Economics Questions and Answers on Resources and Profit

Economics Questions and Answers on Resources and Profit Assignment Questions: Question 1: The removal of imperfections in the market leads to an increase in efficiency in the allocation of resources. Discuss whether you agree with this view (25 marks) Question 2: Explain what is meant by normal and abnormal profit and when such profits might occur (12 marks) Discuss the three reasons as to why people demand money, according to the liquidity preference theory (13 marks) Table of Contents (Jump to) Question 1: A. Allocative Efficiency and Perfectly Competitive Market B. Allocative Efficiency and Monopoly Question 2 (a): A. Perfect Competition B. Monopoly C. Monopolistic Competition Question 2 (b) A. Transaction Motive B. Precautionary Motive C. Speculative Motive Referencing List of Figures (Jump to) Figure 1: Pure Competition MSC MSB Curves Figure 2: Consumer Surplus Producer Surplus Figure 3: The short run and long run in perfect competition Figure 4: The short run and long run monopoly market Figure 5: The short run and long run monopolistic competition Figure 6: Money Demand Curves (liquidity preference theory) Question 1: The removal of imperfections in the market leads to an increase in efficiency in the allocation of resources. Discuss whether you agree with this view (25 marks) A. Allocative Efficiency and Perfectly Competitive Market Allocative Efficiency occurs when it is not possible to reallocate resources in order to make someone better off without making at least another person worse off. It arises where: Marginal Social Cost (MSC) = Marginal Social Benefit (MSB). The MSC refers any extra cost to society of producing one more unit of output. The law of diminishing returns implies that MSC will be upward sloping. On the other hand, the MSB is any extra benefit to society of producing one more unit of output. The law of diminishing marginal utility implies that MSB will be downward sloping. For example: If the 20th unit of output is produced, then it costs the society $10, but yields a benefit of $20. Thus, the society’s welfare increases by $10 (i.e. MSB – MSC). Since MSB is greater than MSC, people is better off. On the contrary, it is not in the society’s interest to produce the 40th unit. In perfect competition, both consumer surplus and producer surplus is maximised (as illustrated by figure 1), where the price is equal to the marginal cost. The consumer surplus is the total net benefit enjoyed by all consumers buying the product. For instance, a consumer paying $20 for a product whose market price is $15; thus enjoying the benefit of $5 ($20 $15 = $5). Producer surplus is the difference between the market price the producer receives and the marginal cost of producing this unit. Demand curves measure the maximum price that consumers are willing to pay for a given quantity of a good. Hence, the demand curve is a measure of marginal benefit (or marginal utility) to the consumer. Therefore, in absence of externalities, MSB = D = P. In perfectly competitive market, the supply curve is a measure of the marginal cost in the industry. In the absence of externalities, MSC = S = MC. Therefore, an efficient allocation of resources under perfect competition happens when price equals to marginal cost, i.e. P = MC, in the short and long run. B. Allocative Efficiency and Monopoly Monopoly market structure is one of the major sources of market imperfections. A monopoly is having one firm producing and selling a product with the existence of barriers to entry. A monopolist is a price taker. The monopolist can set the price or the output, but not both. They can even earn abnormal profits at the expense of efficiency and welfare of consumer and society. Since price is higher than marginal cost, this will lead to a loss of allocative efficiency and a failure of the market. In fact, the monopolist is extracting a price from consumer that is higher than the cost of resources required. Thus, at price Pm, the monopolist is charging a higher price and restricting output to Qm, whereby capturing a portion of the consumer surplus. Under monopoly, there is a portion (triangle ABC) where both the consumer surplus and producer surplus are recovered. This is known as â€Å"deadweight loss†. Figure 2: Consumer Surplus Producer Surplus Imperfections in the market leads to misallocation and underutilisation of resources and reduction in consumer surplus since price is greater than marginal cost, i.e. P > MC. But imperfections in market do have some benefits such as: Monopolist are supplying products on a very large scale, thus they may be in a better place to exploit increasing returns to scale leading to a fall in average total costs of production. This reduction in costs will lead to an increase in monopoly profits, but some gains in productive efficiency may pass onto consumer in the form of lower prices. Earning abnormal profits in the long run may lead to faster rate of technological development thereby reducing costs and producing of better quality. Supernormal profits may be used to invest in research and development programmes that have the potential to bring dynamic efficiency gains to consumers in the markets. Question 2 (a): Explain what is meant by normal and abnormal profit and when such profits might occur? (12 marks) Normal profit is the minimum