anyway...今天写了两篇长点的~之一~AA084

********************

Date: 2005-6-24

Time: 9:01:06

Argument No.84

********************

Question:

The following appeared as part of a memorandum from the vice president of Nostrum, a large pharmaceutical corporation.

`The proposal to increase the health and retirement benefits that our employees receive should not be implemented at this time. An increase in these benefits is not only financially unjustified, since our last year's profits were lower than those of the preceding year, but also unnecessary, since our chief competitor, Panacea, offers its employees lower health and retirement benefits than we currently offer. We can assume that our employees are reasonably satisfied with the health and retirement benefits that they now have since a recent survey indicated that two -thirds of the respondents viewed them favorably.

Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.

********************

Your Answer:

In this argument, the vice president of Nostrum intends to convince us that an increase in the health and retirement benefits which were received by employers should not be implemented at this time, and several reasons are offered to support this conclusion. At first glance, the author's argument appears to be somewhat persuasive, while a further and closer examination will reveal that the suggestions is problematically organized and contains some logical fallacies which will lead the conclusion groundless. In details, I will explain the reasons for my disapproval as follows:

To begin with, the arguer rests the argument on a dubious assumption that the decrease in the last year's profits is conflictive with the increase in employees' benefits this year. However, it is questionable. The author provides no evidence that the last year's decrease will continue this year and why the financial condition does not allow the increase in the employees' benefits. It is entirely possible that, for example, the decrease in profit was merely caused by large amount of purchase of the machinery, and those developed equipment will enforce a significant increase in this year's profit. For that matter, the arguer’s claim is definitely unwarranted without ruling out such possibility.

In addition, even if the condition follows the author's assumption, which means the profits will continue to decrease this year, the author's line of reasoning still includes some critical flaws. The most obvious error is that since the competitor offers lower benefits than Nostrum currently offers, the benefits’ increase in Nostrum is unnecessary for sure. The author only focuses the contrast of one factor and ignores the other aspects. Maybe the competitors of Nostrum are much stronger at the salary or other aspects instead of the retirement and health benefits. The failure to notice the other factors which would contribute to the result makes the conclusion a little imprudent.

Further more, the author only concerns the advantages of the suggestion but ignore the disadvantages. Such as the decline in emplyees' satisfaction and other factors will result in a decline in the productivity and further more a decline in the competitiveness in the market, a horrible result that the corporation could not bear to suffer.

To sum up, since the vice president fails to consider the whole situation comprehensively and does not well-reason us into accepting the assertion, his or her ideas should not be adopted. The vice president should provide us more related evidence in order to solidify his or her conclusion; otherwise, both the common sense and rational thinking will lead us to be opponents to the proposal that health and retirement benefits of the pharmaceutical corporation not be increased.

440字左右，头尾写了好长，时间都是卡的刚刚好（我总是先写头尾，再填中间的...汗！）...真有点心惊肉跳...

恩，我自己总是找不出自己写的毛病，因为都形成思维定式了...比如 the both sides...总是喜欢多余出一个the来...

总要麻烦judy给我检查一下，多谢多谢了...考完了再来帮你！~~呵呵！！你也加油！~~