Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT131 S1 Q16 Explanation

Chiu: The belief that

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsSufficient Assumption

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Stimulus

Chiu: The belief that a person is always morally blameworthy for feeling certain emotions, such as unjustifiable anger, jealousy, or resentment, is misguided. Individuals are responsible for only what is under their control, and is not always under one's control.

What this question is testing

Sufficient Assumption

Your task

Find the assumption that, if added, guarantees the conclusion follows.

Common trap

Answers that only partly bridge the gap, leaving the conclusion unproven.

Winning move

Identify the new term in the conclusion and pick the choice that links it to the evidence.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
16.

Chiu's conclusion follows logically if which one of the following

Answer choices

  1. Out of Scope13% picked this

    Individuals do not have control over their actions when they feel

    This answer is about someone’s actions when they feel certain emotions, while the stimulus is about whether the act of feeling certain emotions itself is under one’s control.

  2. Correct68% picked this

    If a person is morally blameworthy for something, then that person is

    Why this is right

    This is the contrapositive form of MB → R the anticipated assumption.

    Skill tested: Sufficient Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

  3. Out of Scope5% picked this

    Although a person may sometimes be unjustifiably angry, jealous, or resentful, there are occasions when

    Appropriate instances of anger and other emotions are not relevant to this argument, since the conclusion is concerned with unjustifiable instances of certain emotions.

  4. Out of Scope9% picked this

    If an emotion is under a person's control, then that person cannot hold others

    The argument is about UC → ~R instances that are not under one’s control, while this is about instances that are.

  5. Too Weak5% picked this

    The emotions for which a person is most commonly blamed are those that are under

    This relies on a further ~MCB → ~MB assumption that those instances one is not most commonly blamed are one’s someone is not morally blameworthy.

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