LSAT 149 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Many employers treat their employees fairly…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: To use others to achieve your goals isn’t always evil or harmful.

REASONING: Lots of employers treat their employees well.

ANALYSIS: On necessary assumption questions, the right answer will generally take the term from the reasoning and the term from the conclusion.

So, for this argument to work, you need to assume that employers use employees for their own ends.

…..To be honest that seems like an extremely reasonable assumption, but I guess it’s technically necessary. LSAC usually only has unreasonable assumptions as the right answer, but this question is a good demonstration that the assumptions can be reasonable too.

___________

1. The conclusion has two terms linked by an “or”: “not always reprehensible OR harmful”.
    
   There is no logical reason to link these two terms together. Protip: any necessary assumption answer that links together two terms joined by an OR is almost always wrong.
    
   e.g. if I say “If you have a pet, you have a cat OR a dog”, and then an answer says something like “The argument assumes that you have a cat if you have a dog”, you can basically write off that answer, because it just made a weird linkage between two terms linked by OR.
    
   As for why this is wrong: the author isn’t saying all employers are moral. They’re only saying “many are”. The negation of this only says some employers act immorally to others, so it doesn’t hurt the author’s conclusion.
   Negation: Some employers can act morally badly even when they’re not harming their employees. But most employers don’t do this.
2. The author is actually assuming the opposite of this. “Using employees as a means to an end” was what linked “treating employees fairly” and “not acting morally bad”. That’s why this is wrong and C is right.
   Negation: At least some employers who act morally use their employees for their own ends.
3. CORRECT. If this isn’t true, then there’s nothing to link treating employees fairly and not being harmful. When you take out using others for your own ends, you end up with this as an argument: “Some employers act fairly with employees. So: not always morally bad or harmful”. It doesn’t even read properly as English!
    
   Note: the “some or all” is redundant. Some already includes the possibility of all. You can read this as “some”.
   Negation: No employers use their employees as a means to their own ends.
4. The stimulus never talked about a profit, or personal advantage. This answer is throwing in terms you associate with employers in order to distract you. You have to focus on the words in the stimulus.
    
   If you negate this, it sounds bad….except that it doesn’t apply since the author didn’t talk about profits! Also, the answer negates to “can be”. And the author was only arguing many employers aren’t harmful, not all.
   Negation: Making a profit from the labor of others can be harmful. But most employers aren’t harmful.
5. This answer is insane. No author ever relies on an insane answer. If you interpret this answer literally, it would mean that you can’t hurt someone by accident. If you have a car accident and run someone over, you are surely not “using them as a means to your own ends”. So this answer would therefore mean you cannot hurt that person in the car accident.
    
   You have to interpret answers literally on the LSAT. And so you can rule out any answer that is as insane as this one.
   Negation: You can hurt someone even if it doesn’t advance your own goals.

Recap: The question begins with “Many employers treat their employees fairly”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Necessary questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.