Today we’ll tackle a problem from the December 2006 LSAT (you can buy your own copy from our store). This is from section 1 and is a logical reasoning or “arguments” question:

Difficulty: Medium

6. Deirdre: Many philosophers have argued that the goal of every individual is to achieve happiness–that is, the satisfaction derived from fully living up to one’s potential. They have also claimed that happiness is elusive and can be achieved only after years of sustained effort. But these philosophers have been unduly pessimistic, since they have clearly exaggerated the difficulty of being happy. Simply walking along the seashore on a sunny afternoon causes many people to experience feelings of happiness.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a reasoning flaw in Deirdre’s argument?

(A) It dismisses a claim because of its source rather than because of its content.
(B) It fails to take into account that what brings someone happiness at one moment may not bring that person happiness at another time.
(C) It allows the key term “happiness” to shift in meaning illicitly in the course of the argument.
(D) It presumes, without providing justification, that happiness is, in fact, the goal of life.
(E) It makes a generalization based on the testimony of a group whose views have not been shown to be representative.

The question here is asking us to find what is wrong with this argument. The term “flaw” int he question is the key. Flaws in arguments usually revolve around weak assumptions, however this is not always the case.

The argument is trying to refute a claim that happiness is difficult to attain. The “happiness” the claim is based on is defined as fully living up to one’s potentiial. The argument uses an example of the happiness derived from walking along a beach as a counter-example. Obviously, these are two different ideas of what happiness is and would require a change in definition of happiness to actually work. So, we’ve got a shift in definition here.

Wouldn’t it be nice if every question brought up a nice relaxing walk on the beach?

This question at first probably looks a lot harder than it is since its subject is philosophy, the subjective bane of every LSAT-taker’s existence. However, as long as we keep our head on and remember we need to rely on our own answer to the question, looking for the choice that matches, we can get through it just fine since the flaw is pretty obvious.

Answer explanations after the jump.

A. The source of the claim is philosophers, the argument does not try to dismiss anything based on the source. So, nope.

B. Nope, while this may be true, oh so true, in real life, it doesn’t match what we’re looking for (different definitions). As well, if the argument had taken this into account it would have been even weaker than it already was, since this is an even more pessimistic view of happiness.

C.Bingo! If you don’t know what illicit means, don’t sweat it, the key thing here is of course “shift in meaning”.

D. This presumption is actually justified in the introduction of the argument, so this one is just plain wrong.

E. The representative nature of the person(s) walking on a beach is not the central issue (while philosophically it may be, I mean really, how do we know walking on a beach really makes anyone happy?). We’re still looking for the shift in meaning we identified before we got to the answer choices.

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