Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT9 S4 Q19 Explanation

Marcus: For most ethical dilemmas

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

TopicsNecessary Assumption

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Stimulus

Marcus: For most ethical dilemmas the journalist is likely to face, traditional journalistic ethics is clear, adequate, and essentially correct. For example, when journalists have uncovered newsworthy information, they should go to press with it as soon journalists’ personal or professional interests is permissible.

Anita: Well, Marcus, of course interesting and important information should be brought before the public—that is a journalist’s job. But in the typical case, where a journalist has some information but is in a important or “newsworthy,” this guidance is inadequate.

What this question is testing

Necessary Assumption

Your task

Find the assumption the argument requires in order for its conclusion to hold.

Common trap

Answers that would help the argument but aren't strictly required (sufficient, not necessary).

Winning move

Negate each choice — the right one breaks the argument when negated.

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

The question
19.

In order to conclude properly from Anita’s statements that Marcus’ general claim about traditional journalistic ethics is incorrect, it would have

Answer choices

  1. Correct56% picked this

    whether a piece of information is or is not newsworthy can raise ethical

    Why this is right

    This is lovably weak, which means when we negate it, we'll get a very strong idea. Does it weaken the argument if we say to Anita, "trying to figure out whether a piece of info is newsworthy NEVER raises ethical dilemmas". Yes! If Anita is concluding, "traditional ethics don't provide clear guidance to most ethical dilemmas" based on the idea that "traditional ethics don't provide clear guidance when it comes to whether a piece of info is newsworthy", she's clearly thinking that "deciding on whether a piece of info is newsworthy" is relevant to "ethical dilemmas". Negating this answer means that those two things are related at all.

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

  2. Out of Scope: ethically wrong13% picked this

    there are circumstances in which it would be ethically wrong for a journalist to go to press with

    Anita never makes any judgments about things that are ethically right or wrong.

  3. Irrelevant Comparison: most serious dilemmas3% picked this

    the most serious professional dilemmas that a journalist is likely to face are

    This argument has nothing to do with ranking ethical dilemmas vs. other types of dilemmas. It just has to do with ethical dilemmas, and whether or not traditional ethics is equipped to offer guidance on most of them.

  4. Too Strong: no5% picked this

    there are no ethical dilemmas that a journalist is likely to face that would not be conclusively resolved by an

    Anita does not have to believe that an adequate system of ethics would resolve EVERY SINGLE ethical dilemma. She's only arguing that traditional ethics don't give clear guidance for MOST dilemmas.

  5. Too Strong: every23% picked this

    for a system of journalistic ethics to be adequate it must be able to provide guidance in every case in which a

    This answer is oddly almost equivalent in meaning to (D). Both of them are too strong. She is only trying to prove that traditional ethics don't provide clear guidance for most ethical dilemmas. She hasn't committed herself to any ideas about what an adequate system would do.

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