Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly Plainsville is such an area. Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full. Finally, Plainsville's schoolchildren represent a new generation of potential customers: these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age.
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 these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
五問:
(1)“Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville”“Plainsville merchants report that sales of running shoes and exercise clothing are at all-time highs. The local health club has more members than ever, and the weight training and aerobics classes are always full”和“these schoolchildren are required to participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age”是事實,“The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas where residents lead healthy lives, and clearly Plainsville is such an area”是結(jié)論,值得反駁嗎?
(2)商人的報告是否準確?“商人”這個身份是否會使其報告在某些特定方面有傾向性或偏好?運動裝備賣得好,就意味著 Plainsville的居民一定是熱愛運動的嗎?是否有其他因素,比如打折促銷,導致運動裝備賣得好?
(3)運動裝備和健康食品之間的關系是互補品 [1] 還是替代品 [2] ?這個判斷是否會影響最終的決定?如果這兩者互為替代品,那么運動裝備賣得好,可能預示健康食品在當?shù)氐匿N量不會太好。
(4)健身俱樂部的火爆,除了因為“當?shù)厝岁P注身體健康”之外,是否可能有其他原因?例如:審美標準的轉(zhuǎn)變促使人們?yōu)榱吮3稚聿亩∩怼=∩砭銟凡颗c健康食品之間的關系,是互補品還是替代品?如果是互為替代品,那么結(jié)論還一定成立嗎?
(5)孩子現(xiàn)在參加健身項目,就意味著他們以后一定會注重健康嗎?這里再次出現(xiàn)時間軸論證。就算他們注重健康,就一定會成為 Nature's Way的顧客嗎?而且,文中沒有提到 Nature's Way在此開店的成本問題以及潛在的競爭,利潤難以確定,所以能否成功還不一定。
[1] 互補品:對于兩種物品而言,如果兩者必須互相配合才能滿足消費者的同一種需要,如照相機和膠卷,則這兩種物品互為互補品。
[2] 替代品:對于兩種物品而言,如果其中一種物品價格的上漲會導致對另一種物品需求的增加,則這兩種物品互為替代品。