Conditional Reasoning Help

[rowdy]

Conditional reasoning is tricky for me. When it is clean, I love it! Often, though, I find that I try to apply it inappropriately.

in Question 34 of Supplemental Logical Reasoning 1, I correctly selected D as the answer. I did so because it was the only one that addressed the questionable conditional relationship between a well paid police force and a good legal system.

Where D says fails to establish that ... "a well-paid police force is sufficient to guarantee a good legal system," is it the same as saying that it (the stimulus) fails to establish that a well-paid police force is necessary to guarantee a good legal system?

[Clay Cooper]

Hi Rowdy,

Thanks for your question.

No, the claim that a well-paid police force is sufficient to guarantee a good legal system is fundamentally different than the claim that a well-paid police force is necessary to guarantee a good legal system.

The first statement looks like this:

well-paid police force good legal system.

The second looks like this:

good legal system well-paid police force

It seems like you are in the full-length course - I would recommend reviewing lesson 2 to brush up on the conceptual differences between necessary and sufficient conditions in conditional reasoning if you're having a hard time with stuff like this.

Keep working hard!

[Clay Cooper]

PS - great discussion of this question here:

lsat/viewtopic.php?t=990