LSAT 153 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q26

LR Question 26 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: People should patronize businesses that meet high ethical…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: When a business acts notably ethically, it should be publicized by the news media.

REASONING: People should patronize ethical businesses, and the media should help them. If the media publicized a business who acted especially ethically, people would patronize the business.

ANALYSIS: We want businesses meeting high ethical standards to be patronized more. A business that is publicized for performing notably ethical actions would be patronized more. But do all businesses meeting high ethical standards perform notably ethical actions? Can an unethical business perform a notably ethical action? If we break the connection between businesses that meet high ethical standards and businesses that perform notably ethical actions, the argument would be weakened.

___________

1. The argument focuses on businesses who meet their high ethical standards. We don’t care about businesses who don’t.
2. CORRECT. If most businesses who meet high ethical standards do so by refraining from unethical behaviour, that won’t get them publicized. The author wants to publicize notably ethical actions, not businesses who just don’t act unethically. That would mean most businesses who meet high ethical standards would not get publicized.
3. The argument focuses on businesses with high standards. We don’t care about businesses who meet standards that aren’t high.
4. The author doesn’t make a claim about what the media will likely do, only what they should do.
5. The author doesn’t care about businesses’ motivation for meeting high ethical standards. In fact, the author wants people to give more profit to those businesses! So they probably agree that profit can motivate businesses to meet high ethical standards.

Recap: The question begins with “People should patronize businesses that meet high ethical”. It is a Weaken question. Learn more about LSAT Weaken questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.