September 2016 LSAT Section 4 Question 24

Politician: Democracy requires that there be no restrictions on the ability of citizens to share their ideas freely, ...

Rozanna on December 16, 2020

Claim supported/unsupported

I understand that it is a premise but where I got confused here was - the claim being supported vs the answer choice that states it is not supported. I chose the one where it is not supported because I don't understand what supports this claim and in general aren't premises statements that are not supported?

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shunhe on December 22, 2020

Hi @Rozanna,

Thanks for the question! Your’e right that premises are statements that aren’t supported. But here’s the thing: this isn’t purely a premise! It’s actually a subsidiary, or intermediate, conclusion, which you can think of as a hybrid conclusion/premise. Subsidiary conclusions are statements that are supported by others in the passage, but go on to support the main conclusion. Take the following:

Premise: It rained.
Sub conclusion: It is wet outside.
Main conclusion: I am not going to go outside.

Do you see how the subsidiary conclusion is supported by the premise (we know it’s wet because it rained), but supports the main conclusion (since the whole point is that I’m not going outside, not that it’s wet outside)? That’s the role of the subsidiary.

So here, the statement pointed out itself is a premise, a claim for which no support is provided. But it then supports a claim, the subsidiary conclusion (right to have private conversations is essential to democracy), which supports the main conclusion (government monitoring of internet conversations is a setback for democracy).

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