#8- Some environmentalists question the prudence of

[ericj_williams]

Complete Question Explanation

Must be true. The correct answer choice is (B)

This is a very interesting stimulus because the author repeats the opinions
of others and never makes an assertion of his or her own. When a stimulus
contains only the opinions of others, then in a Must Be True question you can
eliminate any answer choice that makes a flat assertion without
reference to those opinions.

For example, answer choice (A) makes a factual assertion (“It is...”) that
cannot be backed up by the author’s survey of opinions in the
stimulus—the opinions do not let us know the actual facts of the situation.
Answer choice (E) can be eliminated for the very same reason.

Answer choices (B), (C), and (D) each address the environmentalists,
and thus each is initially a Contender.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer. The second sentence
references the views of many environmentalists (and “many”
automatically implies “some”), who claim that “nature has intrinsic value”
(for example, beauty). This view is the noneconomic justification cited by
the answer choice.

This answer can be a bit tricky because of the convoluted language the
test makers use. “Questioning the defensibility of exploiting features
of the environment” is a needlessly complex phrase. A more direct
manner of writing that phrase would be “attacking the exploitation of the
environment.”

To increase the difficulty of this problem, this language was then repeated
in answer choices (C) and (D).

Answer choice (C): We only know the opinions of “some” and “many”
environmentalists, and these numbers do not provide enough information
to discern the views of “most” environmentalists, which is the term used
in the answer choice (while “many” implies “some,” it does not imply
“most.” This point will be covered in more detail in a later chapter).

Answer choice (D): This answer choice cannot be proven. While we know
that many environmentalists claim a noneconomic justification, we do not
know that that is the only justification they provide. Note how the presence
of a single word—“only”—causes this answer choice to be incorrect.

Thanks for sharing that first point to A and E about no author's opinion, eliminate flat assertions.

[OceanBlue]

I'm having a hard time comprehending this stimulus. What exactly are "doing so" and "not doing so" referring to in this question?

I'm probably over-thinking but this is the LSAT after all.

[katehos]

Hi OceanBlue!

Let's take a look at the second sentence of the stimulus and break it down in order to answer your question.

The first part of the second sentence introduces a claim of "many environmentalists": that it would be wrong to destroy features of the environment because nature has intrinsic value. These environmentalists make the claim that destroying features is wrong even if the costs of doing so (aka destroying the features) are outweighed by the costs of not doing so (aka not destroying the features).

In simpler terms, many environmentalists believe that, regardless of whether or not the economic costs of not destroying environmental features are greater than the economic costs of destroying environmental features, it is wrong to destroy such features because they have an intrinsic value.

You can even use common sense to reason this out! If the economic costs of NOT destroying features are higher than the costs of destroying features, then one might be able to argue that it is a good idea to destroy the features in order to spare some economic costs. This lines up with why many environmentalists take an intrinsic value approach, since using the economic justification could make destroying environmental features more appealing. But what if it were the other way around? What if the economic costs of destroying features were higher than the costs of not destroying features? Well, then the environmentalists might not need to use the intrinsic value approach, since the economic justification would be enough to preserve the features! This is contrary to the stimulus (since we know that many environmentalists make the intrinsic value argument), which can serve as another clue that "doing so" refers to destroying the features and "not doing so" refers to not destroying the features.

This stimulus is definitely made more difficult by the tricky language, but with practice you can more easily "see through" the language LSAT writers use! Keep it up!

I hope this helps
Kate