#21 - Ethicist: It is morally right to reveal a secret only

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[dani23]

Hello,

I am completely lost on this question. I missed it on the actual LSAT exam this previous September and I missed it again as I am restudying my mistakes.

Thanks

[nicholaspavic]

Hi Dani,

So let's take a look at this stimulus and question. They want me to figure out the morality of certain actions, which means that I have to figure out what is going to be SUFFICIENT to trigger those two morality judgments offered in this stimulus. Classic LSAT Principle type question that requires some diagramming:

morally right to reveal a secret one has a legal obligation to do so + will not harm oneself by doing so

The contrapositive of which becomes:

one has a legal obligation to do so OR will not harm oneself by doing so morally right to reveal a secret

In plain English that becomes: if one has no legal obligation to do so ORshe will harm oneself by doing so, then she is not morally right to reveal a secret.

It's so important that you practice your contrapositives for test day and just automatically see them in your head. Note how with this contrapositive I have figured out that somebody could do one thing or another to make themselves "not morally right." In other words, there is some room here to do something that is not morally right.

Looking at the second statement:

one has promised not to reveal + revealing is likely to result in any harm to others morally wrong to reveal a secret

That's a pretty restrictive rule to get to morally wrong because I need both those things to get to necessary of "wrong!"
The contrapositive of it becomes:

morally wrong to reveal a secret one has promised not to reveal OR revealing is likely to result in any harm to others

Which in plain English becomes: If it is not morally wrong to reveal a secret then one has not promised to keep the secret OR revealing it is not likely to result in harm to others.

Now I have my rules and contrapositives down. Now I know what I am looking for in an answer choice that is going to guide me when judging the actions of others. The principles are locked in my head and the LSAT is going to give me a gift on this question by giving me the right answer choice, right up front.

In Answer Choice (A), Katherine has revealed a secret, and in doing so, she has not met either part of my sufficient for the second statement. So Katherine "morally" passes my second statement test. But I get counter language of "However," so now I know that they are going to probably test me on my understanding of the first statement. And look at what Katherine has done, she met the sufficient of my contrapositive because she was under no legal obligation, therefore that triggers my necessary and Katherine was not morally right. That's why Answer Choice (A) is correct.

Thanks for the great question!

[harvoolio]

I have ADHD so these questions kill me. I had less than a minute left so (skipped and came back) so is this process ok or did I get lucky:

1st sentence "only if" so "not morally right" goes in the necessary condition - eliminate any answer choice which says "morally right" as a conclusion.
2nd sentence "if" so "morally wrong" goes in the necessary condition - eliminate any answer choice which says "not morally wrong" as a conclusion.

Eliminated (B), (D) and (E) because the conclusion said "morally right" which is in the sufficient condition of the stimulus.

Time winding down - maybe 20 to 30 seconds left so no time to read (A) and (C) - 1st sentence in stimulus had an "or" in the sufficient condition, while second sentence had an "and" in the sufficient condition so "not morally right" has 1 of 2 sufficient conditions to meet, while "morally wrong" had 2 of 2 sufficient conditions to meet.

Guessed (A) over (C) because without reading the answer choices or the pre-phrasing the stimulus, the conclusion of (A) had 1 sufficient condition which is easier to meet than the 2 sufficient conditions of (C).

[Adam Tyson]

Hey there harvoolio, it looks like you have a good idea in looking for key words and quickly building diagrams to help analyze answer choices, but your results are at least starting out backwards. For example:

1st sentence "only if" so "not morally right" goes in the necessary condition - eliminate any answer choice which says "morally right" as a conclusion.

You're sort of right here - "only if", a necessary condition indicator, puts legal obligation and no harm in the necessary condition, and morally right is sufficient. But you got to the right place anyway, if accidentally, because that means you will be unable to prove anything is morally right, since you can never prove a sufficient condition occurred, only that it did not occur (via the contrapositive).

2nd sentence "if" so "morally wrong" goes in the necessary condition - eliminate any answer choice which says "not morally wrong" as a conclusion.

Again, you went about it the wrong way but somehow ended up in the right place anyway. In this second principle, "if" always refers to a sufficient condition, not a necessary one, but "morally wrong" was the necessary condition because the "if" referred to the other stuff (promise and harm).

As long as you are clear on which words indicate sufficient conditions, which ones indicate necessary conditions, and which terms those indicators are referring to, you should be able to quickly plot out the relationships the way you were trying to do with confidence. Go slowly and carefully to avoid mistaken reversals and mistaken negations, and you should be fine!

[ameliakate]

I diagramed answer choices A – D correctly, but I gave pause to answer choice E. I eliminated answer choice E because it referred to the moral correctness of not divulging a secret rather than the moral correctness of divulging a secret. My though process was the conditional reasoning in the stimulus provides options for when to divulge a secret, so I could not make an assumption on the moral correctness of not divulging a secret.

Is this correct?

[Jay Donnell]

Hi Ameliakate!

You are completely correct that the situation in E brings up a context that falls outside of the bounds of the principles listed in the stimulus.

With the contrapositive of the first principle, we have conditions that can be met to allow for a judgment when divulging a secret would not be morally right.

With the second principle as stated, there are conditions that can be enacted to allow us to declare an instance when divulging a secret would be morally wrong.

Neither of those principles allow us to pass judgment on when keeping a secret would be morally right, wrong, questionable, or really anything at all.


Good catch!

[lanereuden]

Can I get further clarification here as to why d is not correct? Thanks!

[Jay Donnell]

Hi lanereuden!

D falls short here as a correct answer due to the fact that it concludes that an action was morally right, and neither of our given principles in the stimulus allows us to do so.

The first principle gives two requirements of a morally right revealing of a secret (a legal obligation to do so and not harming yourself while doing it), but we don't have any factors that would be sufficient to prove that any act would be morally right.

The conditional clue that clears up the structure of the principle is the phrase 'only if', which leads directly into the necessary condition(s). Therefore, the principle can be diagrammed as:

morally right to reveal a secret --> legal obligation to do so and[/b won't harm oneself

The contrapositive (which is used in the correct response of A) would then be:
no legal obligation to do so or it would harm yourself --> not morally right to reveal a secret.


In using a conditional principle to prove an argument, it's the necessary side that has to match with the conclusion.

For example,

If knowing that being elected president requires being both a citizen and at least 35 years of age, we wouldn't be able to prove who is president. Using the contrapositive, we could conclude that anyone who was not a citizen or under 35 years old would not be president, but again here the conclusion would have to match the necessary condition.

Hope that helps!

[t_m6289]

In questions that use "right" and "wrong" in conditional statements, is it ok to go from right to wrong when taking the contrapositive (and wrong to right), or are we only justified in going from right to not right (and wrong to not wrong)?