LSAT 152 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q16

LR Question 16 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A popular complaint about abstract expressionist paintings …

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Abstract paintings are aesthetically pleasing.

REASONING: A study showed that people found abstract paintings more aesthetic than children’s paintings.

ANALYSIS: Imagine I said: In a blind taste test, people preferred cafeteria coffee to gas station coffee. Therefore, cafeteria coffee must be good.

You’d probably object: Have you considered both could be bad? If gas station coffee is terrible and cafeteria coffee is only slightly less terrible, preferring one over the other doesn’t show cafeteria coffee is actually good. It only shows it is better by comparison.

But now suppose we knew gas station coffee was itself good. Then if cafeteria coffee is rated even better, concluding cafeteria coffee is good makes sense.

It’s the same issue here. The study shows people found abstract paintings more aesthetic than children’s paintings, but that only establishes a comparative claim.

It does not by itself establish the stronger absolute conclusion that abstract paintings are aesthetically pleasing. Unless we assume children’s paintings possess some aesthetic merit, such that being judged better than them is evidence of being aesthetically pleasing.

That’s the necessary assumption we need to make the argument work.

___________

1. The argument doesn’t depend on comparative judgments being better than other forms of judgment. It only uses the fact that participants made such judgments.
   Negation: People are worse at judging the aesthetic value of a painting when they compare it with another painting.
2. CORRECT. If the children’s paintings were aesthetically bad, abstract paintings could be judged better than them and still not be aesthetically pleasing. This bridges the gap from being better to being actually good.
   Negation: Most of the children’s paintings were aesthetically displeasing.
3. The argument doesn’t depend on labels at all – participants could judge the paintings visually. In fact, if labels were shown, that might even bias the responses and weaken the argument.
   Negation: The paintings weren’t labeled accurately.
4. This just tells us that people who didn’t consistently rate the abstract paintings better still rated them better most times. But this isn’t the group of people the stimulus is concerned with. The stimulus is about the “most people” who consistently rated the abstract paintings better.
   Negation: Participants who didn’t consistently rate abstract paintings better didn’t rate them better more often than not.
5. The argument doesn’t need similarities to disappear in order to work. Even if the paintings were very similar stylistically, participants could still prefer the abstract ones.
   Negation: There were many similarities between the paintings.