#18 - People cannot be morally responsible for things over

[Brook Miscoski]

Gears,

I think it would be helpful for you to read the Administrator explanation at the beginning, which is exactly how I view this argument. Very generally, you are told that moral responsibility requires that you had control over your actions, and the stimulus is set up to tell you that there are some adult actions that trace all the way back to things that happened as an infant, when there was no control. This leads you straight to (E) just by understanding the very general conditional relationship set up by the stimulus.

However, you are correct that the critical first step determines whether you will be blindsided by (D) or pick the correct answer, (E). This explanation explores a few ways that you can get the conditional statement or keep yourself moving if you are finding that to be unlikely on test day and need to press forward.

The way I read the first sentence is with an implied without. "You cannot be morally responsible with no (without) control." That gives me Moral Responsibility Control.

However, you don't have to do it that way. Also consider this: The first sentence is delivered as an absolute relationship between moral responsibility and control, so all you need to do is determine what is sufficient. Remember the common conditional indicators? One is "people who," and this is about people. People who have no control cannot be held morally responsible. And there you go, No Control No Moral Responsibility.

When you are looking for context, try to relate the language to a construct that you already know and understand. You may not always be right at first, but thinking about it this way gives you something that you can improve upon.

Asking yourself what is sufficient and what is required can feel weird, because if you knew the answer to that you would not be having trouble with the diagram in the first place. Still, if you cannot relate what you are reading to a construct you already understand, we're asking you to experiment with the relationship, since it might shed some light.

Finally, if all else fails with this stimulus, read over it and ask yourself, is the writer trying to show that people have moral responsibility for actions? Or is he trying to limit the actions for which people are morally responsible? I think that regardless of whether one struggles with the first sentence, it's clear by the end of the stimulus that the author is trying to limit the actions for which people are morally responsible. This counsels towards eliminating (D) and selecting (E).

[DesignLaw806]

Jonathan,

Doesn't the stronger necessary indicator "without" help to construct a diagram especially since there is a modifier following?

"People who have studied biology are among those without whom it is impossible to form an effective Space Shuttle crew." (People who = whom)

Using the unless equation, negate the sufficient condition: (impossible changes to possible)

If it is possible to form an effective Space Shuttle crew, then people have studied biology.

John,

Thanks for bringing up this topic, since it bears discussion.

In the Logical Reasoning Bible, "People who" is one of the phrases used often to introduce a sufficient condition. It is important to note that the specific syntax "People who" is crucial as the term "people" by itself does not necessarily introduce a sufficient condition. Hence, to begin, I would differentiate between a sentence in which "People who" occurs from one in which only "people" occurs, insofar as constructing a conditional relationship is concerned.

Further, one must always read the sentence and decide from the context what the necessary and sufficient conditions are. For instance, I could posit that "People who have studied biology are among those without whom it is impossible to form an effective Space Shuttle crew." In this situation I would diagram the conditional thus:

Effective Space Shuttle crew contains people who have studied biology

It is always necessary to ask oneself "what is by itself sufficient to guarantee the occurrence of something else?" or "what is required at a minimum to make something else possible?"

The common words and phrases in the Bible are an invaluable resource but (as the book notes) by no means an exhaustive list of the ways sufficient and necessary conditions may occur. Especially on the most difficult LSAT problems, the test writers like to introduce unfamiliar and difficult constructions that vitiate some of the shortcuts.

[Brook Miscoski]

Designlaw,

The use of the unless/except/until/without method will deliver the correct diagram.

However, Jonathan's own commentary is quite correct. Our end goal is to help human beings interpret language fluidly, not to convert human beings into computing devices that parse up sentences without fundamental comprehension. The risk with your response is that there will be situations on the LSAT where indicators feel hard to find or are unusual compared to your preparation. In those circumstances, it is valuable to have spent time asking yourself the questions Jonathan poses about what seems sufficient to guarantee an occurrence or what seems required to make something possible. Being able to reconcile those questions with a parsing of the sentences also develops command and control of conditional reasoning--it's not magic via diagrams, it's something your mind can be trained to do by comprehension.

