LSAT 135 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q7

LR Question 7 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Economist: Government intervention in the free market…

QUESTION TYPE: Complete The Argument

CONCLUSION: Governments should only intervene when not intervening would cause much more harm than intervening.

REASONING: Medicines have harmful side effects. We should only use them when the benefit to using them greatly exceeds the harm.

Government intervention in the economy is similar.

ANALYSIS: The author dislikes medical and government intervention.

They’ll accept intervention in only one situation: Not intervening will cause even more harm.

Suppose you will die without an antibiotic. Then it makes sense to give you the drug, even if the drug causes horrible damage to your intestines.

Likewise, suppose the economy will collapse unless you bail out the banks. Then it might be justifiable to bail them out, even though the bailout causes harm.

You can’t intervene unless non-intervention will cause even more harm. Harm from non-intervention is a necessary condition. Here’s a diagram:

Intervening OK ➞ Not intervening causes more harm

___________

1. Whether people approve isn’t the question. A patient might approve of a terrible treatment because it seemed easy. What matters is whether government policies are helpful or harmful.
2. This isn’t enough. The policy needs to do less damage than not intervening.
3. This isn’t quite it. It might be ok to exacerbate (make worse) existing problems if not intervening would cause even more problems.
4. CORRECT. Here we go. The author clearly dislikes intervention. They’ll accept it only when the harm from not intervening is even worse.
5. The solution might not be worth it if intervention caused a lot of harm as well.