The following appeared as part of an article in the business section of a local newspaper:
“The Cumquat Café made a mistake in moving to a new location. After one year at the new spot, it is doing about the same volume of business as before, but the owners of the RoboWrench plumbing supply wholesale outlet that took over its old location are apparently doing better: RoboWrench is planning to open a store in a neighboring city.”
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.
The author attempts to bolster his point by claiming that the RoboWrench business is doing better, and that this new location should serve as a model for other locations. However, he fails to mention that the Cumquat Café was an established business that was doing well before the RoboWrench people moved in and took over their space. This point is critical because it suggests that the Cumquat Café was failing before the RoboWrench moved there. As the saying goes, ‘If it was easy, everyone would do it.’ If a business was failing, then changing its location to another area would not make it more successful. If the owner of the RoboWrench really wanted to do well, he would have kept the old location open. However, he only recently took over that business, so he may not have had time for that. He may be hoping that the change of location will usher in a new day for his business. That may happen, or it may not. If the business fails in the new location, then moving it elsewhere will not help it
Moving on, the author uses evidence that the new location is doing as well as the one that was occupied previously. However, his claim that ‘RobotWrench is planning to open a store in a nearby city’ seems unsubstantiated. It could be that the RoboWrench people are simply waiting for a location to open up in another area, or it could be that they intend to open in multiple locations. Until we get more information, we cannot be sure
The author also states that, ‘The owners of RoboWrench plumbing wholesale outlet that took over its old location are apparently doing better.’ Again, it is not clear how the author reached this conclusion. It is possible that the RoboWrench business is doing very well, or it could be that the business is scraping by, unable to make a profit. Perhaps the owner simply needs more time to turn a profit, or the business may have problems that cannot be overcome. Again, no information is given so that we can determine whether or not the RoboWrench plumbing wholesale outlet is doing better
The author makes a number of assumptions in his argument. First, he assumes that the RoboWrench business is doing well. He provides no evidence to support this assumption. Second, he assumes that the RoboWrench business is doing well because the Cumquat Café was failing. But, he does not provide any evidence to this effect. Finally, he assumes that the RoboWrench plumbing wholesale outlet is better off because of the new location. Again, he provides no evidence. Without evidence, any assumptions that are made are merely speculation
We can further examine the assumptions made by the author. The assumption that the Cumquat Café was failing before RoboWrench took over its space seems logical. After all, he states that it ‘was doing about the same volume of business as before.’ But, if the business was failing, then why would the owners decide to move? They probably did not anticipate that the move would be successful. Also, the author does not state the reason for the Cumquat Café’s failure, so we do not know whether the location was bad, or the manager was inept, or the customers did not support the business. Perhaps, the business was doing well, but the owners are getting older and do not want to work so hard any more and are looking to retire. Again, the author has not provided any evidence that the Cumquat Café was failing
The assumption that the RoboWrench plumbing wholesale outlet is doing better is also questionable. If the owner has already proven the business is not doing well, why did he move it? Perhaps the owner simply needed more space, and could not afford to buy or rent another building. Perhaps the business does not have much room for growth, but the owner needs to expand. If the business is doing well, then the owner does not need to move it
We can analyze other assumptions made by the author. He assumes that RoboWrench is planning to open another store in another area. But, he does not give us any information to support this assumption. He also assumes that the RoboWrench plumbing wholesale outlet is doing well because the old Cumquat Café location is doing well. Again, he provides no information to support this assumption. Finally, he assumes that the RoboWrench plumbing wholesale outlet is doing well because the old Cumquat Café location is doing well. Again, he provides no information to support this assumption. Without evidence, we can only speculate.