LSAT Question Explanation
PT 105, Section 4, Question 21
Must be FalseExplanation
P1: A person is more worthy of praise if they treat others well out of compassion than if they treat others well just because of moral obligation.
P2: A person can choose to do what is morally right but can't choose to have feelings.
We can connect these two premises to say that how praiseworthy someone is may not be entirely based on their choices. The stimulus tells us that people can be more praiseworthy based on something they can't actually control.
Answer choices
The ethicist indicates that people who act on their feelings deserve more praise, so maybe those are the only actions that should be used to measure praiseworthiness. Maybe treating people well solely out of moral obligation earns a person zero praise in the eyes of the ethicist. This answer choice could be true.
We don't know who doesn't deserve praise altogether, or how to judge someone who's actions hurt people.
This cannot be true because premise 2 says we can't choose our feelings. Yet the ethicist thinks that people who act on their feelings deserve higher levels of praise. So the ethicist is measuring praise based on something that isn't subject to choice, disproving this answer choice.
This could be true, we know that people are less worthy of praise if they treat people well without feelings of compassion but they may still be worthy of some praise.
We don't know if wanting to have compassion but not having it makes someone praiseworthy. This is outside the scope of the stimulus.