LSAT Question Explanation
PT 108, Section 3, Question 19
Identify the FlawArgument structure
The objection that customers could have been lying is absurd.
It's not proven that they were lying.
Explanation
Just because it hasn't been proven that the customers were lying doesn't mean they couldn't have been. They could have been lying or telling the truth, we have no idea.
A lack of evidence doesn't mean that something is definitely false.
A similar example of this flaw would be saying that "we haven't discovered aliens yet. Therefore, aliens do not exist."
Answer choices
Greenwall doesn't take this for granted, he just posits that this could be true.
Greenwall never presumes that most people are dishonest about anything. He just says that some people could be lying.
Faden doesn't presume this. This indicates a relationship between stronger evidence and a lower chance of a conclusion being true. Faden's flaw was saying that a lack of evidence indicated that a claim was false.
This indicates Faden's flaw. He said that Greenwall's objection was absurd simply because Greenwall hadn't proven that the customers were lying. But they could have been lying.
Greenwall doesn't ignore this possibility. He just says some people may have lied on the survey.