LSAT 118 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q17

LR Question 17 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: In practice the government will have the last word …

QUESTION TYPE: Identify the Conclusion

CONCLUSION: What the government says an individual’s rights are may not be correct.

REASONING: If you think the government’s view is automatically correct, you must believe moral rights exist only because governments give them to us – which would mean there are no genuine moral rights at all.

ANALYSIS: The structure here is:

• Government has practical authority.
• But that doesn’t make its view correct.
• Because otherwise there would be no independent moral rights.

Notice the word “but”. That’s a very common conclusion indicator. That sentence is the conclusion, and everything that comes after the semicolon (“;”) is the reasoning. The first sentence is mainly background.

___________

1. This is almost the opposite of the author’s position. The author explicitly rejects the idea that rights depend entirely on government recognition.
2. CORRECT. This paraphrases the “but” sentence, which is the conclusion.
3. The argument never says individuals have rights unless the government denies them. That’s a new conditional relationship.
4. The first sentence says police do what officials and courts say. But that is a premise or background about practical enforcement, not the author’s main conclusion.
5. The author never gives a recommendation about what people should do.