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27. The following appeared in a newspaper editorial. “As violence in movies increases, so do crime rates in our cities. To combat this problem we must establish a board to censor certain movies, or we must limit admission to persons over 21 years of age. Apparently our legislators are not concerned about this issue since a bill calling for such actions recently failed to receive a majority vote.”
27. 报纸社论：
由于电影中的暴力增加，我们的城市中的犯罪也增加了。为了和这个问题斗争，我们必须建立委员会来审查特定的电影，或者我们必须限制对21岁以上的人的入场资格。很明显我们的立法机构并不关心这件事，因为最近的一个要求采取这种行动的法案没有获得多数。 The author convinces us that it makes reasonable sense to call for some actions to control the violence in movies. To support this conclusion, the author cites the fact that as violence in movies increases, so do crime rates in their cities. In addition, he argues that they should establish a censorship for movie, and should limit admission to persons over 21 years of age. Furthermore, he relies on the fact that a bill calling for such actions recently failed to receive a majority vote to reason that this issue does not receive enough focus. Although the argument has some goodness, it undergoes several captious problems. First of all, the author has engaged in “after this, therefore because of this” reasoning by assuming that there is a causal connection between increasing violence in movies and rises of crime rates. The only reason offered to solidify the argument that increasing violence in movies caused rises of crime rates is the fact that the former preceded the latter. Without any further evidence to link the two parts, it is highly suspected that the two events are nor causally related but merely correlated. In fact, the author might have neglected some other possible reasons. For example, high unemployment rate may push more people to do crimes. On account of too limited evidence of the conclusion, it is premature to conclude that increasing violence in movies caused rises of crime rates. Second, the author suggests that the citizens should limit admission to persons over 21 years of age to combat this problem. However, since people nearly at all age are likely to do crimes, there is no reason to persuade us that such limitation will work out. To convince us, the author has to supply more information of the crime rates at different ages Last but not least, the author inaccurately relies on unfounded assumption-rather than some occurrence-that a bill calling for such actions failed to pass is enough to prove that the legislators are not concerned about this issue. Yet, no evidence is offered in the argument to solidify this assumption. There may be some other factors that author fails to take into consideration contributing to the result that the bill didn’t receive a majority vote. For example, it is more likely that the actions proposed in the bill don’t have any practical value; it is also likely that the cost of these actions far exceed the yearly fiscal income. Thus, this argument is unreasonable unless the author gives additional information to solve such problems. In sum, this argument, while it seems to be somewhat appealing at first glance, has several flaws as mentioned above. Hence it is unpersuasive as it stands. Accordingly, the author could strengthen the argument that increasing violence in movies caused augmentation of crime rates by offer further evidence. Moreover, the author would have to show that changes in the crime rate among different age groups. Without more convincing evidence, this author’s position should not be heeded. 不禁感谢
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发表于 2006-8-1 23:33:00
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