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发表于 2009-6-22 00:23:24
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Argument 25
The following appeared in a memo from the mayor of the town of Hopewell.
"Two years ago, the town of Ocean View built a new municipal golf course and resort hotel. During the past two years, tourism in Ocean View has increased, new businesses have opened there, and Ocean View's tax revenues have risen by 30 percent. The best way to improve Hopewell's economy, and generate additional tax revenues, is to build a golf course and resort hotel similar to those in Ocean View."
两年前Ocean View建造了一个新的市立高尔夫球场和度假旅馆。过去两年中,Ocean View的旅客增加了,开设了很多新的商业,而且税收增加了30%。改善Hopewell的经济,产生更多税收的最好途径就是建立一个和Ocean View类似的高尔夫球场和度假旅。
In the memo, the mayor of the town of Hopewell concludes that the best way of improving the Hopewell’s economy and generating additional tax revenues is to build a golf course and resort hotel as Ocean View did in the reason of that strategy led to the new trends in Ocean View during the past two years. However, a scrutiny of this argument would reveal how groundless it is.
First of all, the argument rests upon a dubious assumption that it was the municipal golf course and resort that contribute to the subsequent increase in tourism, the opening of new business and the growth of tax revenues. The mayor of Hopewell may have confused the cause with effect respecting the recent development in Ocean View. Maybe Ocean View’s building of a new golf course and resort hotel was a response to previous increases in tourism and business development, whose increases that have simply continued during the most resent two years. Thus, the threshold assumption may fail to support the mayor’s conclusion. Many Other possible causes of the trends in Ocean View during the last two years the author fails to account for. The increase in tourism might have been due to improving economic conditions nationwide, or to its special geographic region and pleasant weather, or to the culture and custom. The new business that have opened in Ocean View might have established there irrespectively of the new golf course and hotel. And the 30% increase in tax revenues might have been the result of an increase in tax rates, or the addition of a new type of municipal tax.
Moreover, even if the recent success in Ocean View could be attributable to the construction of new golf course and resort hotel there, the mayor ignores certain important concerns, which must be addressed to prove. There is no cogent evidence underlying that the golf course and hotel will continue to benefit that town’s overall economy. Perhaps it is the vogue or metropolis’ charm that arouses people’s a surge of temporary interest in traveling there and once got fed up with those stereotyped items will people’s passion gradually vanish. Namely, the golf course and hotel may just a transient but not last profitable method that Ocean View took. Only taking the successful trends into consideration obscures the fact that it may give rise to larger cost that can hardly be countervailed by the increase in the revenue, rendering a further loss of the profit for the town, and this is why establishing such constructions may not benefit the overall economy in Hopewell.
Last but not the least, the weakest fallacy that the mayor commits is false analogy. Ignoring a series of fundamental discrepancies between Ocean View and Hopewell, the mayor arbitrarily assumes that the strategy, which exerts positive influence on Ocean View, will be inevitably favorable to Hopewell. Maybe Ocean View itself is a centre of trade or economic hinge, where the standard of living and habitation overwhelmingly surpasses many other places, and thus, investment to such a flourishing town will absolutely overshadow those who are not palmy. Hence, it will be plausible that Hopewell spends money on building a golf course and resort hotel, which give no evidences that the method will definitely profit Hopewell to a certainty.
To reiterate, this argument is not persuasive as it stands. Before we accept the conclusion, the mayor must present more facts to prove that the cause of trends result from the new golf course and resort hotel. To solidify the argument, the mayor would have to produce more evidence concerning the overall and continual benefits in Hopewell, which of course is available for it. |
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