#26 - Philosopher: A person is morally responsible

[Khodi7531]

I chose A over E and obviously screwed it up. When I don't write out the contra positive as well and be redundant, I screw up sometimes.

However, can you show how to diagram E? I was thrown off by the "not morally wrong" part. Unless = if not. But do you negate EVERYTHING that comes after if not?

I'm assuming the way you get to Morally Wrong > ~AAO > ~PF is that the unless negates everything after it. Is that right? Also, if that's the case, do you read it from end, to front? For example could E have been wrong if after unless NOT morally wrong was written before there is alternative action?


I had this chained perfectly but just misread A and was confused on E saying "not morally wrong"

[James Finch]

Hi Khodi,

So to begin let's go through the conditional relationships given in the stimulus, which are all "only if" statements:
1. A person is morally responsible (MR) for an action only if that action is performed freely (APF), or:

MR APF

2. And an action is free only if there is an alternative action that is genuinely open (AAGO) to the person, or:

APF AAGO

3. But an alternative action is genuinely open only if performing that alternative action is not morally wrong (MW), or:

AAGO MW

Combined these statements, and we get:

MR APF AAGO MW

There are multiple possible inferences to make, but the correct answer choice will definitely accord with the above diagram.

Answer choice (E) involves the Unless Equation, where we have to first identify the condition following the "unless," make that our necessary condition, then identify the other condition present before the "unless," negate it, and make that negation our sufficient condition. Here, the condition given after the "unless" is "morally wrong" (MW), so that becomes our necessary condition:

? MW

Then we can see that the term before the "unless" is "an unfree action," which we'll negate to "an action performed freely" (APF), in order to square it with the stimulus, then make that our sufficient condition. Combine the two conditions and we get:

APF MW

Which is an inference that we see from our chain:

APF AAGO MW

making (E) the correct answer.

Hope this clears things up!

[Khodi7531]

Ohhhhhhh. Ok I see where I screwed up. This is an incredibly easy question and pissed that I got it wrong. But my acronyms were off.


For the third portion of the chain - "...only if there is an alternative action that is genuinely open" I had used "AA" (alternative action) to describe that. And didn't notice how "morally wrong" at the end said "alternative action". I thought answer E just combined part of 3 and morally wrong.



Just a careless mistake but I see it now. I appreciate the prompt response nonetheless.

[heartofsunshine]

Hi there,

I see why E is correct, however am having a hard time spotting why C is incorrect?

As I am typing out my answer I think I see it. Is C incorrect because simply because the necessary condition exists (alternate action genuinely open) does not necessarily mean the sufficient condition has to exist (is morally responsible).

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

You got it, heartofsunshine! The occurrence of a Necessary Condition won't prove that a Sufficient Condition occurs. One easy way to spot the problem in answer C is to see that it concludes that someone is Morally Responsible. A quick glance at the conditional chain will show you that there is no way we can ever prove that someone IS morally responsible, but only that they are NOT morally responsible! We can't ever prove the sufficient condition occurs!

[SGD2021]

Hello, what would be the quickest way to answer a question like this? It seems like diagramming out each answer choice would take up way too much time?

[Robert Carroll]

SGD2021,

This is a Must Be True question involving very abstract language and a lot of conditionals, and it's the very last question of the section. All of these factors together suggest this question is going to take a long time to do - that's fine if it's pretty rare! Some questions take less time, some more. When we've got a question that has every feature of it turned up to the maximum difficulty, I don't think you can do much but diagram the stimulus and then try to discover what's wrong about each wrong answer without a diagram. If you can't do that, keep the answer as a Contender. With a question this tough, you might have two or three Contenders after looking at all the answers - now it's time to diagram your intuitively best choice. If it's right, you're done; if not, call it a Loser and look at your next best.

I want to emphasize that it's not always possible or even desirable to do every question in 1 minute 24 seconds. That's an average. A question like this is going to take everyone longer than average - save time by doing what I said above, but also save time by doing some other questions in the section more quickly so that you have this extra time.

Robert Carroll

[lsatquestions]

Can we equate action that is not morally wrong in the AC with action when performed is not morally wrong in the stimulus?

[Adam Tyson]

I'm not sure I fully understand your question, but I think the answer is yes - an action requires performance, otherwise it is not an action but only a potential action. So "performing an action" is, I think, the same as "an action" for our purposes.

Please let us know if I misunderstood the question!

[febtaker0224]

Hello, I'm not sure if this was already stated in another way, but forr choice C could we also say it is wrong because the conditional logic follows as

alt action open --> moral responsibility,

but the correct logic would be moral responsibility --> alt action open?