#19 - Anthropologist: Violence is an extreme form of

[oops27]

Hello, I'm having a tough time breaking this stimulus down into its parts. This is what I have so far: (Fact set, Formal Logic/Cause and Effect)

1st thing--(all) violence----->Aggression

2cd thing--Violence <------some----->distinct from the self-expression (aggression?) sufficient for survival under normal conditions.

3rd thing--The last sentence is weird; I think it's Cause and Effect....Culture-------->Human beings in certain situations react to unpleasant stimuli with violence. Also some formal logic in there (situations)<------some----->violence.

How can Answer Choice A be inferred? Thanks powerscore admin!

[Francis O'Rourke]

Answer choice (A) is a rather subtle inference that is easy to miss at first. The first sentence tells us that violence is an extreme form of aggression. The phrase "extreme form" is key to understanding the inference. What that phrase indicates is that there are forms of aggression that are less extreme, and are thus not violence. 'Extreme form' as used here is not a moral claim, but is telling you that violence is only one type among others.

Think of the following statement: the death penalty is an extreme form of punishment. This would tell us that the death penalty is one form of punishment, but that there are less extreme forms available: you may only get a fine or a few days in jail if you lie on your tax returns.

[na02]

Hi,

I can't see why B is correct. I originally chose E because I didn't think I could infer "product" (aka cause) from "conditioned."
I did keep B as a contender, but how would I know this is logically inferred?

Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

The reason we can NOT infer answer B, na02, is that "nonagressive" is not the same as "nonviolent."

We can infer answer E from the stimulus because "a product" means the same thing as "an effect." When one thing produces another, the producer is the cause and product is the effect. "Conditioned by their culture" is also causal - the culture is doing something active to bring about a result. The active thing is "conditioning". Active verbs like that indicate the presence of causal reasoning, although causality can also be present with a more passive voice like "was a factor in" and the slightly more active "played a role".

If one thing is actively doing something, bringing about some sort of change or result, then that first thing is a cause. If culture is conditioning the humans in it to behave a certain way, or if I am conditioning my hair, there is active, causal stuff going on.

[ericj_williams]

The reason we can NOT infer answer B, na02, is that "nonagressive" is not the same as "nonviolent."

We can infer answer E from the stimulus because "a product" means the same thing as "an effect." When one thing produces another, the producer is the cause and product is the effect. "Conditioned by their culture" is also causal - the culture is doing something active to bring about a result. The active thing is "conditioning". Active verbs like that indicate the presence of causal reasoning, although causality can also be present with a more passive voice like "was a factor in" and the slightly more active "played a role".

If one thing is actively doing something, bringing about some sort of change or result, then that first thing is a cause. If culture is conditioning the humans in it to behave a certain way, or if I am conditioning my hair, there is active, causal stuff going on.

I don't think conditioning is the causal indicator, it's actually just "because."

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Eric!

It's definitely easy to think that a word like "because" would be some sort of causal indicator--it has the word "cause" right inside of it! But the problem is that the LSAT doesn't use "because" strictly to indicate causal reasoning. In fact, "because" is a premise indicator. It indicates the reasoning the author is using to support the conclusion. So "because" really means "for the reason that" and it is used to introduce premises in a wide variety of arguments, most of which are not causal in nature. When we're looking for causal reasoning, we're not just looking for general support for the conclusion, we're looking for a specific relationship in which one thing is actively making something else occur. That means that causal indicators typically use active language. Here, the verb phrase "conditioned by" gives us an active relationship in which one thing is actively making another thing happen. That active relationship is how we recognize the causal reasoning!

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey