LR Question 22 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: To hold criminals responsible for their crimes…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: People who obey the law are entirely responsible for criminal behavior.
REASONING: The social environment is responsible for crime. And law abiding people are most responsible for creating that environment.
ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. Law abiding people may have most of the responsibility for creating the environment. But they don’t have all of it. Criminals presumably share responsibility for creating the environment they live in.
Further, if everyone’s actions are the result of their environment, then we can’t blame law-abiding people for their actions. Their actions are caused by their environment too. In fact, we can’t blame anyone! This argument contradicts itself.
___________
- Environment always means the same thing: the world someone experiences around them.
- The argument implies that crime is socially unacceptable and obeying the law is socially acceptable.
- The argument hasn’t said or implied anything about what makes someone a criminal. This is irrelevant. The argument is about who is responsible for crimes.
- The argument talks about the entire population. All criminals and all law abiding citizens.
- CORRECT. The argument claims that criminals aren’t responsible, because the environment causes their actions. So it blames people who are law abiding. But surely, the actions of people who obey the law are caused by their environment as well. So nobody can be responsible, if we accept the argument’s reasoning.
Recap: The question begins with “To hold criminals responsible for their crimes”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flaw questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.
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I only chose the right answer choice because I assumed the writer of the test didn’t consider that the implicit premise can actually be stated in a way that doesn’t produce a contradiction.
The sentence saying “It is not criminals but law abiding citizens who by their actions do most to create this environment” meaningfully distinguishes that the law abiding citizens have responsibility for the environment that the criminal lacks, which means the implicit premise could be stated in such a way that it does not apply to the criminal but applies to the law abiding citizen. (For example: “Those whose crimes are products of an environment whose action they did not help create and maintain cannot be held responsible for their crimes”).
Do you have any thoughts on this?
You make a good point, but note that the stimulus states, “criminal actions, like ALL ACTIONS, are ultimately products of the environment.” If all actions are the products of their environments, then the actions of law-abiding citizens are also products of their environment. If we follow the argument’s principle that criminals cannot be held responsible for their actions because they are products of their environment, this principle must also apply to law-abiding citizens. Therefore, the argument’s conclusion that law-abiding citizens are responsible for crime contradicts its own premise, leading to the criticism that the reasoning is flawed.