LSAT 127 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q19

LR Question 19 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Editorialist: Some people argue that we have an obligation…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: We do not have an obligation to avoid cutting down trees.

REASONING: We can’t be obliged toward something unless it has a right. But trees don’t have rights. So we don’t owe them any obligation.

ANALYSIS: The editorialist assumes that trees can’t have rights. That cannot be the correct answer; we need another assumption.

We need to eliminate the possibility that we have an obligation not to cut down trees, owed to someone else or to something which isn’t a tree.

___________

1. This isn’t a required assumption. The editorialist is discussing objects which don’t have rights (trees).
2. This negation technique shows this is not the right answer: “Some entities with rights have no obligations.” The answer does nothing to harm the editorialist’s argument, so it cannot be correct.
3. The editorialist only needs to assume trees don’t have rights, not that only conscious things can have them. (A government or a corporation can have rights, and they aren’t conscious.)
4. CORRECT. Negate this and you get: “Avoiding cutting down trees is an obligation owed to some entity other than trees.” That would make his argument false, and so the assumption is required.
5. This is neither here nor there. The stimulus discusses whether we have an obligation not to cut down trees, not under what circumstances we have a right to do so.

Recap: The question begins with “Editorialist: Some people argue that we have an obligation”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Necessary questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.