Since there is no survival value in an animal's having an organ that is able to function when all its other organs ha...

shunhe on March 27, 2020

Hi @xiaohai@bu.edu,

Thanks for the question! For some reason, I can’t quite see the question 3 you’re referring to, but I believe I know what question you’re talking about—it concerns a Zoo director who states that the city needs to reduce its spending, but not by cutting City Zoo funding in half. In this passage, “so withdrawing support from the zoo does little to help the city’s financial situation” is a subsidiary conclusion, but is not the main conclusion of the passage. We see that it is clearly supported by other premises, namely, that the zoo’s current budget is less than 1% of the city’s deficit. However, it then goes on to support the main conclusion: that at least one reduction measure in next year’s budget, cutting City Zoo’s funding in half, is false economy. The main conclusion itself does not support any of the other premises, and can be thought of as what the argument is driving at with the rest of the arguments. We can think of the argument structurally as follows:

(P = premise ,SC = subsidiary conclusion, C = conclusion)

P1 : Zoo is less than 1% of city’s deficit
SC1 (from P1): Withdrawing support from the zoo does little to help the city’s financial situation
P2: Zoo attracts tourists and tax dollars, and zoo will close if budget cut
P3: Zoo adds to cultural climate
SC2 (from P3): Zoo makes city an attractive place for businesses to locate
C: (from SC1, P2, SC2): Cutting zoo’s funding in half is false economy.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

xiaohai@bu.edu on March 30, 2020

Thank you!