Logical Reasoning

PT109 · S4 · Q19 Speaker: Contemporary business

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Speaker: Contemporary business firms need to recognize that avoiding social responsibility leads to the gradual erosion of power.

Conclusion

A business that wishes to retain its power as long as it can must act responsibly.

Evidence

Avoiding social responsibility leads to the gradual erosion of power. As the famous quote says, if society thinks that power is not being used responsibly, it will act to reduce that power, though it may take decades or centuries.

Evaluate

Given that society will eventually act to reduce your power when they deem you're not using it responsibly,

How could we still argue that Businesses that wish to retain their power as long as they can do not need to act responsibly?

Two thoughts come to mind: - given that it may require decades or even centuries for society to ultimately decide to act to reduce our power, maybe we should just not give a crap about acting responsibly, since we don't really believe that our business is going to last many, many decades or even multiple centuries.

In other words,

- given that the trigger for power-reduction is when society thinks power is not being used responsibly, lets just hope that we can fool society into thinking that we're using power responsibly.

In other words, .

Goal

We want an answer that would allow us to respond to the evidence with a storyline in which we can evade acting responsibly but still hold on to our power for as long as we can.

19.

Which one of the following statements, if true, most weakens the speaker's argument?

Government institutions are as subject
Out of Scope: government institutions
This argument is only about what businesses should do, so bringing in governments seems to have no bearing on the conclusion.
1% picked this
Correct
Public relations programs can cause
Why this is right
Woohoo, this was our second guess. If we can have a PR firm convince the public that we're acting responsibly, even while we're not, then there's no reason we have to act responsibly to retain power. The last premise was a conditional, playing off the trigger word "when". Conditional logic is pretty rare on Strengthen / Weaken, but generally if we see it, we would strengthen the argument by making it seem more like the rule will get triggered and we would weaken the argument by making it seem like the rule will not get triggered. This answer choice is suggesting the trigger will not happen (society will not be thinking that we're not using power responsibly), so it won't act to reduce our power. FOOTNOTE: This is a pretty cynical LSAT problem! They're asking us to use our legal thinking to counsel a business into not acting responsibly, since you can fool the public into thinking you're a responsible corporate behavior via clever PR.
Skill tested: Weaken · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
60% picked this
The power of some institutions
No Impact / Too Weak
This is a classic pattern for wrong answers on Strengthen and Weaken: things change things fluctuate differences exist It's a very wishy-washy thought that has no clear helping or hurting words in it. This answer essentially says that power erodes at different rates for different companies, regardless of whether they act responsibly. That might seem to weaken by making it seem like acting responsibly is irrelevant to retaining power, but it's phrased incredibly weakly by using "some" language. It's only saying that that acting socially responsible has not always fully dictated the speed at which a company's power eroded (since there's been at least some cases in which power eroded at different rates, unrelated to social responsibility).
12% picked this
Since no institution is eternal,
No Impact
The conclusion isn't about holding onto power forever, just "as long as it can", so pointing out that businesses, like humans, are all one day going to fail is not any sort of objection. The author's conclusion allows for the concept that a business can't hold onto power indefinitely, just "as long as it can".
3% picked this
Some businesses that have used
Too Weak
Answers that use "some / sometimes / not always" are almost always wrong on Strengthen, Weaken, and Paradox, where we want strongly worded, impactful answers. This just says, "there was at least one business that used power in socially responsible ways and lost it". Cool. That doesn't hurt the author's argument. He never promised that any company that uses power in a socially responsible way will never lose it.
23% picked this

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