Logical Reasoning

PT18 · S4 · Q11 Civil libertarian: The categorical prohibition

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Civil libertarian: The categorical prohibition of any nonviolent means of expression inevitably poisons a society’s intellectual atmosphere.

Advocate's Conclusion

You're wrong. (Calling for censorship of all potentially offensive art is not harmful to society.)

Advocate's Evidence

Many people can agree on the criteria of what me mean by "potentially offensive".

Evaluate

It feels like the advocate's isn't responding at all to the concern of the first person. They're worried that since potentially offensive art is still a nonviolent means of expression, it would be "inevitably poisonous" to the society's intellectual atmosphere to do a categorical ban on offensive art.

If the advocate were at the Salem Witch trials, his argument would be the equivalent of

You'd be like,

The libertarian presumably would say,

Goal

Look for an answer characterizing a somewhat off-topic rebuttal. Our feeling that the advocate's evidence just didn't seem that relevant or compelling is probably what they're testing.

11.

The censorship advocate’s rebuttal is flawed because it

  1. attempts to extract a general

    Wrong Flaw

    This describes a Sampling Flaw. The evidence is a sample: many people are X. (X: can agree on what is offensive art) In a sampling flaw, the conclusion would assume that X was true for an even bigger group: therefore, most people in the world are X. This is not concluding that a bigger group "can agree on what is offensive art". It's concluding that "censoring all potentially offensive art is not harmful to society".

    8% picked this

  2. extracts an erroneous principle from

    Out of Scope: principle

    There isn't any principle in the advocate's argument.

    16% picked this

  3. attacks the civil libertarian’s character

    Wrong Flaw

    This refers to Ad Hominem, in which an author dismisses someone's view because of the source's ulterior motives or past behavior, neither of which happened here.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    relies on an irrelevant reason

    Why this is right

    This just says what we all felt when we read the advocate's response: huh? The fact that the advocate's response feels so weak-sauce or off-base usually doesn't mean we've "found the flaw", does it? Yes, sometimes! There really are Flaw problems like this where you can struggle for a while trying to understand a bad rebuttal, and really all LSAT wants us to say is, "What is this guy, talkin' about!" The fact that many people can agree to the criteria for a certain action doesn't address a person's concern that this action would have bad consequences.

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

    75% picked this

  5. uses hyperbolic, inflammatory language that

    Too Strong: hyperbolic, inflammatory

    The advocate's two claims are both very moderate and unemotional.

    1% picked this

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