level of profit that a company needs to remain competitive in the market. If firms in an industry are making normal profit, then there is no reasons for them to leave or for other firms to join the industry. Normal profit occurs when revenue equals cost. Abnormal profit (or super normal profit) is profit in excess of normal profit. If firms in an industry are making abnormal profit, then there is a reason for other firms to join the industry if they can. Abnormal profit occurs when the revenue is greater than the costs. A. Perfect Competition In the short run, firms can make abnormal profits or losses, whereas they can only make normal profits in the long run, as illustrated below: Figure 3: The short run and long run in perfect competition B. Monopoly Monopolies can earn abnormal profits in the short run and in the long run due to the existence of strong barriers to entry. Figure 4: The short run and long run monopoly market C. Monopolistic Competition Monopolistic competition involves many sellers with differentiated products, e.g. shoe producers or restaurants. In the short run, firms can make abnormal profit whereas in the long run, other firms will be attracted by the abnormal profits causing firms’ demand to fall until only normal profits are made. Figure 5: The short run and long run monopolistic competition As a conclusion, if firms are making abnormal profits, other firms will be attracted by such profit, and will try to enter that particular market to reap some of that profits. As a result, firms in perfectly competitive market and monopolistic competitive market will enjoy normal profit with the entrance of new firms in the long run. On the other hand, firms in monopoly market will enjoy abnormal profits both in the short run and in the long run due to the existence of strong barriers to entry. Question 2 (b) Discuss the three reasons as to why people demand money, according to the liquidity preference theory (13 marks) According to Keynes’ Liquidity Preference theory, people demand moneyand hold their wealth in monetary form because of the following three main reasons: A. Transaction Motive Day-to-day transactions are performed by both individuals and firms. An individual person holds cash in order to meet his/her daily expenditures. Business holds cash to meet its current needs such as payments of raw materials, etc†¦ Therefore, we can say that money needed by consumers, businessmen and others, is known as the demand for money for transactions motive. This demand depends upon the following: Size of the income: If income is high, more will be available for daily transactions and vice versa. Time gap between receipts of income: If a person gets his pay daily, he/she will demand less cash and vice versa. Spending habit: If a person is spent a lot, he/she will do more transactions and thus will demand more money. B. Precautionary Motive Precautionary motive for holding money refers to the desire to hold cash for unforeseen contingencies such as illness, accidents, unemployment, etc Business keeps cash reserve to safeguard their future. This type of demand for liquidity is called demand for precautionary motive. This demand depends upon many factors: Size of the income: If a person earns a high income, he/she will demand more money for safeguarding his future. Nature of the person: Some persons are optimistic, i.e. they anticipate less of future risk and danger, and hence they will demand less money for precautionary motive. On the other hand, pessimistic persons foresee dangers, calamities, and emergencies in the future, and hence, they want to have more cash with them. Farsightedness: They are persons who can proper guess of the future, and thus they will keep more money (in cash) with then in case of more emergencies expectation and vice versa. C. Speculative Motive The speculative motive relates to the desire to hold cash and take advantage of future changes in the rate of interest or bond prices. For instance, if the price of bond is expected to rise, meaning the rate of interest is expected to fall, then people will buy bonds and sell later when the price rises, and vice versa. According to Keynes, â€Å"the higher the rate of interest, the lower the speculative demand for money and vice versa†. Figure 6: Money Demand Curves (liquidity preference theory) Keynes hold that the transaction and precautionary motives are completely interest inelastic, whereas the speculative demand for money is a smooth curve which slopes downward from left to right, as illustrated in above figure. References GILLESPIE, A (2001) Advanced Economics through Diagrams. [Online] 2nd Ed.  UK: Oxford University Press. Available from: https://books.google.mu/books?id=vR-cjX2e-bkCpg=PA33dq=normal+and+abnormal+profithl=ensa=Xei=Wi4EVfKiCcH5UISKhLAIved=0CBMQ6AEwAA#v=onepageqf=false  [Accessed: 14th March 2015] ECONOMICS ONLINE (2015) Barriers to entry [Online] Available from:  http://www.economicsonline.co.uk/Business_economics/Barriers_to_entry.html  [Accessed: 14th March 2015] ECONOMICS.HELP (2012) Barriers to entry [Online] Available from:  http://www.economicshelp.org/microessays/markets/barriers-entry/  [Accessed: 14th March 2015] GOVT. 