LSAT 10 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q20

LR Question 20 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Government official: Clearly, censorship exists if we …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Refusal to fund speech is not censorship.

REASONING: Censorship exists only if one of two things happens:

1. Citizens are not allowed to express themselves at their own expense; or
2. Others are not allowed to access that expression at their own expense.

ANALYSIS: The government official sets up a narrow definition of censorship (prohibiting private communication) and then uses it to exclude a broader, more nuanced case.

So, we’re looking for something that similarly restricts the definition of something to exclude a case that may still be reasonably included.

___________

1. This reverses the necessary and sufficient condition. That’s not the same flaw.
2. This is a good argument. It says we lack full evidence, so we can’t make a full judgment.
3. Equivocation is not the flaw in the stimulus. This assumes two things are the same because they share a label.
4. CORRECT. Just like the official narrows censorship to only blocking private speech, this narrows heroism to only include risking life. Then they dismiss any other form of risk as not heroic, just like the official excludes funding-related censorship. Both arbitrarily limit a concept’s scope and dismiss other reasonable cases.
5. This is a relativism fallacy, which is not the same flaw as the stimulus.