Fluidity and comprehension will make it easier to deal with situations where, like some people earlier in this thread, you meet some challenge in relying on indicators. If you already have that kind of command, that's great. Please remember that others are still trying to develop their own.

[andriana.caban]

You're right about 18 having lots of conditions! Let's see if we can boil it down some:

First sentence - C (no control over )-> MR (not morally responsible)

The second sentence extends that reasoning - MR -> RC (not responsible for consequences)

I'm confused as to why the second sentence is diagrammed as such. If people shouldn't be held morally responsible for consequences, then couldn't we rephrase as: If it is a consequence of my action that is inevitable, then I'm not morally responsible. I don't understand how it's "if I'm not morally responsible, then I'm not responsible for consequences", which is what you have diagrammed.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi Andriana!

Adam is abbreviating there but basically the conditional relationship extends from the first sentence. The "therefore" that begins the 2nd sentence indicates that the author thinks the 1st sentence is sufficient to prove the second sentence. So basically it's more like, since people are not morally responsible for things over which they have no control, then they are not morally responsible for the inevitable consequences of such things. The diagram of the 1st and 2nd sentences combined looks like:

control things morally responsible for things morally responsible for consequences of things

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[WarnerHuntingtonIII]

Like an earlier post, I am struggling to see answer A as incorrect.

I interpret "infants clearly can't control" as infants can't control ... ever. Assuming infants are people, and "people are not morally responsible for things over which they have no control," then infants can't ever be morally responsible. Moral responsibility requires control. I believe this is the contrapositive of the stimulus's first conditional statement. If infants never have control, then they can never be morally responsible. This includes any action they performed (answer choice A).

I'm not concerned that E is correct. I'm concerned that I can't point to what makes A incorrect. I understand that the final conditional statement is about treatment received, but that doesn't change the fact that the stimulus says "infants cannot control." Maybe I should be asking, how can an infant be morally responsible if they cannot control?

Help!

[Beth Hayden]

Hi Warner,

The stimulus says that infants cannot control the treatment they receive. Answer choice (A) focuses on whether infants should be held morally responsible for actions they themselves perform. Part of what makes this question confusing is that there is an important distinction between control over how someone is treated by others and then control over their actions as a result of that.

Hope that helps!
Beth

[WarnerHuntingtonIII]

Hey Beth,

I still don't get it. I am reading the middle part of that last sentence as an independent clause. "Infants clearly cannot control." This means they can't control either the actions or the treatment they receive. They can't control anything.

"Infants clearly cannot control." Infants are people. "People cannot be held morally responsible for things over which they have no control." Thus, infants cannot be held morally responsible. This would include an action performed.

I know that treatment is mentioned in that sentence, but I don't see how the mention of treatment restricts "infants clearly cannot control." If I could see how it is restricted, then I could break my chain of logic. Can you explain how you know "infants clearly cannot control" is restricted to treatment? I feel like this is the Jenga piece I need to be removed.

Warner

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Warner,

It's the structure of that last sentence, and the meaning of the world control. The phrase "infants clearly cannot control" is incomplete. What can't they control? How can we find out? We look to the rest of the sentence to fill it out. The phrase immediately following is set off by commas, meaning that it's set apart from the phrase about infant control. Moving past the comma aside, we find the second part of infant control statement: "the treatment they receive."

That last sentence is best read as two separate sentences. "Infants clearly cannot control the treatment they receive," and "infants cannot morally control the treatment they receive." I agree that it's difficult to parse the language there. But using control in the way the stimulus does requires an object. The phrase "infants clearly cannot control" lacks the object, so we fill it out with the rest of the sentence.

Hope that helps!

[ericsilvagomez]

Hi,

Like many people, I picked D, and I thought it made sense because the first sentence says that people cannot be morally responsible for things over which they have no control. This choice argues that they should be held responsible if they can control those actions, answering the part of the question stem that mentions being "logically committed." Can you elaborate on t how it's a mistaken negation and not a contrapositive? With all that said, I think the correct answer made sense!