Censor: All anarchist novels have two objectionable characteristics: a subversive outlook and the depiction of wholes...

shunhe on June 2, 2020

Hi @filozinni,

Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at what’s going on here. The censor is telling us that all anarchist novels have two objectionable characteristics. In other words, if a novel is an anarchist novel, it’s going to have two objectionable characteristics. We can diagram this:

Anarchist novel —> Two objectionable characteristics

Then, the argument concludes seemingly out of nowhere that it’s permissible to ban any anarchist novel that would do more harm than good to society. This seems to come out of left field, and so we need something that’ll connect it to the statement we diagrammed above.

Now let’s take a lookout (D), which tells us it’s permissible to ban a novel that would cause society more harm than good if the novel has two or more objectionable characteristics. Diagramming this, we get

>=2 objectionable characteristics —> Permissible to ban a novel that would cause society more harm than good

And chaining this to the first link, we get

Anarchist novel —> Two objectionable characteristics —> Permissible to ban anarchist novels that would cause society more harm than good

And so we see that (D) gets us to the conclusion that the argument has, and so it most helps to justify the censor’s reasoning.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

filozinni on June 3, 2020

Thank you so much @Shunhe!

Mazen on February 10, 2022

Would and LSAT expert please look at the reasoning below and tell me if it's fallacious?

Regarding Answer-choice B: its phraseology jumbles the order of the words "good" and "harm" in the stimulus' phrase "more harm than good," and clearly renders this answer-choice false.

My question is what if this answer-choice did NOT jumble the words "good" and "harm" in the phrase "more good than harm," if B kept the phrase "more harm than good," would it still be ruled out as a justificatory principle, or would it be correct?

In other words, if instead of it being phrased the way it is on the exam, answer-choice B was stated as follows, "If a novel depicts wholesale violence, then it is permissible to ban it if doing so would do more [harm than good] to society," would it in this new wording be a principle that justifies the censor's reasoning ?

Also, modified as stated above as opposed to how it is stated on the exam, is it correct to diagram the new B in the following way?
novel depicts whole sales violence ------> more harm than good ---------> Banning is permissible

If the diagram above is correct, I would say that the principle in the modified B would justify the stimulus, but I need an LSAT expert for reassurance please.

Thank you

Ravi on February 11, 2022

B would still be incorrect here even if you changed the words "good" and "harm" around in the choice. The problems with B are that it never mentions the subversive outlook and it's talking about the ban's effect doing more good than harm. The thing is, the argument discusses the book's effect on society, not the ban's effect, so this is why we can get rid of this choice.

Mazen on February 12, 2022

Ravi, First thank you so much for helping me.

You're saying that the phrase "doing so" in answer-choice B ("If a novel depicts wholesale violence, then it is permissible to ban it if DOING SO would do more good than harm to society) refers to the banning of the novel/book

In other words, B is effectively saying:

"If a novel depicts wholesale violence, then it is permissible to ban it if [BANNING IT] would do more good than harm to society." Well, in this case, B is clearly wrong because, as you stated, the stimulus does not concern the effects of the ban, but rather the effects of the book.

In my haste, mental fatigue, and multilingual thinking (I learned English as an adult), I misread the phrase "doing so" in the second clause of answer-choice B ("then it is permissible to ban it if doing so would do more good than harm to society") as referring to the depiction of the "wholesale violence."

And in this mistaken understanding I had thought that even though B does not mention "the subversive outlook," since the conclusion warrants the ban on the basis of "doing more harm than good," and "the wholesale violence" is "DOING SO," which now thanks to you I know I was wrong because "doing so" is referring to the "permissibility of the ban" and not to the "wholesale outlook", then "the wholesale violence" singlehandedly guaranteed the "more harm than good" which was used in the conclusion as the basis for permitting the ban of the novel.

But I was wrong, I see it, I see it clearly now. Again, thank you for your succinct and immensely helpful explanation.

gshaw on July 26, 2023

I'm not sure I understand. It seems to be the logical conclusion that if a book does more harm than good, then banning the book would do more good than harm, which is directly stated in answer B. Additionally, basing the ban on one criterion seems to be more supportive than trying to base it on two. By this, I mean if X is present, then the book could be banned. X and Y are present; therefore, the book can be banned. Meaning Y is superfluous or extra beyond the first sufficient condition. A more challenging premise would be if X & Y is present then it is permissible to ban the book. I guess my problem is while I see how D helps justify the censor's reasoning, it is not obvious to me that it justifies the reasoning more than B.

I am not really trying to argue that it is correct, as whether I disagree is irrelevant to the correct answer choice laid out by LSAC; I simply don't get why that would be the correct answer. Is the reasoning really just that argument doesn't directly address the effect of the ban, but only the effect of the novel? That seems like a rather weak reason to me, as it seems to cover that indirectly, but I can support it if that is how LSAC is thinking about this question. Any help would be appreciated.

Emil-Kunkin on August 1, 2023

I would disagree that if a book does more harm than good then banning it would do more harm than good. It's is completely possible that the book would have a small net negative effect, but a ban would have a much larger one. Perhaps the book is obscure, but banning it would make it possible, or perhaps the decision to ban this book will be used as precedent to ban many other less harmful books.

By analogy we could look at prohibition. I think most reasonable people would agree that booze does more harm than good on a social level, but banning it might also do more harm than good. Prohibition didn't really cut drinking by all that much, and it led to spikes in organized crime and smuggling. There's also a libertarian argument here: I should be allowed to make bad decisions. We could also make an argument about social cohesion: I suspect that a good number of people would riot if denied their right to have 3-7 modelos on a lovely Saturday afternoon.

For this question we need to prove that it is in fact ok to ban the books. We know they are subversive and violent, and we are trying to prove that it's ok to ban those that do more harm than good. The only way to prove that would be to add in a premise that it's ok to ban a book that has one or more of those qualities. D does exactly that. B however only tells us about the effects of banning the book on society, not the effects of the book itself.

Emil-Kunkin on August 1, 2023

And sorry my first line should have read that just because a book is a net negative doesn't mean that banning it will be a net positive.