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Available from: https://books.google.mu/books?id=XwW0BAAAQBAJdq=efficient+allocation+of+resources+in+monopolysource=gbs_navlinks_s  [Accessed: 1st April 2015] TUTORS ON NET (2007-2014) Resource Allocation under Monopoly [Online]. Available from: http://www.tutorsonnet.com/monopoly-resource-allocation-homework-help.php  [Accessed: 1st April 2015] BYU IDAHO Economic Principles and Problems – Micro [Online]  Available from: https://courses.byui.edu/econ_150/econ_150_old_site/lesson_08.htm  [Accessed: 1st April 2015] KIRZNER Israel M. (2007) Market Theory and the Price System [Online]  Ludwig von Mises Institute. Available from: https://books.google.mu/books?id=h68AKS010W0Cdq=efficient+allocation+of+resources+in+monopolysource=gbs_navlinks_s [Accessed: 1st April 2015] OHRI VK and JAIN TR, Principles of Microeconomics [Online]  FK Publications. 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Available from: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/economics/resource-allocation-its-meaning-monopolistic-oligopoly-competition-and-resource-allocation/28945/ [Accessed: 2nd April 2015] YOUR ARTICLE LIBRARY.COM (2015) The Demand for Money: The Classical and the Keynesian Approach Towards Money [Online]. Available from: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/economics/money/the-demand-for-money-the-classical-and-the-keynesian-approach-towards-money/10987/ [Accessed: 2nd April 2015] EXPERTSMIND.COM (2012) Keynes Interest Theory [Online] Available from: http://blog.expertsmind.com/2012/03/ [Accessed: 2nd April 2015]

Examining Disadvantages of U.S. High School System Essay

In light of a lot of controversial issues over education matters, different people take different sides and give out individual opinions. There is a common belief that good education would provide a country with a lot of benefits such as more promising economic growth and higher living standards. As the global economic recession is taken more seriously, more and more people are now turning their attention to education in America, the most powerful country in the world, asking whether it will be still up to its name in the future and what kind of improvement to education can make contribution to the social economy. In addition, media also gives data on America’s stagnant education outcome. In a study released in September 2009, what stands out is that U.S. students scored the lowest in Math and Science, with a Math result â€Å"in the bottom quarter of all the countries that participated, including Finland, China and Estonia†(Lattimore). As well, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan claimed that students are going to struggle in the global market competition without intellectual growth. Thus, education issues become outstanding among all the challenges people are going to meet in the recent future. Since secondary education plays a fundamental and transitional role in one’s whole education journey, here are examinations of important factors in the current U.S. public high school system that cause its education quality to decline. Students are not being helped by tests because standards are not rigorous in American high schools. According to Dr. Kristy Vernille, an expert in Mathematics Curriculum and Instruction, American students usually move from grade to grade easily and â€Å"without having to demonstrate competency in any subject matter†, as a result of the loose and vague test standards in America (Vernille 5). Although American students are often asked to take a lot of standardized tests, based on the American Federation of Teachers, the tests results of students usually do not influence their progress through the system. Furthermore, state and commercial tests have lower degree of difficulty and focus on less-advanced problem solving than the international tests; at the same time, international tests include more open-response items (in which students have to show how they solve the problems), whereas â€Å"the United States tests are predominantly multiple-choice items with little intellectual demand associated with determining the answer† (AFT 15). Under these circumstances, U.S. students are not motivated for further study or higher academic accomplishment, resulting in their lower competency than their international peers. However, establishing more rigorous test standards in the U.S. public school system will improve American students’ academic performance. To demonstrate, in China, there is a highly standardized test named â€Å"the National College Entrance Examination†. It also appeared in Time magazine as the â€Å"most pressure packed examination in the world† (Siegel). The Entrance Examination is held for the sake of selecting students for higher education and leadership, and is taken by every Chinese twelfth grader every year. In every state, schools are informed what to teach students and what will probably appear in the exam (Schaack 5). During the preparation for the exam, students have to receive an extremely large amount of information from teachers and finally implement it into the Entrance Exam. Those who perform extraordinarily well are admitted to the nation’s top universities; â€Å"the rest find spots in provincial universities or two- and three-year coll eges† (Siegel). Due to the fact that Chinese students are under such kind of pressure, they are more likely to learn things in order to be competitive and prepared for their future. To a large degree, their academic achievement is related to their