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 Administrator
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#24997
Complete Question Explanation

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

Politics and political behavior are favorite topics on the LSAT. This stimulus contains an argument against Sigerson’s position on political donations. The author of the stimulus states that although Sigerson wants the city to create ethical guidelines that prohibit politicians from accepting contributions from companies that do business with the city, his position should be ignored as his own behavior does not comply with the proposed guidelines. The author accuses Sigerson of being dishonest by suggesting the proposal as even though in the past, he had accepted contributions from companies that did business with the city. The author attack Sigerson’s character, despite the fact that at the time he engaged in the behavior it almost certainly was not prohibited by the ethical guidelines, since Sigerson is proposing it as a new guideline. The conclusion of the argument, that Sigerson is dishonest, does not then follow from the fact that he engaged in a behavior that was not considered unethical at the time.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice tempts students with conditional reasoning. The test makers know that students are more aware of conditional concepts, and they will frequently put a conditional reasoning answer choice in to tempt those who are rushing. Since the stimulus contained no conditional reasoning, this answer choice which describes a Mistaken Reversal cannot be correct.

Answer choice (B): The author does not delve into the arguments for or against the proposal to create the new ethical guidelines. In fact, the conclusion of the argument is about Sigerson, and not about the merits of his proposal.

Answer choice (C): The stimulus does not need to address how other politicians would react in order to draw a conclusion about Sigerson’s possible hypocritical behavior. As with answer choice (B), this answer choice assumes that the conclusion of the argument is related to the merits of the proposal itself, rather than the behavior of Sigerson. These two incorrect answer choices further emphasize the importance of identifying the conclusion in every possible stimulus in order to avoid being tempted by answer choices that do not actually address the argument in the stimulus.

Answer choice (D): If anything, the author thinks Sigerson is a bit too familiar with the issues involved in taking contributions from those who do business with the city. Not only does Sigerson seem aware of the issues in the abstract sense, but since he has actually engaged in the described behavior, he likely understands the potential conflicts that can arise.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. Though in the past, Sigerson has accepted contributions from those who do business with the city, there is nothing suggesting that he would do so if it was against an ethical guideline. Therefore, the conclusion that he is dishonest for his behavior is flawed as it improperly implies that he was engaging in prohibited behavior at the time he engaged in it.
 avengingangel
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#30485
The explanation says that the argument describes Sigerson as dishonest, but that is not the case. The argument says Sigerson's proposal is dishonest... which also does not make any sense to me. How can a proposal be dishonest? The only way I can think of is if a proposal, in it's face value, seems like it's addressing a certain issue, but in application will address/help/hurt something completely different. But that situation is not at play here, it seems. Can you please provide an explanation that is compatible with the argument calling Sigerson's proposal dishonest? I get/see that the argument also attacks Sigerson's character, but that still does not have a connection to a "dishonest proposal"... and therefore would not lead to E. Thanks!
 Adam Tyson
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#30563
I think you have actually answered your own question here, Angel! You are correct that a proposal cannot, by itself, be inherently dishonest, because honesty is a characteristic of the person making a claim and not of the claim itself. Since that is true, what can possibly be meant by "Sigerson's proposal is dishonest"? It can logically mean only one thing - that Sigerson, in making this proposal, is being dishonest. In other words, he is not advancing this proposal for honest reasons.

That should clear this one up for you, I think. If not, you know where we'll be!
 avengingangel
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#30577
OK - BUT, I read it as the flaw in the author's argument was that it was attacking the character of Sigerson (calling him dishonest), not that the author assumed that Sigerson's proposal would prohibit campaign contributions from such companies retroactively ?? Bc that means that the author would have to have FIRST accepted Sigerson's proposal to be enacted (which makes no sense bc it's being proposed), THEN assume the retroactive effect... Like it seems more like a "This writer should not be allowed to edit papers for grammatical errors bc they themselves have grammatical errors in their writing" (ad hom) type of situation... This question is just very odd to me...like some sort of time warp wizardy or something. oh well...
 David Boyle
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#31291
avengingangel wrote:OK - BUT, I read it as the flaw in the author's argument was that it was attacking the character of Sigerson (calling him dishonest), not that the author assumed that Sigerson's proposal would prohibit campaign contributions from such companies retroactively ?? Bc that means that the author would have to have FIRST accepted Sigerson's proposal to be enacted (which makes no sense bc it's being proposed), THEN assume the retroactive effect... Like it seems more like a "This writer should not be allowed to edit papers for grammatical errors bc they themselves have grammatical errors in their writing" (ad hom) type of situation... This question is just very odd to me...like some sort of time warp wizardy or something. oh well...

Hello,

There is sometimes a risk to overthinking things. I'm not sure there's any "time warp" going on here. It's just that the author is not very awake and doesn't seem to notice that the proposal is about the future, not retroactive. It may not be much more complicated than that.
The author isn't exactly attacking Sigerson's character, though it almost seems like it.

David
 haganskl
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#76849
Hi.
As a follow up to the immediate explanation above mine, could we reasonably conclude that the argument attacks this person’s actions, thereby attacking him? Could we label this a source attack? This is the reason I decided to visit the forum.

TIA
 Paul Marsh
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#80146
Hey haganskl! Absolutely there is a Source Attack going on here. If we had an answer choice that used traditional Source Attack language, e.g. “is directed against the proponent of the proposal rather than against the proposal itself," that would be a great answer too. Here we don't have an answer choice that directly points out a Source Attack flaw, instead our right answer points out a related but slightly different error - that the attack on Sigerson doesn't make much sense since our author is attempting to judge him for violating guidelines that haven't even been passed yet (sort of an "ex post facto" application of the guidelines if you want to get your legal jargon on!)

Nice job spotting the Source Attack!

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