Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT156 S2 Q6 ExplanationSome psychologists claim that empathic

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

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Stimulus

Some psychologists claim that empathic responses are forms of moral behavior. Having observed that young children who witness another's distress respond by expressing sadness and offering help, these psychologists believe that moral behavior begins early in life. A second group of psychologists claims that empathic response is not, by itself, moral behavior the degree of moral reasoning skill necessary for their behavior, however compassionate, to be considered moral.

What this question is testing

Weaken

Conclusion (second group)

The second group concludes that children don't have enough moral reasoning skill for their behavior to count as moral.

Evidence

Their evidence is how children performed on hypothetical moral dilemmas — verbal responses to imaginary scenarios. The kids gave unsophisticated answers, so the second group concluded they lack the reasoning skill.

Evaluate

Watch the gap. The conclusion is about children's moral reasoning in general. The evidence is performance on a specific kind of test — verbal answers to fake situations. Maybe kids are bad at articulating moral reasoning in the abstract but actually reason carefully when faced with real situations.

If real-situation reasoning is much better than hypothetical-test reasoning, then the evidence isn't a fair sample of what children can actually do, and the conclusion overreaches.

Goal

Find an answer showing children do better with real moral situations than with hypothetical ones — making the second group's evidence base too narrow.

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

The question
6.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion drawn by the second

Answer choices, explained

  1. No Impact2% picked this

    The children studied by the second group of psychologists displayed a slightly higher level of moral reasoning when they were well rested

    A "slightly higher" level of moral reasoning when well rested is a small effect that doesn't fundamentally challenge the conclusion. Even well-rested children, by the second group's study, would still be giving unsophisticated responses to hypotheticals — just slightly less unsophisticated. The argument's evidence base remains intact.

  2. No Impact1% picked this

    Adults who respond to hypothetical moral dilemmas display a much higher level of moral reasoning than do children who responded to

    Adults reasoning at a higher level than children on hypotheticals doesn't challenge the conclusion that children lack the necessary skill. It's a comparison that confirms a developmental gap on hypothetical tests, but says nothing about whether the hypothetical test fairly measures children's actual reasoning ability.

  3. No Impact4% picked this

    The children studied by the second group of psychologists displayed a slightly higher level of moral reasoning in response to hypothetical dilemmas involving adults

    This is a slight difference between two kinds of hypothetical dilemmas (involving adults vs. involving children). Both are still hypothetical scenarios. It doesn't address whether children's reasoning in real situations is different from their hypothetical performance. The argument's gap is about hypothetical-vs.-real, not about which kind of hypothetical.

  4. Correct78% picked this

    In actual situations involving moral dilemmas, children display a much higher level of moral reasoning than did the children who, in the study by

    Why this is right

    This is the weakener. It says children reason at a much higher level in actual moral situations than they do when responding to hypotheticals. So the second group's evidence — children's weak performance on hypothetical dilemmas — doesn't fairly represent children's real moral reasoning ability. The hypothetical test was undercounting their skill, and the conclusion (that they lack the skill) doesn't follow from a test that didn't measure them at their best.

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

  5. No Impact16% picked this

    Some adults who respond to hypothetical moral dilemmas reason at about the same level as children who respond to

    Some adults performing at a child's level on hypotheticals tells us about a tail of the adult distribution — not about whether children themselves have higher reasoning skill than the tests reveal. The conclusion is about children's moral reasoning, which this answer doesn't address.

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