#17 - The position that punishment should be proportional

[Jonathan Evans]

Hey WRJackson,

For some more examples of intermediate conclusions, consider reviewing the following questions:

1. December 2003, PrepTest #42, Logical Reasoning Section 4, Question 18
2. October 2002, PrepTest #38, Logical Reasoning Section 4, Question 18
3. September 1998, PrepTest #26, Logical Reasoning Section 3, Question 4
4. December 1999, PrepTest #30, Logical Reasoning Section 4, Question 3
5. December 1999, PrepTest #30, Logical Reasoning Section 4, Question 13
6. February 1995, PrepTest #14, Logical Reasoning Section 2, Question 9

All of these are Method of Reasoning–Argument Part questions. In some of these questions, the statement identified in the question stem is an intermediate conclusion. In others, an intermediate conclusion is present but is not the statement identified in the question stem.

For an exercise, you might consider answering these questions as a drill but then analyzing them more thoroughly in order to identify the different components of the arguments.

Please follow up with further questions, and consider consulting the threads relevant to these questions as well. I hope this helps!

[ttam]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the additional problems on intermediate conclusions.

Another theoretical question regarding intermediate conclusions: are intermediate conclusions always in support of the main conclusion? Are there examples of intermediate conclusions contradicted by the main conclusion?

[Robert Carroll]

ttam,

Intermediate conclusions function like premises in their support for the main conclusion, so a given argument's intermediate conclusions will always support that argument's main conclusion.

A given argument's intermediate conclusions won't likely ever contradict the main conclusion. For technical reasons, it's possible for a premise to contradict a conclusion - for an example, see Preptest 20, October 1996, Section 1, Question #21. This argument form works as follows: Assume the opposite of what you want to prove. Show that that assumption leads to a consequence that can be rejected on some non-controversial grounds. Because the assumption entails the rejected consequence, the assumption should be rejected. But since the assumption is just the opposite of the intended conclusion, that proves the conclusion.

Using this method with an intermediate conclusion wouldn't make sense, but the reasons are technical and I don't think likely to be enlightening. If you have any further questions, send me a private message! For LSAT purposes, an intermediate conclusion of an argument won't contradict that argument's main conclusion.

Robert Carroll

[khmacdowell]

I have all three of the main PowerScore LSAT books (the "bibles"). Are there either official LSAC books or books you publish that provide drilling on specific question categories from the LR section?

LSAC's chosen correct answer choice is simply not correct with regards to formal propositional logic, and I want to make sure I'm studying the right materials rather than just drilling tests and getting 1 or 2 wrong on every test in LR because of the "fuzzy" logic they seem to sometimes use.

The argument in the question:

1. Harsher punishments for repeat offenders (A) what offenders did years ago is relevant (B)

2. What offenders did years ago being relevant (B) all other considerations are also relevant (C)

3. All considerations relevant (C) punishment cannot be strictly proportional (D)

4. Punishment cannot both be strictly proportional and consider repeat offenses, since A !D QED

Since A !D, A and D cannot both be true. Without the English sentences

1. A B
2. B C
3: C !D
4. A !D, so (A and D) is not possible

It is simply a fact that since B first appears in the second premise (which is somewhat arbitrary, but I'm just stringing two independent English clauses together per step in the argument), it is necessarily a premise itself, but it is also both a result of A and the sufficient condition for C, which in turn is used to establish the rest of the argument.

So B is a premise that supports an intermediate conclusion (C).

Now, it's not strictly necessary that just because one remote consideration is considered relevant, all are. Therefore, B itself is not proffered as untenable. Rather, the inclusion of ALL POSSIBLE remote considerations, which B implies according to the stimulus, is what is untenable.

Therefore, not only is answer choice E correct, answer choice D is incorrect, according to traditional propositional logic. However, LSAC disagrees. What's the best resource to find such unorthodox logical rules LSAC uses, and to memorize, practice, and drill them?

It seems from the explanations provided there are specific key words that make something an intermediate conclusion or not in LSAC's terminology, or specific conditional tests that can be done to make sure. Maybe there's some conditional test that I'm missing, or it's the fact that all are in a chain such that even if all other remote considerations were included, EXCEPT past offenses, then it wouldn't be the past offenses themselves that were the issue. So the untenability of including past offenses is established by the causal chain, and any causal chain the results in an untenable conclusion means the first premise of the causal chain is itself untenable (or something like that).

[Dave Killoran]

I have all three of the main PowerScore LSAT books (the "bibles"). Are there either official LSAC books or books you publish that provide drilling on specific question categories from the LR section?

