Logical Reasoning

PT135 · S4 · Q18 Hospitals, universities, labor unions

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Hospitals, universities, labor unions, and other institutions may well have public purposes and be quite successful at achieving them even though each of their individual staff members does what he or she does only for selfish reasons.

Facts

Even though individual staff members at hospitals, universities, and other institutions are doing what they do for selfish reasons, they end up successfully achieving public purposes.

Evaluate

This is an Inference task (the paragraph is supposed to support the answer). When we're doing Most Supported and we see a Pivot word, such as but / yet / however / even though, the correct answer is usually a safely worded claim that Straddles the Pivot.

Goal

Look for a safely worded claim that reconciles "acting for selfish reasons" with "successfully achieves public purposes".

18.

Which one of the following generalizations is most clearly illustrated by the passage?

  1. What is true of some

    Unsupported Distinction

    Obviously this safely worded idea is true in the real world, but there's nothing in the paragraph that distinguishes some organizations from others. We're never allowed, on LSAT, to assume that The Only Ones Mentioned = The Only Ones For Which This is True

    1% picked this

  2. Correct

    An organization can have a

    Why this is right

    This straddles the pivot: the members are performing selfish actions; the organization is performing public actions.

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

    82% picked this

  3. People often claim altruistic motives

    Out of Scope: claim altruism

    Nothing in the passage tells us that the employees claim to be altruistic.

    6% picked this

  4. Many social institutions have social

    Out of Scope: founders / unintended

    We aren't told anything about who founded these institutions or what their intentions were.

    4% picked this

  5. Often an instrument created for

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: just as effectively Out of Scope: another purpose We could call these institutions an instrument created for the purpose of achieving public purposes. Could we say that these institutions serve the purpose equally effectively of having their employees perform their duties for selfish reasons? That sounds really confusing and like an overstretch of language. Could we say that the employees were created for the purpose of selfish action, but serve the purpose just as well of achieving the public services provided by these institutions? Almost, but it seems really weird to say these employees are an instrument created for one purpose.

    7% picked this

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