#5 - Attorneys for a criminal defendant charged that the

[Jeremy Press]

You're very welcome, Adeline!

[Mariam]

Hello- I have read the explanation for the correct and incorrect answers but still a little confused. I eliminated A because, I thought, the gov't denied the existence of such evidence and if there is no evidence, it couldn't have been destroyed. I went with answer choice B because if the defense says that they destroyed evidence and the reply is that there is nothing that comes close to that type of evidence, aren't they implying an exaggeration? where am I going wrong here? thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Looks to me like you are believing the Government here, Mariam. Why? Do we have to accept what they are telling us at face value? And even if we accept that there is no evidence, couldn't that be because they destroyed it?

Basically, the Government's response here is no better than if they had not responded at all. It's meaningless. They have neither confirmed nor denied the allegations made by the attorneys. The question remains open - did they destroy evidence or didn't they?

[Owl224]

Hello! I'm wondering if it would be correct to categorize this flaw as a "straw man" argument at all? I understand straw man flaws usually point to the distortion of words and claims, rephrasing given claims so as to evade responding to them. In a sense, the government here is distorting the attorney's words through manipulation, stating that there is "no evidence that would even tend to support the defendant in the case" to the attorney's assumption that such evidence exists. Just trying to figure out how to best categorize the flaw. Thank you!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Owl,

There's no real distortion of the attorney's claims. The government attorneys don't reinterpret the word "destroyed" or otherwise twist the words of the defense attorneys. They just report on their views on the existence of evidence. That there "is" no evidence that would show the defendant's innocence. That's a very specific time based claim, and one that might be purposefully deceptive. Deception is different from a straw man argument though. It's evasion and deception, but not the specific distortion type described by a straw man.

Hope that helps!

[aghartism]

I find this question fascinating. Whether (A) or (E) is correct depends on what one thinks the quantifiers in English range over, which is an open question in contemporary philosophy. In fact, the LSAT's position on this issue is the one that presents more immediate difficulties than its rivals.

For example, if you think it is true (or even possibly true) that there are things that once existed, but do not exist now, then (E) is the better answer. (This is explained more below.) And isn't it plausible that there are things that once existed but do not exist now? According to the explanation here, that's not plausible, because it would amount to there being currently things that once existed but do not currently exist, which is contradictory. This is the presentist understanding (as philosophers would call it): briefly, that quantifiers range over all and only things that currently exist.

In marking (A) correct, that's clearly what the makers intended, but it seems implausible when you think just a little bit about it. It seems like in English the quantifiers not only range over things that once were but are no longer, but also things that are not currently but will be. For example, it's not absurd that an optimist about space colonization would assert that there are moon bases that will exist, but do not yet exist; there are moon bases that our descendants will build. This is, in a nutshell, the eternalist position. On this understanding, (E) is correct because, if there never was any such evidence, then the government could not have destroyed such evidence.

My conclusion is not that the makers of the LSAT should have considered this debate in temporal ontology. That's unfair. My conclusion is that they marked the answer choice correct that is correct only if one takes the more prima facie implausible interpretation of quantifiers in English.

It does no good to point out that "is" is in the present tense. The relationship between time and grammatical tense is hardly that tidy. "Cats are mammals" is not to be understood as "Cats are currently mammals", to use an easy counterexample. Also, there's no word in (E) that would render it incorrect even under the more plausible, eternalist understanding of quantifiers. "Effectively" and "disproves" are both fine; "if true" does a lot of work, mind you. And the occurrence of the modal "would" and the strengthened "even tend to support" also suggest that something more is going on, that the government is not just making a claim about what evidence currently exists, but perhaps about what evidence could possibly exist. This is really a separate point (alethic vs. temporal modality), but it's worth mentioning in this context.

OK, I argued with the LSAT. How embarrassing. I'll try to take a lesson from this. Narrowly, the LSAT makers are presentists, or at least write items as if they were. Broadly, don't overthink earlier questions.

(Apologies if this is not what the forum is for. I think this adds something to the discussion of this very interesting question.)

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi aghartism,

Interesting discussion. I'll admit that I sympathize with your view--I loved the philosophy of time course I took. That being said, this is a sort of distinction that is relevant and necessary for legal practice. You might remember something from the 90s that said "it all depends on what your definition of is, is."

It's not unusual that lawyers are asked to produce X, where X is a document, a report, or a SOMETHING that the other party allegedly holds. Here's what's important---you don't have to recreate X. If X has been destroyed, the response is that they do not have X. It doesn't exist. If X exists, they need to provide it. Since it doesn't, they don't.

There are categories of things for which this makes sense, other than just legal things. For example, if you are asked if you have a cold, you only say yes if you are actively sick. Similarly here in context, it's important to recognize that the tense of the verb matters. The fact is for answer choice (E), it wouldn't be accurate to say that it disproves the defendant's claim if the government's statement were true. That's because it could be true that the evidence doesn't exist and never did. But it's also consistent with the government's statement to believe that the evidence DID exist, but no longer does. Answer choice (A) is better, because the question of past existence is OPEN. It doesn't say it was destroyed. It doesn't say it wasn't destroyed. n

[aghartism]

Hi Rachael,

Thank you so much for the thoughtful response!

Just to clarify, according to eternalists, the government's response definitely would be inconsistent with the defendant's claim. That's because the government's response, for an eternalist, claims that no such evidence existed, does exist, or will exist. That might at first sound like a bizarre understanding of the government's response, but I gave examples above to motivate such a reading of quantifiers not otherwise disambiguated. You mention context, which can disambiguate, but I don't see it here.

Your example of the cold switches from the verb "to be" to the verb "to have", by the way. "Bob has a cold" doesn't involve a quantifier, for example. In that case, the link between present tense and the present (i.e. the current time) is much less controversial.

I only meant to claim that (A) is correct (in some "objective" sense) if and only if presentism is true. I'm happy just to acknowledge that the test-makers are presentists, at least unconsciously.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi aghartism,

I don't have much to add to Rachael's response except that, while it can be fun and thought provoking to think about LSAT questions from a particular school of philosophy, etc. (and I'm all in favor if it makes your studying more interesting and enjoyable), in terms of answering the questions themselves, you'll generally want to stick to the "plain English, common sense" meaning of the words. Remember that the LSAT doesn't expect or require any highly specialized educational background (scientific, philosophical, or otherwise), so if you're bringing in such information, that can actually cause problems.

It would be a bit like a physics major observing in a different question, "Well, if we consider the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, then such and such answer doesn't actually have to be true."

[aghartism]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the response!

I'd like to clarify, though, that I never meant to go beyond "plain English, common sense". I think it's pretty common-sensical that there are things that have been permanently destroyed. In fact, it wouldn't be hard to list some! And that's because, in plain English, without special circumstances, the existential quantifier ranges over at least the things that were and the things that are now.

I only mentioned the philosophical theories I did as examples of ways philosophers have tried to explain plain English and common sense as they understand it.