Could you take a look at my argument task, please?

[Ekaterina Savchenko]

SuperCorp recently moved its headquarters to Corporateville. The recent surge in the number of homeowners in Corporateville proves that Corporateville is a superior place to live than Middlesburg, the home of SuperCorp's original headquarters. Moreover, Middlesburg is a predominately urban area and according to an employee survey, SuperCorp has determined that its workers prefer to live in an area that is not urban. Finally, Corporateville has lower taxes than Middlesburg, making it not only a safer place to work but also a cheaper one. Therefore, Supercorp clearly made the best decision.

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on the assumptions and what the implications are if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

 

The following argument is flawed for numerous reasons.

Primarily, the argument is based on the unwarranted assumption that the fact that the increase in the number of homeowners in Corporateville gives some advantages compared to the home of SuperCorp's original headquarters. However, the argument fails to provide any justifications for that. Even if the number of homeowners in a new headquarter's location is advantageous in some way, we cannot be sure that the same increase has not happened in the Middlesburg as well.

Moreover, the argument also leaves many other unwarranted questions. According to the passage, SuperCorp conducted an employee survey and found out that the workers prefer to live in an area that is not urban. However, the argument does not provide any proof that the survey was representative enough. We do not know the percentage of the survey's applicants to all employees, methodology of the survey or other important details about the questionnaire. For that reason we cannot made the conclusion that the headquarters should be moved in the first place. But even if the survey was conducted adequately, all we know from the argument is that the Middlesburg is a predominately urban area while there is no information about the bucolic nature of Corporateville so we cannot be sure that it is the best place for a new SuperCorp's headquarters.

Finally, the argument mentions that Corporateville has lower taxes than Middlesburg which make the latter safe and cheap place to work. But this conclusion is hard to support. First, the level of taxes as well as other arguments from the passage seem to have no bearing on the safety of the living place that is why we cannot made such a conclusion. Second, the argument says about the level of taxes without clarifying the type of these taxes. There is chance that individual taxes are indeed lower than in previous location but the taxes for business are in contrary higher or vice versa which makes the whole idea of the cheapness of new place for headquarters unproved.

To conclude, because the argument makes several unwarranted assumptions, it fails to make a convincing case that Supercorp made the best decision when moved its headquarters to Corporateville.

[thisguy2017]

3/6