#16 -Journalist: When judges do not maintain strict control

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Weaken. The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[theamazingrace]

I was stuck between A and D. Is A wrong because the stimulus tells us "NOT X then Y" but answer choice A says "if X then Y" so it is a mistaken negation flaw?

Thank you in advance!

[theamazingrace]

I was stuck between A and D. Is A wrong because the stimulus tells us "NOT X then Y" but answer choice A says "if X then Y" so it is a mistaken negation flaw?

Thank you in advance!

& would D be correct because it is stronger in its certainity than A.

[Adam Tyson]

A is not a Mistaken Negation, theamazingrace, because a Mistaken Negation negates both the Sufficient Condition and the Necessary Condition. It would look like this:

Premise: X Y

Premise: Not X

Conclusion: Not Y

Answer A is not a good weakener for at least two reasons. First, it doesn't matter what happens when the judge do maintain strict control; we only want to know what happens when they do not. In that sense, you're right that this answer is a negation of what we should be looking for.

Second, it's the weak nature of "sometimes." Okay, sometimes that happens, but does it happen most of the time? And how often are the verdicts questionable in those other cases?

You're correct that D is a good strong answer, and it directly attacks the conclusion. It's no longer "whenever" lawyers engage in that behavior that verdicts are doubtful, but perhaps only when that behavior is not counter-balanced by legitimate evidence.

[bnlawyer98]

Isn't answer A showing the effect without the cause? Which is one of the ways to attack a basic causal conclusion?

[Beatrice Brown]

Hi BN! Thanks for your question

You're right that one of the ways to attack a basic causal conclusion is to show that the effect happens when the cause is not present!

However, the stimulus for this question does not rely on causal reasoning, so showing that the effect happens without the cause will not weaken this argument. Instead, the journalist is relying on conditional reasoning in making their argument; the use of words like "when" and "whenever" serve as clues that conditional reasoning is present.

The issue with answer choice (A) is that the journalist's argument is about situations in which judges don't maintain strict control over their courtrooms. Answer choice (A) then tells us something about situations in which judges do maintain this control. But knowing about situations in which judges maintain this control doesn't weaken whether lawyers engaging in obstructive behavior from a lack of strict control affects the validity of the jury's verdict.

Another way to see this is to imagine if you replied to the journalist's argument by offering him answer choice (A) and how the journalist would respond in turn. In this case, the journalist would respond to you as follows: "My argument is about the situations in which the judges are not strict. Just because there are sometimes incorrect verdicts when judges are strict in controlling the behaviors of lawyers doesn't mean that there aren't also incorrect verdicts when judges are not strict."

To sum up, be careful not to pick an answer choice that is a classic way to weaken a basic causal argument when the stimulus does not use causal reasoning. In this case, we could rely on keywords such as "when" and "whenever" to determine that conditional reasoning is used, not causal reasoning.

I hope this helps, and let me know if you have any other questions!

[g_lawyered]

Hi P.S.
I skipped this question during my practice test since I recognized a lot of conditional reasoning and a bit of casual reasoning that's time consuming. Can someone let me know if my reasoning is correct? Was there some casual reasoning in the premises? I narrowed down to answer choices A & D and eliminated A because I thought it was Mistake Negation. So I picked D.
My reasoning:
Conclusion: Lawyers influence behavior Question whether verdict is correct
Contrapositive: DON'T Questions verdict is correct Lawyers DON'T influence behavior

Premise 1: Judges don't control courtroom Lawyers influence behavior
Contrapositive: Lawyers behavior DON'T influence behavior Judges do control courtroom

Premise 2: Lawyers influence behavior causes for questioning whether the verdict is correct.

I predicted to weaken the argument: I would need an answer choice that introduces another way (that's not the lawyers' behavior) that leads to questioning of verdict.
But the answer choices didn't match my prediction. I was only eliminated A because I thought it was a Mistaken Negation of my contrapositive of premise #1 since we can't make statement that goes against the arrow (Judges do control courtroom).
Can someone let me whether I'm on the right reasoning or not?
Thanks in advance!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi GGIBA003,

I think you are running into trouble trying to fit everything into a conditional mold. It's not that there isn't conditionality here---there is! But I think conditionality is not the most efficient way to look at a problem when the conditionality uses weak language. This one isn't saying that if the judge doesn't have control, the verdict MUST be wrong. It's saying that if the judge doesn't have control, eh, maybe the verdict is a bit questionable. That's a much weaker relationship than I like to see in conditionality.

I do want to say that I noted that you put that weakness into your conditional diagram---great job!

Answer choice (A) didn't really weaken it here because we don't know what happens when a judge does control the courtroom. It could lead to correct verdicts, incorrect verdicts, or even no verdicts. It just doesn't impact our argument here.

Answer choice (D) gets at that weakenss in the conditional reasoning. It WANTS you to think that the relationship is as folllows:

Judge lacks control lawyers behave badly verdict is totally and completely illegitmate

But as you noted, that isn't what it says about the verdict. It says it that would be a reason to question the verdict. Answer choices that give us situations where the judge lacks control but the verdict is reliable would weaken our stimulus. It would give us a counter to the idea that the lack of control is problematic for reliability. The answer choice basically says "yeah, this might be a problem. But hey, as long as there is legitimate evidence, the lawyer's antics won't matter." We can't make that last conditional from lawyers behave badly to pretty much anything if the answer choice gives the jurors immunity from that.

Hope that helps!

[g_lawyered]

Hi Rachael,
This explanation helps so much! I am trying to use conditional reasoning when I see conditional word indicators. My frusturation is I'm not using it properly. Similarly, as I did in Question #15.
When is it helpful to write out conditional reasoning for answering questions when I see the conditional word indicators? And when is it not? This questions is a perfect example of how spending time on writing out conditional reasoning didn't benefit me and I could've saved time on this question.

Thanks in advance.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi GGIBA,

We have a really great blog post on how to know when to diagram. You can read it in detail here. But in summary, you diagram when diagramming will help you understand the stimulus better. You diagram when you think it will help you. If you can spot the problem without diagramming, great! It makes sense that you need to draw it out much more as you are learning. Slowly things should become easier to see without the diagrams.

Hope that helps!