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Course: LSAT > Unit 1
Lesson 10: Reading Comprehension - Worked Examples- Law passage overview | Cosmic Justice (paired passages)
- Main point | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Recognition | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Inferences about views | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Inferences about info | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Principles | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Analogies | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
- Law passage overview | Copyright
- Main point | Law passage | Copyright
- Purpose of reference | Law passage | Copyright
- Applying to new contexts | Law passage | Copyright
- Humanities passage overview | Music (paired passages)
- Main point 1 | Humanities passage | Music
- Main point 2 | Humanities passage | Music
- Recognition | Humanities passage | Music
- Inferences about views | Humanities passage | Music
- Principles and analogies | Humanities passage | Music
- Additional evidence | Humanities passage | Music
- Primary purpose | Humanities passage | Music
- Science passage overview | The Sun
- Recognition 1 | Science passage | The Sun
- Recognition 2 | Science passage | The Sun
- Organizing info | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 1 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 2 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about views 3 | Science passage | The Sun
- Inferences about info | Science passage | The Sun
- Social science passage overview | Wool
- Main point | Social science passage | Wool
- Recognition 1 | Social science passage | Wool
- Recognition 2 | Social science passage | Wool
- Inferences about info | Social science passage | Wool
- Inferences about attitudes | Social science passage | Wool
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Inferences about views | Law passage | Cosmic Justice
Watch a demonstration of one way to approach an "inference about views" question about a LSAT reading comprehension law passage. Created by Dave Travis.
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- I would I have failed this question. Option A was a little confusing because I read the " it is sometimes possible" as "it sometimes happens that" not "it is sometimes okay for". How am I supposed to know what they mean(9 votes)
- what does this have to do with views(2 votes)
- Isn't there a better model for narrowing down the sentiments proposed in the article?(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Narrator] Which one of the
following is a view advanced by the author of passage
A, with which the author of passage B would be
most likely to agree? Okay, so the answer here
is going to be something that Thomas Sowell would agree with. And because passage A was
about articulating a part of Sowell's point of
view on cosmic justice, it should be pretty easy to pick out. But let's see what we have here. A, it is sometimes possible
for the legal system to take unmerited
disadvantages into account in rendering judgment on
people and their actions. That sounds pretty good. Sowell was saying, yes there are those in the legal system that attempt to implement
this kind of cosmic justice. So A sounds pretty good,
let's see what B has to say. Whether or not cosmic justice
is an attainable ideal, human law should strive for it, because doing so produces
more just legal outcomes. No, Sowell is against cosmic justice, so B is out. C, impartial legal
processes are a better means of achieving cosmic
justice than are efforts to address unmerited
disadvantages directly. So that's interesting,
there are parts of this that are right. He definitely would say that impartial legal processes are a great means of rendering justice, but he does not want to
achieve cosmic justice, or he doesn't believe it's achievable. And if people try to use cosmic justice, it runs the risk of the law not providing sufficient deterrents for
people to murder each other. So, Sowell would not agree with that. D, human law should be
concerned with the consequences of human actions, not
with the myriad of factors that influence human actions. Okay so D looks pretty promising also, because he was talking about consequences. That's the outputs the
passage A was talking about. And Sowell is also against
using a myriad of factors to influence human actions. And our law should not
concern itself with that. So D is looking good too. It looks like we're narrowing it down, we're gonna have a couple
to look at in a second. E, human legal systems can in
theory achieve cosmic justice by focusing upon factors that
tend to mitigate punishment. No, Sowell is basically
arguing against cosmic justice, how we should not be attempting
to achieve cosmic justice. E is wrong. So we're now just having to consider A and D. And when you look more closely at A, there definitely are
reasons why A is wrong. It is sometimes possible
for the legal system to take unmerited disadvantages. So these unmerited disadvantages
mentioned in passage B are these inputs that
the author of passage A is saying we should not be considering. So it's not possible for us to take there is unmerited
disadvantages into account, because it's just not fair. Passage A goes further to
say, look, we shouldn't even try to implement cosmic
justice because we can not know all these inputs and so we
should not even try to take unmerited disadvantages into account. So A is wrong, and D is definitely our answer.