LSAT and Law School Admissions Forum

Get expert LSAT preparation and law school admissions advice from PowerScore Test Preparation.

 Administrator
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 8950
  • Joined: Feb 02, 2011
|
#23602
Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion—PR. The correct answer choice is (A)

Walter concludes that cigarette smoking should be banned on all airline flights. He reasons that in an airplane, the non-smoker passengers cannot avoid the secondhand smoke.

Walter's argument is fairly reasonable, and operates on the principle that one person should not be allowed to unnecessarily impose a risk factor on another. Since you are asked to choose the principle that would justify Walter's argument, you should focus on locating a choice that illustrates that broad principle about imposing risk.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct choice. Walter argues on the idea that even if something is normally legal, it should not be legal in situations when it forces harm onto others. That justifies his proposal that since cigarette smoking on airlines inevitably forces harm onto non-smokers, cigarette smoking should not be legal on airline flights.

Answer choice (B): This incorrect choice concerns whether an activity should be banned in general, but Walter was only concerned with banning smoking on airline flights, so this choice is automatically somewhat off-topic. Furthermore, Walter needs a principle that is sufficient for banning smoking on airlines, but the wording of this choice (banned only if harms) makes harm a necessary, not a sufficient, requirement, and thus is a Mistaken Reversal of the principle that Walter needs.

Walter needs: ..... "Harm ..... :arrow: ..... Ban"

This answer choice: ..... "Ban ..... :arrow: ..... Harm"

Answer choice (C): This choice suggests that smoking should be modified in some way to make it harmless, but Walter argues that smoking should simply be banned. Granted, temporarily ceasing smoking is a modification, but this choice generally supports the conclusion that the airline has to prevent harm without restricting permission to smoke, so this choice does not justify Walter's conclusion, and thus is incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This choice suggests that the regular smokers should be excluded, which seems to go much further than Walter's conclusion that the smoking should be banned. Actually, this choice would technically allow infrequent smokers to smoke on airline flights, since this choice bans only regular smokers and not the activity of smoking.

Answer choice (E): This principle suggests that smoking should be permitted, not banned, on airline flights, so this choice weakens Walter's conclusion and is thus incorrect.

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

Analyze and track your performance with our Testing and Analytics Package.