September 1998 LSAT Section 2 Question 24

Monica: The sculpture commissioned for our town plaza has been scorned by the public ever since it went up. But s...

avif on July 12, 2020

A vs. E

I struggled with this one. The issue I had with E was that even Hector could agree that the artistic value can be a central consideration. That does not mean that other considerations such as public benefit are not important too. A, on the other hand, seems more correct because Monica dismisses public opinion since the artwork is good and Hector goes by public opinion. Please explain. Thanks.

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shunhe on July 13, 2020

Hi @avif,

Thanks for the question! So we’re trying to find a principle that Monica and Hector would definitely disagree about. So one of them should agree with it, and the other would disagree. Otherwise, we can’t pick the answer choice. So let’s look at what Monica and Hector are saying. Monica basically says that the sculpture was scorned, but the people don’t know much about contemporary art, so the fact that the sculpture’s unpopular doesn’t mean anything about its artistic merit and gives no reason for removing it.

Hector then concedes that what Monica says about the popularity and artistic merit might be true. But, Hector thinks that a work of art commissioned for a public space should benefit the public, and popular opinion is the only way of determining what’s good for the public. So if the public wants to get rid of the sculpture, they should get rid of the sculpture. Basically, Hector wants to take into consideration public opinion, whereas Monica doesn’t and thinks artistic merit is more important.

Now take a look at (A), which tells us that public opinion of a work of art is an important consideration in determining the work’s artistic merit. Well, obviously as we said earlier, Monica would disagree with this statement, since she basically says that in the last part of her argument. But would Hector disagree? Not necessarily! Hector at best has no opinion on the subject, since he says “you might be right” about the popularity and artistic merit. We can’t say for sure that Hector would agree with (A), and so (A) can’t be the correct answer.

Now take a look at (E). In determining whether the sculpture should stay, the artistic merit should be a central consideration. Well, Monica would definitely say yes, since she doesn’t think there’s a reason to get rid of it unless there’s a problem with the artistic merit. But Hector would say no, because Hector wants to consider public opinion; forget about artistic merit, if the public doesn’t like the statue, get rid of it. And since they would have differing opinions on (E), it’s the correct answer.

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

avif on July 13, 2020

Thanks. I totally missed that A said that it was regarding the artistic merit. I thought it was referring to having the statue up in general.

shunhe on July 15, 2020

Yup, make sure you're reading carefully!