educational policies and environment. They don’t have many alternatives in their testing system, which is considered to be fair and standardized. This method can be adopted by American public school system to reduce their test alternatives, in other words, to make a standard in the testing system. With a more clear and rigorous standard, American students are going to have better understanding of what teachers convey and what skills they are supposed to pick up. Thus, academic improvement will subsequently be fostered. Besides the lack of a rigorous testing standard, American schools set up their curriculums based on the education policy approved by law, resulting in negative consequences. Since the No Child Left Behind program was signed into law in 2002, test scores have become the most basic measure of school quality (Ravitch 15). Schools then had to modify the curriculums to enhance their test scores in order not to lose students. How does education make sense when the purpose of testing goes beyond the substance of learning? Diane Ravitch, a historian of education and educational policy analyst, writes this program â€Å"demanded that schools generate higher test scores †¦ It ignored such important studies as history, civics, literature, science, the arts, and geography. Though the law required states to test students eventually in science, the science scores didn’t count on the federal scorecard†(Ravitch 16). She watched her hope for better education fall though she was initially supportive of the so-called education reform. Under this circumstance, coupled with the contemporary, vague, unchallenging test standard, schools are rather unlikely to have curriculums that can help students develop fully or help them attain high scores in those more advanced and comprehensive international tests. To illustrate, data collected by NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) shows that U.S. students perform the worst in areas like Math and Science. Especially in Math, U.S. high school students scored much lower than other countries that participated (Lattimore). Nevertheless, the situation can be changed if the whole school system revises the curriculums for the sake of students’ better development, which is the original intention of education. After that, tests should be based on the curriculums that schools are providing. How is it possible for students to achieve good grades while the test does not at all correspond to the courses they are taking? Although many people believe that the freedom of teaching and the freedom of learning are both significant, experts claim that a well-educated person has a well-furnished mind, â€Å"shaped by reading and thinking about history, science, literature, the arts, and politics†, and is armed with knowledge and skills that help him read, listen and also explain (Ravitch 16). Without basic knowledge and skills, people are unable to think critically, to debate or to question, let alone able to solve problems in tests or in their real lives. The continuous education reforms really expose th e effort that America is always trying to make for its nation. Nonetheless, paying too much attention to testing other than curriculum will only lead to a blow up of its previous efforts. Moreover, school resources, computer technology especially, are not being used effectively by teachers and students, causing a reduction in school productivity. It is now in the midst of the information age when technology use is widely spread. Although the goal of President Bill Clinton, â€Å"a computer in every classroom†, has practically been realized by American public schools and â€Å"the number of computers in U.S. schools has grown dramatically† (Evans 272), a research conducted by Harvard University economist Caroline Hoxby has shown that the productivity (the ratio of student performance to spending) has not increased as expected. Instead, it is declining (Woessmann 73). Originally, schools hope that technology can help students achieve better academic performance, instead of being a distraction for students. Hence, as can be seen in most schools, there are a lot of unwritten rules for students banning them from using electronic devices during class. But many students still behave as usual, making technology a destraction of class environment. For this reason, American schools are confused about whether their students are the beneficiaries or victims of this new age (Evans 272). Since it is a technological time, why not take good advantage of it? There are still many students in developing countries dreaming of this advantage that American students experience. And it definitely cannot be wasted. If students were guided to make good use of school resources, the teaching pace and quality would increase; homework assignments would receive more positive feedback; the testing burden would be lighter. Accordingly, the whole nation’s students would do much better academically. In addition to the hardware and software resources not being used well, adults are not paying enough attention to American students. During a student’s academic journey, adults around him can have a substantial influence on him. In particular, parental involvement has a considerably critical impact on their children’s education experience. If a child’s parents attach great importance to education, then the child would