Logical Reasoning

PT144 · S4 · Q20 The public square was an important

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The public square was an important tool of democracy in days past because it provided a forum for disparate citizens to discuss the important issues of the day.

Conclusion (hence)

We should ensure that Internet users have at least as much freedom of expression as did people speaking in the public square.

Evidence

The public square was an important tool of democracy, because it provided a forum for varied citizens to discuss important issues of the day, and now the Internet plays the role of the public square.

Evaluate

The conclusion is making a recommendation ("should"). Does the evidence define what we should do or have anything normative or evaluative that would match that concept?

It sounds like the author places value on the public square, saying it was an important tool of democracy.

So if the author is concluding that we should ensure that Internet users have as much freedom of expression as people did in the public square, she must be thinking that freedom of expression is an important part of having the Internet play the same role as the public square did.

Maybe she's assuming .

There's also a wrinkle in this argument in the sense that the author says, . But do Internet users need the Internet to play that role? Or do they have other options for something that could play the role once played by the public square, in which case we don't need to specifically make sure that the Internet is ready to play the role?

Does society even need that role to be played? The author seems to assume that we should do what we need to do to make sure something modern can play the role of this "important tool of democracy". What if we're done with democracy?

Goal

This argument does not lend itself to an obvious prephrase. We know broadly that the author cares about maintaining the important democratic tool of providing a forum for disparate citizens to debate modern issues. And we know that she thinks that for the Internet to be this tool, we should be making sure people have at least as much freedom of expression as they did speaking in the public square.

20.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

  1. People speaking in the public

    Too Strong: complete

    The author doesn't need to believe that there were absolutely zero limits on freedom of expression in the public square. The author wants the Internet to have at least as much freedom of expression as the public square did. That expression actually implies that you could have more freedom of expression than the public square did. So in reality the author's conclusion reveals that she doesn't think the public square had 100% freedom of expression. You wouldn't say "X should have at least as much as Y" if you thought that Y already had the maximum amount.

    11% picked this

  2. All citizens have the same

    Too Strong: all / same

    The author hasn't committed herself to the incredibly extreme claim that every single citizen of the world has identical levels of access to the Internet. No one believes that, including this author.

    7% picked this

  3. Correct

    A public forum can lose

    Why this is right

    This is very mildly worded (can lose effectiveness), and it seems to combine wording from the Conclusion (free expression) with wording from the Evidence (a public forum that was a tool of democracy). It's also conditional: If participants can't --> then public forum discuss issues freely can lose effectiveness as tool of democracy When we see conditional answers on Necessary Assumption, we often want to contrapose them and ask, "Did the author make that reasoning move"? The contrapositive is saying, "If you don't want a public forum to lose effectiveness as a tool of democracy, then you need for participants to be able to discuss issues freely". Does that match the author's thinking? Yes, roughly. The author establishes that the public square was an important tool of democracy. She then says that the Internet can now play this role as public forum. Presuming that she wants the Internet to be at least as effective as a tool of democracy, if she says that we need to ensure freedom of expression on the Internet, then she's thinking that freedom of expression is connected to the ability of the Internet to play this role as a public forum that is a tool of democracy. In all honesty, this answer is very flawed because of a Relative vs. Absolute distinction (that LSAT frequently tests us on but is apparently willing to cast aside here). This answer is talking about whether or not someone is able to discuss issues freely, which is Absolute language. The argument was about whether or not the Internet allows people to discuss issues more / less freely than the public square did, which is Relative language. We're really only going to decide this is the correct answer by convincing ourselves that this is "Best Available", even if it's technically written wrong.

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

    72% picked this

  4. The Internet is more often

    Unsupported Comparison

    The author hasn't gotten into what is typically discussed on the Internet, so there's no basis for saying the author has committed to the idea that the Internet is more often used to discuss important stuff than frivolous stuff. If we negate this and say, "Not true -- the Internet discusses frivolous stuff about as often as important issues", does that weaken? Not really. As long as the Internet can provide a forum for citizens to discuss important issues, it's fine if the other 70% of the time it provides a forum for sharing recipes and shoe-aspirations.

    7% picked this

  5. Other than the Internet, no

    Too Strong: no

    This is pretty tempting because if we negate this and say, "There are other public forums today, besides the Internet, that are an important tool of democracy", it starts to feel like it's weakening. The author is worried about safeguarding free expression on the Internet, because she wants it the Internet to play the same role as the public square (which was an important tool of democracy). If there are other public forums that are important tools, then why do we need to worry about safeguarding free expression on the Internet? Well, the author could say, "I'm not saying we need to safeguard free expression online or else we have no public forums that are important tools of democracy. I'm just saying we should. Maybe for some people, the Internet is the only public forum they would have access to." The author could also say, "Those other public forums, such as primaries and general elections, are important tools of democracy, but they don't play the same role. A hammer and a screwdriver are both important tools of house repair, but they don't play the same role. I'm specifically concerned with whether people have a forum for disparate citizens to discuss important issues of the day". This answer would be better if is said, "For people with Internet access, there is not some other public forum they can readily use that would provide a forum for debating important issues of the day".

    3% picked this

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