Logical Reasoning

PT159 · S1 · Q15 Faculty member: The university’s financially minded

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Faculty member: The university’s financially minded president holds that some academic programs should be eliminated because they do not serve student demands.

Conclusion (therefore)

The president is mistaken in claiming that academic programs should be tailored to suit student demand.

rephrase: Academic programs shouldn't be tailored to suit student demand.

Evidence

The president supports his claim by saying that, like any business, a university has to satisfy his customers.

The author says educating students isn't analogous to providing consumer goods.

Evaluate

When we're doing Flaw and see that it's a Rebuttal style argument, there are two famous flaws we want to leap to mind:

1. Ad Hominem (discrediting a view on the basis that the SOURCE of the view has an ulterior motive or conflicting past behavior)

2. Unproven vs. Proven False (concluding that someone's claim is wrong on the grounds that they lack evidence to prove it's true or that they made a faulty argument in support of it.

This argument is doing the 2nd. The faculty member shows that the president's reasoning for the view is bad — the analogy fails. From "the president's reasons are bad," the faculty member jumps to "the president's conclusion is wrong." That is a leap. A view can be correct even if the particular argument given for it is flawed.

Goal

Look for an answer getting at this Unproven vs. Proven False flaw.

15.

The faculty member's argument is most vulnerable to the criticism that it

  1. argues for a view without

    Bad Description

    The faculty member is not arguing for a positive view (e.g., "academic programs should be set without regard to demand"). The faculty member is only arguing against the president's view. And the argument's evidence DID try to show why the president's argument fails. A correct description would say that our author "argues against a view by showing that the argument for it fails"

    20% picked this

  2. appeals to popular opinion to

    Inappropriate Appeals

    Bad Evidence Match (popular opinion) Famous Flaw Bait: Inappropriate Appeals The faculty member does not appeal to popular opinion. To appeal to X means to have X as part of your evidence. The argument hinges on the disanalogy between education and consumer goods, not on what most people believe. This answer describes a famous flaw, Inappropriate Appeals, in which you'd try to prove that something is true just because most people think it's true.

    1% picked this

  3. treats merely analogous things as

    Bad Description

    Our author is rejecting an analogy, saying school and business are very different. This answer accuses her of thinking two things are so similar that they're identical.

    18% picked this

  4. improperly attacks the university president’s

    Ad Hominem

    Bad Evidence Match: moral character Famous Flaw Bait: Ad Hominem The evidence has nothing to do with the president's moral character. Had the author tried to dismiss the president's argument on the basis of the president's character, that would have been the famous Ad Hominem flaw.

    1% picked this

  5. Correct

    rejects a view on the

    Why this is right

    If we're familiar with Unproven vs. Proven False, then we just see this answer as that. (note: on older LSATs, the Unproven part usually came from a lack of evidence, but on more recent LSATs the Unproven part usually comes from an inadequate argument -- the opponent was relying on some faulty notion that the author points out.) Doing X on the grounds that Y means that Y should match the Evidence and X should look like the Conclusion (or how we got there). Was the evidence saying that "someone had given inadequate reasons for accepting a view"? Yeesh. Yes, implicitly. The view is that "academic programs should be tailored to suit student demand". The reasons given for that view were that, "the university is a business, students are the consumers, and all businesses must satisfy consumer demand." When our author says, "No, I don't accept that analogy. Education and Consumption are different", she's implying that she's not buying what the president is selling. The president's cited reasons are not adequate, not acceptable, not convincing, not valid. Our author is allowed to be unconvinced about whether "academics should tailor to student demand", because that analogy didn't convince her. But she isn't allowed to be convinced the view is wrong and reject it.

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

    60% picked this

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