also tend to value their school work (Schaack 10). Again, to demonstrate using Chinese parents as an example, most of the time, they supervise their children’s behavior in school by attending parent-teacher conferences periodically, learning about their grades, discussing school programs and activities with their children, monitoring their homework and so on. They also provide private tutoring, paying private teachers, when their children are not performing as well as others or when they need to pass some specific tests and examinations. Some of the Chinese parents even consider their training to be high enough to teach their children while most American parents seem â€Å"less sure as to how much they could help† with children’s school work (Hunt and Hu 134). As a part of culture, Chinese students are motivated intensely by their parents to succeed in school from the time when they are young (Ho and Willims 136). In comparison, American parents’ involvement in their children’s education differs from area to area. During an interview with a Chinese student in Hillsdale High School, Yixi Wu, who left his country at the age of 15 and immigrated into America, he said that he could tell that American parents provide their children with more freedom when it comes to school matters. They care more about their children’s overall life pattern and everyday skills rather than pay too much attention on their academic achievement (Cannon and Ginsburg 122). However, parental involvement can substantially influence a student’s academic performance. To prove, statistics collected by Professor Esther Ho Sui-Chu from University of British suggest that â€Å"the most important parental-involvement factor at the individual level is Home Discussion. The estimated effect is approximately 12 percent of a standard deviation on both mathematics and reading achievement. This finding implies that an increase of 1 standard deviation in Home Discussion is associated with an increase in achievement of 0.12 of a standard deviation† (Ho and Willims 136). The result of this study really emphasizes the significant influence of parents’ facilitation on children’s academic success. Since cultures in Asian countries like China and Western countries like America are different, children in America manage to have more freedom in school life and academic matters. Consequently, their learning outcome compared to China is relatively lower. But if American parents pay more attention to their children’s school experience, more positive attitudes towards academic behavior will probably be fostered; homework assignment will have better quality; learning outcome will be more outstanding and dropout rates will definitely go down. Besides parents, teachers also have great academic influence on students and their impacts are more direct. Superficially, some people would consider that it was because in some countries teachers were too strict that students did not dare to obey them. This common recognition makes sense to some extent but is not exactly true. Obviously and overall, students are going to attain higher achievement if teachers pay more attention to them and give them corresponding advice on the difficulties they meet at school. As mentioned above, Chinese teachers have their own technique dealing with this issue. Usually, a Chinese teacher is going to ask a student to come to the board to solve a problem with everybody else watching him. If he is not able to have it done, others will try hard to help him deal with it so that no one will extremely lag behind. What’s more, if he still has difficulty figuring it out, teachers will ask him to go to his office after class and provide extra individua l tutoring. â€Å"In Contrast, in America, being called in front of a class and being critiqued by not only your teacher, but also by other peers, could be downright damaging to a student’s psyche† (Schaack 7). In this case, subsequently, students can only ask for help after class during teachers’ office hours, which are rather limited. What if one does not realize where his current position is compared to the others? What if he does not know what he misunderstands right after he gets confused? He will probably accumulate his misunderstanding and eventually lag far behind. Therefore, as the old saying goes â€Å"every coin has two sides†. In exchange for maintaining students’ self-esteem, American education has to lose some of its points in the international competition. Yet if the American schools were to learn from Chinese schools in this aspect, making the classroom environment to be more challenging and teacher-controlled, students are going to be more comp etitive and will achieve much better academically. Admittedly, there are still problems waiting to be fixed in America’s education system even if it has always been receiving a good reputation worldwide. With more rigorous test standards, students would have a better sense of direction in their education journey; with curriculums to be more comprehensive, students would be equipped with better skills for life and career; with more efficient use of resources, students would be able to release much of their pressure and make studying fun; and with the help from parents and teachers, students would probably be more motivated for further study and self-development. Fixing the defects in the U.S. education system and adopting advantages from other countries like China will awaken students’ potential, thereby improving the whole nation’s academic achievement, finally consolidating its title of the most powerful country in the world. Those who suit their actions to the time are wise. Hence, corresponding changes in educ ation turn out to be necessary for America to succeed in its self-progress as well as in the aggressive global competition. Work Cited American Federation of Teachers. â€Å"Setting higher sights: A need for more demanding assessments for U.S. eighth graders.