#11 - A gift is not generous unless it is intended to

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Manderz,

The top post here explains what's happening, so let's review that:

• 2. “A gift is selfish if it is given to benefit the giver or is less valuable than is customary.”
  
  Remember, “if” introduces a sufficient condition.

So, in that sentence, the "or" conditions are sufficient due to the "if" and the remainder (selfish) is necessary. Follow the indicators!


With answer choice (C), there's no way here to prove that a gift is generous. You can say it's intended to benefit the recipient and worth more than what is expected or customary in the situation, but even knowing that doesn't prove it's generous (and to do so would be a Mistaken Reversal). This is staple wrong answer in these questions, so if you have the LRB look in there for the Principle discussion or if you are in our courses it's in the Principle lesson materials

Thanks!

[parisielvirac]

The application of a conditional principle similar to this one does not allow a conclusion to be drawn that someone is generous (however, a conclusion could be made via the contrapositive that someone is not generous).

can someone please explain this?
once the contrapositive sufficient condition is met, why does only one of the have to "not occur"
is And treated like "or" in this case?
very confused about the RULES I need to follow for C and Ds reasoning.
The demand course did not explain this type of parallel reasoning case.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi parisielvirac,

I'm having a bit of trouble parsing what you are asking. If you meet the sufficient condition, then you need the necessary condition. That's true both for the statement and it's contrapositive. We follow the same rules here for all the answer choices. We base our reasoning on the reasoning in the stimulus.

Generous Benefit recipient and more than expected/customary

given to benefit giver
or
less valuable than customary selfish

Likely you are getting a bit turned around because of the negations. Remember that selfish is not the negation of generous. Selfish is included in not generous, but so are actions that are neither selfish nor generous. Similarly, benefit giver isn't the negation of benefit recipient (it could benefit neither), and less than expected is not the same as the negation of more than expected (it could be the same).

With all that, let's look at the two answer choices you mentioned.

For answer choice (C), we have that Amanda's gift is generous. According to the stimulus, that means it must be both to benefit the recipient and more than is expected/customary. In this answer choice, we don't know how much is customary to spend, so while it's expensive, we don't know if it's more expensive. For that reason alone, we can eliminate it.

For answer choice (D), we have that a gift is the same as what is expected or customary, therefore it's not generous. That leads me to take the contrapositive of the first conditional to see if this situation fits the contrapositive.

benefit recipient or more than is customary or expected generous

We can see with this contrapositive that answer choice (D) fits that first conditional. The computer is not more than is customary, therefore it is not generous.

Hope that helps!

[Tami Taylor]

Hello,

I want to clarify why (E) is incorrect. I am a bit confused by the Admin's original explanation.

The contrapositive of the "generous" conditional statement helped me evaluate this answer choice: NOT intended to benefit recipient OR NOT more valuable ---> NOT generous.

Is (E) wrong because it mischaracterizes one of the sufficient conditions of the contrapositive statement (NOT intended to benefit recipient)? (E) says Michael's gift "didn't benefit" his nephew because his nephew lost the money but, in reality, the gift was intended to benefit the nephew. Thus, this scenario shows that neither sufficient condition in the contrapositive statement is met (NOT intended to benefit recipient OR NOT more valuable) which means the necessary condition, Michael isn't generous, isn't 100% certain.

Thank you!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Tami, answer choice (E) has a few problems. We can assume though that the money was intended to benefit the recipient. There wouldn't be another reason for a monetary gift. We stop thinking about the intent once the gift is made---that is, it doesn't matter than the nephew then loses the money. The events AFTER the gift are irrelevant to the intent of the giver. We can also say that it's more than customary, because it's more than the giver ever gave before.

We don't know though, if the gift was generous. We know both necessary conditions were met, so it's possible that it's generous. But we can't go backwards in a conditional. We can't go from the necessary to the sufficient. The presence of the necessary condition does not help us determine if the sufficient condition is met.

For example, in order to win the Superbowl, you have to be on a football team, and that team needs to win at least one game. Baker Mayfield is on a football team. That team has won at least one game. We have no idea if he has won the Superbowl, because we only know that he has met the necessary conditions. We can't draw any information from that about the sufficient condition.

Similarly here, we can't draw any conclusion about if the gift was generous or not.

Hope that helps.

[ltowns1]

Can someone help me with (A) a little more. If I don’t have to pay for something that I give you as a gift because it’s already paid for (and I hate it anyway), that’s a benefit to me! lol

[Adam Tyson]

Being a benefit to the giver isn't relevant, ltowns1. What matters is whether the giver intended to benefit themselves or intended to benefit someone else! An incidental benefit to the giver (if you can say giving something away that cost you nothing and you didn't want in the first place really is a benefit) doesn't mean they were not intending to benefit the recipient.

[ltowns1]

Got it! Thanks Adam!

[olenka.ballena@macaulay.cuny.edu]

Tami, answer choice (E) has a few problems. We can assume though that the money was intended to benefit the recipient. There wouldn't be another reason for a monetary gift. We stop thinking about the intent once the gift is made---that is, it doesn't matter than the nephew then loses the money. The events AFTER the gift are irrelevant to the intent of the giver. We can also say that it's more than customary, because it's more than the giver ever gave before.

We don't know though, if the gift was generous. We know both necessary conditions were met, so it's possible that it's generous. But we can't go backwards in a conditional. We can't go from the necessary to the sufficient. The presence of the necessary condition does not help us determine if the sufficient condition is met.

For example, in order to win the Superbowl, you have to be on a football team, and that team needs to win at least one game. Baker Mayfield is on a football team. That team has won at least one game. We have no idea if he has won the Superbowl, because we only know that he has met the necessary conditions. We can't draw any information from that about the sufficient condition.

Similarly here, we can't draw any conclusion about if the gift was generous or not.

Hope that helps.

Hi, I was between D & E, and I ended up choosing E. I made the diagrams correctly and even went ahead and diagrammed the contrapositives, but looking back, I realized I too easily looked over the emphasis on the INTENT to benefit. Is it recommended/suggested to include key words like intended in the diagram? Since my diagram didn't include intent anywhere, when I saw in answer choice E that the money didn't benefit the recipient, I thought was enough to say that the gift wasn't generous.

Looking back though, I do see that D is clearly the strongest answer, but I should've immediately eliminated E since him losing the money didn't matter and the intent was still there, which is why I'm curious if diagramming more specifically is helpful. Thank you in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

I think including the element of "intent" in the diagram would be very wise, Olenka! That's how I did it, because there is a crucial difference between intending to do something and actually doing it, and this is not the only LSAT question that tests that distinction.