Yes, we publish a book like that called LSAT Logical Reasoning Question Type Training. It breaks 20 LSAT LR sections into question type sections, and some reasoning type sections.

LSAC's chosen correct answer choice is simply not correct with regards to formal propositional logic, and I want to make sure I'm studying the right materials rather than just drilling tests and getting 1 or 2 wrong on every test in LR because of the "fuzzy" logic they seem to sometimes use.

It's not been my experience that LSAC flouts established logical rules; there is a justification for each answer and usually it's pretty strong (and especially so when you consider the relative wording of many question stems). Regardless, this is their test and you can't really argue with them about what they see as right and wrong (in this sense they are both the judge and executioner). I talked in some detail about this here: You Can't Argue With the LSAT.

Insofar as this problem, I don't have much to add to the two PowerScore instructor posts earlier in this thread, which do a very good job of explaining what LSAC is thinking (specifically Jon's and Jonathan's). Just keep in mind that our goal here is to explain what LSAC is thinking, and not usually to try to figure out how test takers interpret the language (aside from analyzing how LSAC thinks they might react). Thus, our explanations will always focus on their direct justification and we typically will not take up discussions on a broader level of whether LSAC is right or wrong in a logical sense to do certain things they do (that discussion goes on forever!).

Thanks!

[khmacdowell]

Certainly there's no issue about rules of logic, so any taker who reads my summary of the question as I read it shouldn't think I'm saying there is... It's that they seem to (very rarely) use nomenclature in ways that isn't so rigorously documented "out there." So of course help with those specific terms and how they use them is what I need.

Thanks a lot for your help! Your books are the best books so I'll pick that one up.

[Dave Killoran]

Certainly there's no issue about rules of logic, so any taker who reads my summary of the question as I read it shouldn't think I'm saying there is... It's that they seem to (very rarely) use nomenclature in ways that isn't so rigorously documented "out there." So of course help with those specific terms and how they use them is what I need.

Thanks a lot for your help! Your books are the best books so I'll pick that one up.

Thanks for the reply, and the kind words! I may have misunderstood your message—I saw your references to LSAC being wrong with the formal propositional logic, and didn't realize you may be more focused on the nomenclature element. Fwiw, this test has been looked at by many logicians and found generally solid, so if there's an issue there I'm not aware of it. The usual issue is their use of words in a rather traditional, formally defined manner, which often catches average test takers unawares (such as taking "some" to possibly include "all," among others). But given the nature of your comments, I doubt that as a concern for you. My thought is that this is where the value of doing a lot of tests will come in: you'll ease into a comfort zone with their phrasing and use of the language (which isn't always clear in my opinion, although sometimes that seems intentional on their part).

Thanks!

[ScholesFan]

Hi PowerScore,

I've read through the (very helpful) dialogue on this question, but I'm curious about an answer choice that hasn't received too much attention. Why isn't answer choice A correct? Isn't it accurate to say that the author wants the reader to accept the statement made in the second sentence of the stimulus, and that the author has, at least in part, inferred their conclusion from it?

Thanks in advance!

[Robert Carroll]

Scholes,

Be careful! The author does want the reader to accept the second sentence of the stimulus, but that's not what answer choice (A) says! The second sentence has two parts - it says, essentially, "If a certain claim is true, then this consequence is true." The author wants you to believe that entire statement. The question, though, is identifying the part in the argument as just the second half of the second sentence - and the point of the argument is that the author does not think the second half of the second sentence is true.

Let me create an example analogous to the stimulus that will clarify the distinction. Here's my argument:

"Some people say we never went to the moon. If that's true, then no human-made object could possibly be left behind on the moon. But in fact there are mirrors on the moon's surface, left behind by missions conducted by the US and Soviets. This fact can be proven by shining lasers at precise points on the moon's surface. So those people who say we never went to the moon are wrong."

In this argument, I do want the reader to believe the conditional "If we never went to the moon, then no human-made object could possibly be left behind on the moon." However, I don't want the reader to believe "No human-made object could possibly be left behind on the moon." Instead, I think I can prove that there are human-made objects on the moon's surface, and because that's true, I can prove, via the contrapositive of the second sentence, that the moon-landing-deniers in the first sentence are mistaken. More abstractly, my argument is like this:

Premise: If A then B

Premise: not-B

Conclusion: not-A

The second sentence as a whole is that first premise. If I don't believe that, my argument gets nowhere! So I think that whole statement is true. But I don't think the necessary condition of that conditional is true - I think it's exactly false, which is how I prove my conclusion. I use the contrapositive.

Now look back at this real question. The statement in the question is the second half of the second sentence, not the entire second sentence. This is why it's not correct to say the argument provides grounds to accept it.

Robert Carroll