#18 - Must Be True

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation
(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=14213)

The correct answer choice is (E)

This question asks for the choice that presents an act that would be legal under U.S. and Canadian
common law, but would be illegal under Classical Roman law. In the second passage, the author
states that in the event of an embarrassing disclosure, the revealer is only protected if the disclosure
had been made for a legitimate purpose, dealing with a matter that public authorities had an interest
in having revealed.

Answer choice (A): Neither passage discusses the issue of bribery, and there is no support for the
assertion that this would be legal under American and Canadian common law.

Answer choice (B): This act would be legal under common law, and would be protected under
classical Roman law based on the legitimate interest public authorities would have in having such
information revealed.

Answer choice (C): This choice which deals with false testimony, which is not an issue discussed
in either passage; the passages provide no support for the notion that this would be allowed under
American or Canadian common law.

Answer choice (D): Since public authorities would have a legitimate interest in having such
information revealed, this act would be protected and legal in classical Roman law, and because such
information would be true, it would also be protected under common law.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. The second passage provides that truth
in itself does not protect the disclosure, and for such a revelation it would be difficult to show that
public authorities had a legitimate interest in having the information disclosed. In the U.S. and
Canada, the right to reveal such facts, if true, would be protected by the right to free speech.

[alee]

Hey again!

Re. Q18, PT 65, Section 3, Q18, I am a little unconvinced with option E (the correct answer)

E: revealing to the public that a prominent politician had once had an adulterous affair.

Passage B suggests that E would be illegal in Roman law if the revealer of the information were unable to prove that there was a legitimate purpose + public interest in the revelation of the information. However, what part of E suggests that there is no public interest in the revelation of the information + legitimate interest?

Cheers!

[Steve Stein]

As you point out, passage B says that if shame would cause harm to a person's status or reputation, then the threat of revelation was unlawful--except in exceptional cases.

This means that it was unlawful--the answer choice does not have to specify that the information did not fall within any narrow exception.

Incidentally, it might also be difficult to argue a positive cause in exposing past adulteries of a politician.

I hope this is helpful! Let me know whether it's clear. Thanks!

~Steve

[powerscoreQasker]

A-D seemed pretty clearly wrong to me, but I'm still struggling to understand why E is the correct answer without making some unjustified assumptions to help it out. If I understand correctly, A-D are all embarrassing revelations that would likely be protected under US and Canadian law because of the freedom of speech, and might be protected in Ancient Rome due to the public interest in that information getting out. But why should we assume E is different? People absolutely do care about the sordid details of their politicians' lives, and I'd rather not stake my LSAT score on assuming that they're wrong to do so (whatever my personal beliefs on the matter may be). That's not even mentioning the at-times extremely conservative Romans and what they'd say about adultery. What am I missing?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Qasker,

First of all, forget what you know about how Romans would respond to adultery and their conservative views. That's specialized knowledge that is outside the passage, and you cannot bring it into the analysis.

Based on passage B, the question would be if the disclosure was for a legitimate public purpose. Answer choice (E) neither gives nor implies a public purpose of disclosure of private activity. It's not that people wouldn't be interested. It's that there is no protected public purpose for disclosure. None of the other answer choices are about conduct that doesn't have a public purpose to disclosure.

Hope that helps!