October 2010 LSAT Section 3 Question 2

Since there is no survival value in an animal's having an organ that is able to function when all its other organs ha...

Karlie on June 17, 2020

Could it be said that all general principles in an argument are never a conclusion?

In Questions number 4 I thought at first the general principle was the conclusion. "That it was morally wrong to not tell the truth" But after watching the video it made sense that was not Helens own conclusion but a support(premise to it). Going forward is it true that general principles are never the conclusion? Or can that assumption not be made? Thanks!!

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shunhe on June 18, 2020

Hi @Dawn,

Thanks for the question! If I understand this question correctly, you’re just asking essentially how to diagram some and most statements. If we have a statement like most X are Y, we diagram it

X -most-> Y

In other words, the “X” is put in the “sufficient condition” part, and the “Y” is put in the “necessary condition” part. With a more concrete example, most soups are hot are

Soup -most-> Hot

Now, onto some statements. These are biconditionals; the arrows point both ways. Some X are Y also means that some Y are X, and so we diagram this

X <-some-> Y

In other words, it doesn’t really matter which one we put in the sufficient and which one we put in the necessary, since they’re interchangeable. We could’ve also written

Y -some-> X

For example, let’s say that Some tables are (things that are) made of wood. Well, of course, this means that some tables are made of wood. But this also means that some things that are made out of wood are tables. And that’s why we can diagram it both ways.

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

shunhe on June 18, 2020

Sorry, ignore the above, that was meant for another question.

Hi @Karlie,

Thanks for the question! So it’s a bit of an extreme statement to say that general principles are NEVER a conclusion, but I will say that I can’t think of an example where the conclusion is a general principle. It’s certainly not common, and it’s possible that it’s never happened. I just don’t want to say “never” because it’s theoretically possible to have a general principle be the conclusion. Here’s a very basic example:

John stole Mary’s purse, but got caught. Therefore, one should never steal another person’s belongings.

Here, the conclusion is that one should never steal another person’s belongings. But this statement is also a general principle. So I wouldn’t automatically write off the possibility of general principles being the conclusion.

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