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Another principle question that is driving me up the wall. This one is justify the reasoning. I could only discard one answer choice, (D). The rest seemed tempting.

E) The only actions that are laudable are those that it would not be wrong to refrain from doing, whether or not is difficult to do so.

The argument concluded by saying that, "Although it would not be wrong for the Jacksons to tell callers trying to reach Sarah merely that they have dialed the wrong number, it would be laudable if the Jacksons passed along Sara's correct number.

I am looking to justify the fact that it is not wrong to not pass out the number AND that if they did pass out the number, the it would be laudable.

I believe I have that correct. I also assume that the principle MUST address each part of the conclusion to justify the reasoning? In other words, if a given principle only talks about what is not wrong and does not state anything about what constitutes an action being laudable, can we not discard that answer choice?

Is (E) wrong for the fact that it is only telling us a characteristic of a group and not whether what is discussed in the stimulus is actually laudable?

And I did read Manhattan's explanation on their forums, but the explanations given were not helpful to me.

I'll take another shot!

You're quite right that the answer should justify the reasoning for both parts of the conclusion. (E) is problematic in that it doesn't explain why the family not passing along the number would not be wrong. Also, (E) doesn't explain what qualifies as laudable. It tells us what a laudable thing must be, not what sort of thing must be laudable. In other words, being laudable is the sufficient condition here (laudable --> not wrong); we want something that tells us helpful --> laudable & ~ tell someone you'll do it --> ~ wrong (and (A) gives us the contrapositive of that last one).

As for this:

secretad wrote:Is (E) wrong for the fact that it is only telling us a characteristic of a group and not whether what is discussed in the stimulus is actually laudable?

that's right if you mean that it tells us something about laudable actions, not about what actions must be laudable.

That work?

Manhattan LSAT Noah wrote:I'll take another shot!

You're quite right that the answer should justify the reasoning for both parts of the conclusion. (E) is problematic in that it doesn't explain why the family not passing along the number would not be wrong. Also, (E) doesn't explain what qualifies as laudable. It tells us what a laudable thing must be, not what sort of thing must be laudable. In other words, being laudable is the sufficient condition here (laudable --> not wrong); we want something that tells us helpful --> laudable & ~ tell someone you'll do it --> ~ wrong (and (A) gives us the contrapositive of that last one).

As for this:

secretad wrote:Is (E) wrong for the fact that it is only telling us a characteristic of a group and not whether what is discussed in the stimulus is actually laudable?

that's right if you mean that it tells us something about laudable actions, not about what actions must be laudable.

That work?

Absolutely.

You are the man. Manhattan LSAT is top notch stuff.