† Washington, DC: American Federation of Teachers. July, 1998. Web. May, 2012. Cannon, J. and H. P. Ginsburg. â€Å"Doing the math: Maternal beliefs about early math ¬ematics versus language learning.† Early Education and Development. 2008. Web. May, 2012. Evans, Dennis L. Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in secondary education. University of California, Irvine. 2002. Print. Ho Sui-Chu, Esther and J. Douglas Willims. â€Å"Effects of Parental Involvement on Eighth-Grade Achievement.† Sociology of Education. (April, 1996):126-141. Web. May, 2012. Hunt, Jessica H. and Bi Ying Hu. â€Å"Theoretical Factors Affecting Parental Roles in Children’s Mathematical Learning in American and Chinese-Born Mothers.† The School Community Journal. 2011. Web. May, 2012. Lattimore, K. â€Å"Students in U.S. Falling Behind i n Math and Science.† 8 September, 2009. Web. May, 2012. Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How testing and Choice Are Undermining Education. New York. Basic Book, 2010. Print. Schaack, Tara L. Van. â€Å"Comparing U.S. and Chinese Public School Systems.† University of Michigan. n.d. Web. May, 2012. Siegel, Benjemin. â€Å"Stressful Times for Chinese Students.† TIME. 12 June, 2007. Web. May, 2012. Vernille, Kristy. â€Å"Why Are U.S. Mathematics Students Falling Behind Their International Peers?† University of Maryland. n.d. Web. May, 2012. Woessmann, Ludger. â€Å"Why Students in Some Countries Do Better: International evidence on the importance of education policy.† Education Matters. 2001. Web. May, 2012.

Types of Fallacies

FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE 1. Appeal to Force If you suppose that terrorizing your opponent is giving him a reason for believing that you are correct, then you are using a scare tactic and reasoning fallaciously. Example: David: My father owns the department store that gives your newspaper fifteen percent of all its advertising revenue, so I’m sure you won’t want to publish any story of my arrest for spray painting the college. Newspaper editor: Yes, David, I see your point. The story really isn’t newsworthy.David has given the editor a financial reason not to publish, but he has not given a relevant reason why the story is not newsworthy. David’s tactics are scaring the editor, but it’s the editor who commits the scare tactic fallacy, not David. David has merely used a scare tactic. This fallacy’s name emphasizes the cause of the fallacy rather than the error itself. 2. Appeal to Pity You commit the fallacy of appeal to emotions when someoneâ₠¬â„¢s appeal to you to accept their claim is accepted merely because the appeal arouses your feelings of anger, fear, grief, love, outrage, pity, pride, sexuality, sympathy, relief, and so forth.Example of appeal to relief from grief: [The speaker knows he is talking to an aggrieved person whose house is worth much more than $100,000. ] You had a great job and didn’t deserve to lose it. I wish I could help somehow. I do have one idea. Now your family needs financial security even more. You need cash. I can help you. Here is a check for $100,000. Just sign this standard sales agreement, and we can skip the realtors and all the headaches they would create at this critical time in your life.There is nothing wrong with using emotions when you argue, but it’s a mistake to use emotions as the key premises or as tools to downplay relevant information. Regarding the fallacy of  appeal to pity, it is proper to pity people who have had misfortunes, but if as the person’ s history instructor you accept Max’s claim that he earned an A on the history quiz because he broke his wrist while playing in your college’s last basketball game, then you’ve committed the fallacy of  appeal to pity. *Appeal to Snobbery 3. Ad HominemYou commit this fallacy if you make an irrelevant attack on the arguer and suggest that this attack undermines the argument itself. It is a form of the  Genetic Fallacy. Example: What she says about Johannes Kepler’s astronomy of the 1600? s must be just so much garbage. Do you realize she’s only fourteen years old? This attack may undermine the arguer’s credibility as a scientific authority, but it does not undermine her reasoning. That reasoning should stand or fall on the scientific evidence, not on the arguer’s age or anything else about her personally.If the fallacious reasoner points out irrelevant circumstances that the reasoner is in, the fallacy is a circumstantial ad homine m. Tu Quoque  and  Two Wrongs Make a Right  are other types of the ad hominem fallacy. The major difficulty with labeling a piece of reasoning as an ad hominem fallacy is deciding whether the personal attack is relevant. For example, attacks on a person for their actually immoral sexual conduct are irrelevant to the quality of their