#24 - The problem that environmental economics aims to

[James Finch]

Hi LSAT 2018,

It looks like you got the conditional relationships partly correct, with a Mistaken Reversal of the relationship between Comparing Costs (Necessary Condition) and Economic Decisions (Sufficient Condition). Also, I might add some subscripts to identify the part-to-whole relationships, but that's optional. The correct relationship string looks like:

SP MVEF ED CC

Conclusion: CCEF SP

So the conclusion is the contrapositive of the conditional setup given by the premises, with the assumption that what is true of assigning monetary values as a whole is also true of assigning monetary values for environmental factors.

Hope this helps!

[lsatworld]

Hello Powerscore,

I'm looking at how you negated the answer choice for (A).

Is "even if" a necessary condition?

Thank you!

[James Finch]

Hi LSAT World,

"Even if" in this actually means that no conditional relationship exists, but it could indicate a sufficient condition depending on how the second condition is presented. If something may/could happen, then there is no relationship; conversely, a statement that says "even if X doesn't happen, Y will occur," the "if" functions as a sufficient condition indicator.

Hope this helps!

[deck1134]

Hi all,

This might be an stupid question, bit I am curious as to how you ended at your analysis of the strength of this argumentation? How do we know it is strong?

Thanks!

[James Finch]

Hi Deck,

The wording in the question stem and answer choices here is deliberately confusing and not close to any of the recent LSATs. The stimulus by itself is flawed, because it makes an assumption (an unstated premise necessary to the argument), which means that it is missing a premise. This question expects test takers to draw out the conditional chain and use that to see that answer choice (A) creates a strong argument once the assumption is plugged in. Without it, however, it is a weak argument.

Hope this helps!

[LSAT2018]

Hi LSAT 2018,

It looks like you got the conditional relationships partly correct, with a Mistaken Reversal of the relationship between Comparing Costs (Necessary Condition) and Economic Decisions (Sufficient Condition). Also, I might add some subscripts to identify the part-to-whole relationships, but that's optional. The correct relationship string looks like:

SP MVEF ED CC

Conclusion: CCEF SP

So the conclusion is the contrapositive of the conditional setup given by the premises, with the assumption that what is true of assigning monetary values as a whole is also true of assigning monetary values for environmental factors.

Hope this helps!

I would like to clarify some parts of the stimulus because to be frank, I don't think I would be able to answer a similar question on this. First, you made the conditional statements into a long chain, but did you immediately think of doing this upon reading the stimulus? Given 'solving this problem requires assigning monetary values to environmental factors' I am initially thinking of the conditional statement, Resolve → Assign Monetary Value.

But given the following statement 'but monetary values result from people comparing costs and benefits in order to arrive at economic decisions' I am initially confused because there is a causal indicator (result from). How were to confident enough to make this into a conditional statement Economic Decision → Compare Costs and Benefits?

Second, given the conclusion did you take the information in the first sentence 'people making economic decisions cannot readily compare environmental factors, such as clean air and the survival of endangered species, with other costs and benefits' as the part that represents 'environmental economics is stymied where the necessary part is weakened? But then again, how did you think of making this into a conditional chain?

I feel like I am asking too many questions, but I think I am finding every process difficult for this stimulus.

[zah]

The first step here should be to note that this is conditional reasoning using the word "unless," which often can prove to be tricky for test takers. The part modified by "unless" becomes the necessary condition, and the other part is negated and placed as the sufficient condition:

monetary values assigned make economic decisions

So you've diagrammed that part correctly. The second part is negating (I'm guessing you're doing so for the sake of double checking that it's the right answer). Here, however, instead of negating both the sufficient and necessary conditions, you just negate the necessary condition. In general, the negation of:

S N

would be:

S ~N

And if you plug the negation we have here ("Monetary values for environmental factors can be assigned even if people do NOT make decisions about these factors") into the stimulus, the argument would fall apart. That's why we know that it's an assumption of the argument.

I'm confused by this, are you saying that the contrapositive of an unless conditional is NOT
A B
B A

but is rather
A B
B A

???

I must be missing something here.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi LSAT2018 and Zah,

I'll start with you LSAT2018. I would agree that's how I would see the first conditional. And I didn't make the full chain until I started reading through the answer choices.

Regarding your second question, I think it comes down to how the language is being used and the relationship it is suggesting. To me, it looks like it's saying that in order to have MV, you need to have people compare costs to arrive at economic decisions. That has a conditional strength to it, so I would diagram it conditionally, despite the typical causal term "results from."

Regarding the conclusion that environmental economics is stymied by what motivates it, we can draw that from the premises. It's motivated by wanting to assign monetary value to environmental factors, but assigning that value requires people to be able to compare costs, which they cannot do with environmental factors.

Now, Zah---Let's turn to your question.

I think your confusion came between the idea of a contrapositve and a negation of a conditional.

This is a statement followed by the contrapositive. It's always true.
A B
not B :arrow:not A

This is a conditional followed by the negation of that conditional. It's the logical negation, and thus cannot be true at the same time the original conditional is true.

A B
A Not B

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[Katherinthesky]

Hi,
I'm confused by the question stem, specifically by this part in bold: "If the considerations advanced in its support are true..."

I took "its" to mean the considerations of the environmental economists - and not the considerations of the author.

How are you able to tell that that the stem was referring to the "considerations" of the author?

Thanks in advance.

[Adam Tyson]

I'm no English teacher, Katherinthesky, so I may not get the terminology right here, but the possessive pronoun "its" in this sentence refers to the noun that follows, which is "the passage's conclusion." We are talking about the degree to which the premises support the conclusion, because that is what the pronoun references. I think that might be called the "antecedent", even though in this structure it comes after the pronoun. Consider this sentence:

"If the reviews about it are to be believed, the new restaurant is going to be a huge success."

The "it" here refers to the new restaurant, right? The same thing is happening in this unusual question stem. We are looking for an answer that completes the sentence that is about how much, or how well, the premises support the conclusion. From there, we have to evaluate the argument a bit - do the premises do a great job of supporting the conclusion, a poor job, or nothing at all?

I hope that clear it up!