LR Question 4 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: Principle: The executive in a given company whose…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle
PRINCIPLE:
Consultant has business interests AND executive salary determined by consultant ➞ executive likely overpaid
ANALYSIS: The principle is very simple, once you reduce it to conditional form. We have one set of sufficient conditions, which let us conclude the necessary condition: the executive is likely overpaid.
We can only conclude necessary conditions. You can also prove the necessary condition of the contrapositive:
Executive not likely overpaid ➞ salary not determined by consultant OR consultant had no business interests
You can never prove sufficient conditions. So it’s never possible to prove, for example, that an executive is paid fairly, since that’s not the necessary condition of this principle.
This realization about what you can and can’t prove usually lets you eliminate all but 1-2 answers on this type of principle question. Focus on necessary conditions, and you can do this type of question much faster. In this case, only B and D are possible answers, because they’re the only ones that conclude the necessary condition.
___________
- The principle does not let us conclude that an executive is definitely overpaid. This answer starts out wrong.
- This answer starts off right. But it doesn’t mention consultants. The sufficient condition of the principle was that salary was determined by a consultant with business interests with the company.
- We can’t conclude “probably not overpaid”. We can only conclude the necessary condition of the principle, which was “probably overpaid”.
- CORRECT. This follows the principle exactly.
- We can’t conclude “not overpaid”. We can only conclude the necessary condition of the principle: “probably overpaid”.
More Resources for Principle Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Principle questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers principle questions.
In this type of “conditional statement” where the outcome is only a possibility, are we allowed to form the contrapositive “Executive not likely overpaid ➞ salary not determined by consultant OR consultant had no business interests”?
I actually have no problem with the contrapositive. But I’ve seen several people explain that strictly speaking, if the result is only a possibility, it’s not a conditional statement, and therefore we can’t create a contrapositive here.
I understand that the contrapositive in your explanation obviously creates no problem at all. I just want to know if I can do the same thing with other “conditional statements” like this.
Great question. You can’t take the contrapositive of a most statement. However, if a most statement is in a condtional, you can take the contrapositive by negating the most statement. What I mean is this:
Water served in Acme Cafe –> 51% full or more
If you are served water that is 50% full or less –> You are not being served in Acme Cafe
So we’re changing likely to not likely when we negate, because most negates to half or less. You can do this *within* a conditional.
However, if you just have a most statement, you can’t take the contrapositive. For example, if I say: Most cats are pets, you can’t do anything further to the statement.
Hope that makes sense! This stimulus says “IF the consultant”…which indicates an actual conditional statement.
But technically speaking, this is not a conditional statement right? Because “executive overpaid” isn’t a guaranteed outcome, it’s just a possibility.
Apologies for the late response, but I still wanted to address this point. You’re right that in formal logic, a strict conditional statement (If X then Y) means that whenever X happens, Y must happen. However, in normal language and LSAT reasoning, conditional statements can also express likelihoods rather than certainties.
So, a strict logical conditional would be: If X -> then Y always happens.
But in cases like this stimulus, we have: If X -> then Y is likely to happen.
This is still a conditional relationship, but instead of guaranteeing Y, it indicates a high probability of Y occurring. The LSAT may present conditionals that express likelihoods, tendencies, or expectations rather than absolute rules.