mathematical reasoning, but they are relevant to arguments promoting the person for a leadership position in the church.Unfortunately, many attacks are not so easy to classify, such as an attack pointing out that the candidate for church leadership, while in the tenth grade, intentionally tripped a fellow student and broke his collar bone. *Ad Hominem Circumstantial Guilt by association is a version of the  ad hominem  fallacy in which a person is said to be guilty of error because of the group he or she associates with. The fallacy occurs when we unfairly try to change the issue to be about the speaker’s circumstances rather than about the speaker’s actual argument. Also called â€Å"Ad Hominem, Circumstantial. Example: Secretary of State Dean Acheson is too soft on communism, as you can see by his inviting so many fuzzy-headed liberals to his White House cocktail parties. Has any evidence been presented here that Acheson’s actions are inappropriate in regards to communism? This sort of reasoning is an example of McCarthyism, the technique of smearing liberal Democrats that was so effectively used by the late Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s. In fact, Acheson was strongly anti-communist and the architect of President Truman’s firm policy of containing Soviet power. 4. Appeal to the PeopleIf you suggest too strongly that someone’s claim or argument is correct simply because it’s what most everyone believes, then you’ve committed the fallacy of appeal to the people. Similarly, if you suggest too strongly that someone’s claim or argument is mistaken simply beca use it’s not what most everyone believes, then you’ve also committed the fallacy. Agreement with popular opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of truth, and deviation from popular opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of error, but if you assume it is and do so with enthusiasm, then you’re guilty of committing this fallacy.It is essentially the same as the fallacies of ad numerum, appeal to the gallery, appeal to the masses, argument from popularity, argumentum ad populum, common practice, mob appeal, past practice, peer pressure, traditional wisdom. The â€Å"too strongly† mentioned above is important in the description of the fallacy because what most everyone believes is, for that reason, somewhat likely to be true, all things considered. However, the fallacy occurs when this degree of support is overestimated. Example: You should turn to channel 6. It’s the most watched channel this year.This is fallacious because of its implicitly ac cepting the questionable premise that the most watched channel this year is, for that reason alone, the best channel for you. If you stress the idea of appealing to a  new  idea of the gallery, masses, mob, peers, people, and so forth, then it is a bandwagon fallacy. *Bandwagon If you suggest that someone’s claim is correct simply because it’s what most everyone is coming to believe, then you’re committing the bandwagon fallacy. Get up here with us on the wagon where the band is playing, and go where we go, and don’t think too much about the reasons.The Latin term for this fallacy of appeal to novelty is Argumentum ad Novitatem. Example: [Advertisement] More and more people are buying sports utility vehicles. Isn’t it time you bought one, too? [You commit the fallacy if you buy the vehicle solely because of this advertisement. ] Like its close cousin, the fallacy of appeal to the people, the bandwagon fallacy needs to be carefully distinguished from properly defending a claim by pointing out that many people have studied the claim and have come to a reasoned conclusion that it is correct.What most everyone believes is likely to be true, all things considered, and if one defends a claim on those grounds, this is not a fallacious inference. What is fallacious is to be swept up by the excitement of a new idea or new fad and to unquestionably give it too high a degree of your belief solely on the grounds of its new popularity, perhaps thinking simply that ‘new is better. ’ The key ingredient that is missing from a bandwagon fallacy is knowledge that an item is popular because of its high quality. Appeal to Past People (â€Å"You too†) 5. Accident We often arrive at a generalization but don’t or can’t list all the exceptions. When we reason with the generalization as if it has no exceptions, we commit the fallacy of accident. This fallacy is sometimes called the â€Å"fallacy of sweeping gene ralization. † Example: People should keep their promises, right? I loaned Dwayne my knife, and he said he’d return it. Now he is refusing to give it back, but I need it right now to slash up my neighbors who disrespected me.People should keep their promises, but there are exceptions to this generaliztion as in this case of the psychopath who wants Dwayne to keep his promise to return the knife. 