#12 - Bauer: It is a mistake to criticize the city for being

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is E.

Bauer argues that it's a mistake to criticize the city for issuing too many parking tickets, because things would be much worse if the city didn't enforce parking at all.

However, this is not a fair argument; things would be worse if the city didn't enforce parking at all, but things may be better if the city simply issued an appropriate number of parking tickets.

The question stem asks under what grounds Bauer's argument is most vulnerable to criticism.

Answer Choice (A): We get no information about the "intrinsic value" of issuing parking tickets. This would be a valid answer if Bauer was arguing against the idea that parking tickets should not exist, but that's not the case.

Answer Choice (B): Presumably, the city is the authority here, but Bauer is not arguing that the city should be respected.

Answer Choice (C): Bauer is arguing against a practice that's traditionally been done, not for it.

Answer Choice (D): There is no cause-and-effect happening here.

Answer Choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. Bauer defends the city's issuing of parking tickets by suggesting that it's superior to the implausible situation of the city not enforcing parking regulations.

[medialaw111516]

I picked E because I just couldn't get behind any of the other answers here and I thought the phrase "defends the current situation" was exactly what the author did, but what makes not enforcing parking regulations implausible? The word "implausible" caused me to spend about another minute looking at this question than I should have.

[kristenaust]

I have the same question! I knew what was wrong with the argument as soon as I finished reading it but the word "implausible" caused me to question answer choice D a little longer than I should have.

[medialaw111516]

Exactly! This whole reading and being aware of the implications of every word thing is making me overthink everything

[Jeremy Press]

Hi medialaw and kristen,

You've asked a great question, and I'll answer it momentarily. But first, I want to remind you of one of the pieces of advice we want all our students to employ: if you have very good reasons to eliminate four answer choices, and there's a bit of language in the fifth answer that you realize you may not fully understand (or understand how to interpret correctly), your best bet is always to pick that fifth answer. Here, answer choices A through D are clearly wrong, for strongly identifiable reasons.

Answer choice A: the language of "intrinsic value" should be your cue to eliminate. Nothing the author raises is an issue of "intrinsic value."

Answer choice B: the word "merely" should be your guide to eliminate. Even if you could theoretically argue that Bauer relied on the inherent authority of the city (and there's really no language in the argument to suggest he or she does), there is also a reference in the second sentence to the consequences of an alternative. Thus, Bauer isn't "merely" relying on the city's authority.

Answer choice C: the language "the way things have traditionally been done" should be your guide to eliminate. Bauer doesn't refer to "traditional" practices in any part of the argument.

Answer choice D: this answer choice describes a particular mistake of cause/effect reasoning, the mistake of overlooking what could be a reversed cause/effect relationship. Ordinarily this mistake occurs where an author has made an overly certain conclusion that identifies one thing as a cause and another thing as an effect. You can be relatively certain this is not the correct answer simply because the author's conclusion is not such a conclusion. There's perhaps a slight chance that the mistake answer choice D describes is the author's assumption of a cause/effect relationship (where that relationship could be reversed), but that's not happening here either.

So you have very good reasons to eliminate all of answer choices A through D.

To return to medialaw's question, though, the mistake here is quite subtle. The criticism Bauer argues against is that the city is being overzealous in its enforcement of parking tickets (in other words, it's enforcing them too much). To rectify that criticism, would the city have to do as Bauer suggests and simply "not enforce" parking regulations altogether? No. That would be...kind of absurd, right? Even, dare I say, implausible? To rectify the criticism, the city could cut its enforcement efforts by 10%, 20%, 30%, even 50%. So Bauer's premise raises the very unlikely (i.e. implausible) scenario that the city simply doesn't enforce parking regulations. That's not really what the critics want, and that's hardly likely to happen. What Bauer should've raised is the consequence of relaxing enforcement even a little bit.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[rightway1566]

I also eliminated answer choice E simply due to the use of the word "implausible". This question clearly was written before the pandemic when many cities did in fact suspend parking enforcement. Ughhh!

[katehos]

Hi rightway1566!

As Jeremy mentioned, ultimately, if you have very good reasons to eliminate four answer choices and the remaining answer choice makes sense but is perhaps a bit confusing, it's still your best bet to select that answer! In this case, (A)-(D) are noticeably incorrect and (E) is a solid answer choice (even though the word implausible can be confusing). Outside of very base level knowledge about the world, the LSAT doesn't require you to incorporate outside information, so, try not to think about what you know of parking regulations and focus instead on what the stimulus says!

In this case, Bauer paints criticism of the city's issuance of parking tickets as a mistake because it would be "worse if parking regulations were not enforced." This should strike anyone as faulty logic (even if it may be plausible that cities will stop enforcing parking regulation) because Bauer is opposing all criticism on the basis that an extreme solution is bad. But does that really mean criticizing the overzealous issuance of tickets is bad? What if one of the critics only wants a 25% reduction in parking tickets? Why would the only solution be no enforcement at all? There's a lot more gray area here than he's making it seem! So, we can see that the flaw in Bauer's reasoning is the he is relying on the unlikely/implausible situation where parking regulations are not enforced at ALL (which, even in the case of recent knowledge, took an entire pandemic to cause some cities to stop enforcing regulations) to defend the city from criticism.

I hope that helps!
Kate