Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT153 S3 Q23 ExplanationEnvironmental ethicist: Since whooping cranes

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

TopicsPrinciple-Conform

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Free to start

Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Stimulus

Environmental ethicist: Since whooping cranes, unlike sandhill cranes, are endangered as a species, the survival of any one whooping crane is much more important to the preservation of its species than the survival of any one sandhill crane is to the preservation of its species. Hence, we have a greater duty to we do to protect the life of an individual sandhill crane.

What this question is testing

Principle-Conform

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

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

The question
23.

The environmental ethicistʼs reasoning conforms most closely to which one of the

Answer choices, explained

  1. Bad Conclusion Match1% picked this

    Any duty to protect the life of an individual organism is entirely independent of the duty to protect the species

    This just tells us that "our duty to protect life" is completely separate from "our duty to protect the species to which the organism belongs". We need the answer to provide a principle that helps us decide "which animal do we have a greater duty to protect".

  2. Correct70% picked this

    The more important the survival of individual members is to the preservation of a species, the greater the duty to protect the

    Why this is right

    This connects language from the Conclusion (greater duty to protect the life of whooping crane than the life of a sandhill crane) to language from the Evidence (the survival of an individual whooping crane is more important to the survival of its species than is the survival of an individual sandhill crane).

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

  3. Bad Evidence Match3% picked this

    The fewer species an endangered species is closely related to, the greater the duty to

    This is potentially useful as a rule, since it helps one determine that we have a greater duty to protect X than to protect Y. In order to apply this to our conclusion, we need to know that "a whooping crane is closely related to fewer other species than a sandhill crane is". But we were never told that in the evidence.

  4. Bad Conclusion Match4% picked this

    There is a greater duty to protect a species as a whole than there is to protect any

    The conclusion is about protecting the life of an individual, not of the species as a whole. So this principle seems to go against our conclusion, if anything.

  5. Reversed Logic22% picked this

    There is a greater duty to protect one individual organism over another only if the former organism is a member of an endangered species

    Since "only if" always indicates the idea that goes on the right of the arrow, we can see that this answer is putting conclusion language ("greater duty to protect") on the left side of the arrow. That's an automatic disqualifier. This answer says this: Greater duty to ? X is endangered protect X over Y and Y is not This would match the argument perfectly if those sides were reversed, but it's currently saying, "If the conclusion is true, then the premise follows".

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free