LSAT 152 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q18

LR Question 18 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Etiquette helps people to get along with each other …

QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported

FACTS:

• Etiquette helps people get along, e.g. by preventing people from offending each other.
• Many people criticize etiquette because they think it doesn’t benefit society.
• Yet these people also think kindness and social harmony are good.

ANALYSIS: These people think kindness and social harmony are good. They’re benefits to society.

Well, doesn’t etiquette bring kindness and social harmony? The premises suggest it does (it helps people get along, people don’t offend each other).

So these people are wrong about etiquette having no benefits for society.

___________

1. Tempting, but too broad. Their views may be inconsistent, but the stimulus more directly supports the claim that they are mistaken about etiquette’s effects.
2. Nothing suggests that these critics “respect” etiquette. The passage says they criticize it.
3. CORRECT. This is the cleanest inference. If etiquette helps people get along and prevents offense, then people who say it has no social benefit are mistaken.
4. The author never says etiquette would be unnecessary if people were more considerate.
5. The stimulus says these critics think kindness and social harmony are good, but that is reported as their view. The argument does not independently establish that those things are highly beneficial.