LSAT 115 – Section 2 – Question 12

LSAT 115 - Section 2 - Question 12

December 2002

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT115 S2 Q12
+LR
Inference +Inf
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
52%
165
B
28%
160
C
2%
153
D
7%
156
E
12%
158
149
161
173
 +Hardest 148.811 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Politician: It is wrong for the government to restrict the liberty of individuals, except perhaps in those cases when to fail to do so would allow individuals to cause harm. Yet, to publish something is a liberty, and to offend is not to cause harm.

Summary

If failing to restrict a liberty would not cause harm, then it’s wrong for the government to restrict that liberty. (Contrapositive: if it’s not wrong for the government to restrict a liberty, then it must be that failing to restrict that liberty would cause harm.)

To offend isn’t something that causes harm.

Publishing something is considered a liberty.

Very Strongly Supported Conclusions

Failing to restrict any liberty (such as publishing something) that just involves offending people wouldn’t cause harm.

So it’s wrong for the government to restrict any liberty (such as publishing something) that just involves offending people.

A
It is not right for the government to restrict the publication of literature that is only offensive.

Very strongly supported. Publication is a liberty. So it’s wrong to restrict a publication if failing to restrict it would cause no harm. Offending is something that causes no harm. Thus it’s wrong to restrict a publication if its only issue is that it’s offensive.

B
It is not wrong for the government to restrict individuals’ liberty when failing to do so would allow individuals to cause harm.

Unsupported. We can only conclude when something is wrong, not when it’s not wrong. (B) makes a sufficiency-necessity swap. The stimulus actually tells us that when it’s not wrong for the government to restrict a liberty, then failing to restrict that liberty must cause harm.

C
It is offensive for the government to restrict the liberty of individuals to publish, but it is not harmful.

Unsupported. The stimulus doesn’t suggest what makes something offensive.

D
It is not wrong for individuals to publish literature that is offensive.

Unsupported. We can only conclude when something is wrong, not when it’s not wrong. Also, the stimulus doesn’t suggest what makes something wrong or not wrong for individuals. It only discusses what makes something wrong for the government.

E
It is not right for the government to restrict the publication of literature that does not cause serious harm.

Unsupported. The exception in the stimulus is triggered by any harm, not just serious harm. It’s possible for a publication to not cause serious harm while still causing some harm. So this publication might still trigger the exception, meaning the restriction might be acceptable.

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LSAT PrepTest 115 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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