVERYONE else, but he is still someone other than Jarrett. Wouldn't this statement be enough to fall under that negation? If he did not expect the criticism to be to Ostertag's benefit then he did not expect the criticism to benefit someone other than himself.

Does negating the latter condition when doing the contrapositive change someone to no-one? If so, why have I never run into this problem before? I consider myself to do very well with translating conditional statements and I have never had to do more than just negate the entire condition. If this is the case, I am clearly missing something big.

Thank you very much for your time.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Foti,

You correctly identified the issue here. When you negate no one, you end up with someone, just like if you negate none, you end up with some.

The contrapositive of our stimulus is

Seriously harm by criticism
OR
Criticism benefits NO one but yourself Should not criticize.

The stimulus draws the conclusion that Jarrett should not have criticized Ostertag's essay. In order to justify that, we need to think about Jarrett's expectations/hopes. Did he think it could benefit someone? Anyone? Knowing just that he didn't expect it to benefit Ostertag isn't enough to trigger our conditional, and draw the conclusion. We need to know he didn't hope it would benefit anyone (other than himself).

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[queenbee]

Hi

"Criticism benefits NO one but yourself -->Should not criticize."

Shouldn't the above make (D) the correct answer choice?

Thank you

[Adam Tyson]

No, because answer D doesn't mean that Jarrett ONLY wants to benefit herself. It's not enough to say she wants to benefit; she has to also not have any interest in benefiting others, and answer D doesn't take us that far.

[ashpine17]

Can’t you hope for something you know will NOT happen?b are hope and expected interchangeable