#18 - Historian: Those who claim that Shakespeare did not

[harvoolio]

So would (B) have been correctly phrased as the answer had it not had the word "purely" like the stimulus i.e. "takes for granted that anyone who is motivated purely by snobbery cannot also be motivated by legitimate historical evidence?"

Thanks.

[Daniel Stern]

Harv:

I disagree that eliminating "purely" saves answer choice B.

The stimulus suggests that the argument is wrong because those who make it are motivated by snobbery, and thus attacks the source of the argument without considering whether or not there is evidence to support it. This is correctly encapsulated by answer choice D.

Answer B, on the other hand, says that those with snobbish motivation might also have some other motivation; but merely adding to their motives wouldn't change the stimulus author's criticism that their snobbery itself makes their argument invalid.

In short, the stimulus author is ignoring the evidence (answer D) not the possible alternative motives (answer B)

Best,
Dan

[harvoolio]

Daniel,

I think I understand. I am going to paraphrase you to check that I do.
The flaw basically is that the evidence of aristocrat’s descendants does not support snobbery in that it could be say an alternate cause in which aristocrats’ descendants are more likely to attend university in which they would Classical English from which to question authorship. So (D) is correct because it allows for an alternate cause to snobbery whereas (B) is wrong because it only allows for an additional cause.

Thanks.

[James Finch]

Hi Harvoolio,

One big clue in the stimulus is that the evidence tying those denying Shakespeare's authorship to "snobbery" is very weak: the only evidence given is that "many" (always a red flag term due to its vagueness) of the deniers are descendants of the aristocrats proposed as alternatives. The problem is that this leaves open a potentially huge percentage of the deniers ("many" could mean something like 25%) who have no "snobbish" reason to deny Shakespeare's authorship. So claiming the deniers are motivated only by snobbery while only tenuously tying "many" of them to possible snobbery doesn't make much sense. What about those that aren't descendants of the aristocrats, what motivates them?

[LSAT2018]

Wouldn't this question be referring to the source argument flaw? The argument is focused on the source (those who claim that Shakespeare did not write the plays, and the fact that they are descendants of aristocrats).

[Jay Donnell]

Hi LSAT2018!

This tough question, like most every Flaw question, boils down to the exact phrasing (and logical force implied) by the conclusion.

It's true that many of those who dispute the fact that Shakespeare (who, with apologies to Will Smith, was the original 'Big Willie Style' ) actually authored his plays were descendants of those aristocrats proposed as potentially the true authors of the works. However, the conclusion doesn't discard their opinions merely because of their potentially personal connections to the issue of who was the true author.

Instead, the author jumps to an unreasonable amount of power when they concluded that these claims were motivated purely by snobbery.

Providing some idea that there may be snobbery involved (being that these claims come from the descendants of aristocrats who likely would have looked down at someone who was merely the son of a glove maker) is not sufficient to conclude that the apparent snobbery was the only motivation behind their position. The original aristocrats may very well have been elitist snobs and their descendants in question could also very well be the most awful, stereotypical trust-fund jerks, but they also may be correct in their reasoning that Shakespeare was not the true author.

The question is similar to one that states that since doctors have a motivation to dislike some herbal supplement that could negatively affect the doctor's business, the doctors' claims about the dangers of the supplements are purely due to selfish motivations. True, the doctors to have a personal reason to advocate against the use of these particular supplements, but they also could be doing so because the supplements are legitimately dangerous to one's health.

This argument would have functioned as a Source Argument fallacy had the argument concluded along the lines of: The claims by these doctors about the danger of these supplements should be disregarded, because the doctors have a selfish motivation in wanting to keep these remedies unavailable for purchase.

In the Shakespeare stimulus in question, a Source Argument would have read like: Pay no mind to the claims made in doubt of Shakespeare's true authorship of these works, since the objections are coming from descendants of the aristocrats who could otherwise be argued to be the true authors.

Due to the use of the exclusive language with the word purely in the conclusion, this question falls more under a category of an unsupported amount of logical force rather than a classic Source Argument.


Hope that was helpful!

[leejohnm123@gmail.com]

My question is around answer choice D. When I originally read this, I thought it couldn't be D because it says that it fails to exclude that legitimate evidence may have been a motivation. However, because the author says that they were motivated "purely by snobbery," I figured that automatically excludes every other possible motivation outside of snobbery. I don't think I understand how "legitimate evidence" is compatible with "pure snobbery."

[Luke Haqq]

Hi leejohnm123!

Your reasoning sounds correct. You comment,

because the author says that they were motivated "purely by snobbery," I figured that automatically excludes every other possible motivation outside of snobbery.

As a general rule, it's important to take the stimulus as you find it--i.e., it's not necessary to bring in outside information, but rather one should be confined only to what is in the stimulus. On flaw in the reasoning questions, however, the question stem tells you that there is an error somewhere in the stimulus and asks you to identify it.

In this question, the historian's assertion that certain people were motivated "purely by snobbery" is the problem. After reading through the stimulus, my pre-phrase for an answer was that the stimulus sounded like ad hominem argumentation, that is, it attacks the person rather than the argument advanced. The historian concludes that people who don't think Shakespeare wrote all of the plays attributed to him do so out of pure snobbery. According to the historian, many of the people who think this are descendants of the aristocrats who they argue wrote some of the plays. This fails to account for the possibility that these descendants might be right for other reasons--for example, perhaps their reasons are rooted in textual criticism, perhaps they possess original manuscripts from their distant aristocratic relatives that predate whenever Shakespeare published a given play. In short, the historian makes a logical fallacy in assuming that these descendants must be "motivated purely by snobbery."

[CJ12345:]

Hi, Powerscore,
I still could not understand the difference between B and D. I think they are referring to the same thing. I think they are both talking about the author did not consider that there might be another possible outcome than "snobbery" if the critics are descendants of aristocrats. Is there any way to discern the difference? how do understand both answers in the context of this question?

Additionally, for this stimulus, we cannot assume the hidden conclusion is that "those who claim Shakes did not write the plays are wrong", right? it is very easy to slip into this conclusion since the first sentence seems to indicate this meaning. If we accept that as a true conclusion, it makes me choose E. Why it is wrong to think in this particular way?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi CJ12345:!

Answer choice (B) states that the argument in the stimulus "takes for granted that anyone who is motivated purely by snobbery cannot also be motivated by legitimate historical evidence."

One problem with this answer is that it refers to "anyone." The historian presenting the argument in the stimulus doesn't make a broad claim about what is true about "anyone who is motivated purely by snobbery." At the very most, the claim in the stimulus is a much more limited one about a certain group of people being motivated purely by snobbery. That language therefore should push this out of contention since it doesn't accurately describe what is going on in the stimulus.

The historian's view is that the aristocrats have a vested interest in the plays attributed to Shakespeare being written instead by someone else, and the historian concludes that because they have in interest in the outcome, their argument must therefore be wrong. However, even though they could stand to benefit if they were right, it is possible that their argument might still have some plausibility.

Additionally, for this stimulus, we cannot assume the hidden conclusion is that "those who claim Shakes did not write the plays are wrong", right?

Correct--in general on the LSAT, you should avoid supplying a conclusion if one isn't given. The main exception to this is the type of question that asks you to complete the argument (e.g., the stimulus might have several premises, with the question then asking what follows logically as the conclusion).