6. Straw Man You commit the straw man fallacy whenever you attribute an easily refuted position to your opponent, one that the opponent wouldn’t endorse, and then proceed to attack the easily refuted position (the straw man) believing you have undermined the opponent’s actual position. If the misrepresentation is on purpose, then the straw man fallacy is caused by lying.Example (a debate before the city council): Opponent: Because of the killing and suffering of Indians that followed Columbus’s discovery of America, the City of Berkeley should declare that Co lumbus Day will no longer be observed in our city. Speaker: This is ridiculous, fellow members of the city council. It’s not true that everybody who ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the Indians. I say we should continue to observe Columbus Day, and vote down this resolution that will make the City of Berkeley the laughing stock of the nation.The speaker has twisted what his opponent said; the opponent never said, nor even indirectly suggested, that everybody who ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the Indians. The critical thinker will respond to the fallacy by saying, â€Å"Let’s get back to the original issue of whether we have a good reason to discontinue observing Columbus Day. † 7. Missing the Point The conclusion that is drawn is irrelevant to the premises; it misses the point. Example: In court, Thompson testifies that the defendant is a honorable person, who wouldn’t harm a flea.The defense attorn ey commits the fallacy by rising to say that Thompson’s testimony shows once again that his client was not near the murder scene. The testimony of Thompson may be relevant to a request for leniency, but it is irrelevant to any claim about the defendant not being near the murder scene. 8. Red Herring A red herring is a smelly fish that would distract even a bloodhound. It is also a digression that leads the reasoner off the track of considering only relevant information. Example: Will the new tax in Senate Bill 47 unfairly hurt business?One of the provisions of the bill is that the tax is higher for large employers (fifty or more employees) as opposed to small employers (six to forty-nine employees). To decide on the fairness of the bill, we must first determine whether employees who work for large employers have better working conditions than employees who work for small employers. Bringing up the issue of working conditions is the red herring. FALLACIES OF PRESUMPTION 9. Beg ging the Question A form of  circular reasoning  in which a conclusion is derived from premises that presuppose the conclusion.Normally, the point of good reasoning is to start out at one place and end up somewhere new, namely having reached the goal of increasing the degree of reasonable belief in the conclusion. The point is to make progress, but in cases of begging the question there is no progress. Example: â€Å"Women have rights,† said the Bullfighters Association president. â€Å"But women shouldn’t fight bulls because a bullfighter is and should be a man. † The president is saying basically that women shouldn’t fight bulls because women shouldn’t fight bulls. This reasoning isn’t making any progress.Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is â€Å"contained† in the premises from which it is deduced, this containing might seem to be a case of presupposing, and thus any deductively valid argument might seem to be begging the question. It is still an open question among logicians as to why some deductively valid arguments are considered to be begging the question and others are not. Some logicians suggest that, in informal reasoning with a deductively valid argument, if the conclusion is psychologically new insofar as the premises are concerned, then the argument isn’t an example of the fallacy.Other logicians suggest that we need to look instead to surrounding circumstances, not to the psychology of the reasoner, in order to assess the quality of the argument. For example, we need to look to the reasons that the reasoner used to accept the premises. Was the premise justified on the basis of accepting the conclusion? A third group of logicians say that, in deciding whether the fallacy is committed, we need more. We must determine whether any premise that is key to deducing the conclusion is adopted rather blindly or instead is a reasonable assumption made by someone accepting th eir burden of proof.The premise would here be termed reasonable if the arguer could defend it independently of accepting the conclusion that is at issue. 10. Complex Question You commit this fallacy when you frame a question so that some controversial presupposition is made by the wording of the question. Example: [Reporter's question] Mr. President: Are you going to continue your policy of wasting taxpayer’s money on missile defense? The question unfairly presumes the controversial claim that the policy really is a waste of money. The fallacy of complex question is a form of begging the question. 11. False DichotomyA reasoner who unfairly presents too few choices and then implies that a choice must be made among this short menu of choices commits the false dilemma fallacy, as does the person who accepts this faulty reasoning. Example: I want to go to Scotland from London. I overheard McTaggart say there are two roads to Scotland from London: the high road and the low road. I expect the high road would be too risky because it’s through the hills and that means dangerous curves. But it’s raining now, so both roads are probably slippery. I don’t like either choice, but I guess I should take the low road and be safer.This would be fine reasoning is you were limited to only two roads, but you’ve falsely gotten yourself into a dilemma with such reasoning. There are many other ways to get to Scotland. Don’t limit yourself to these two choices. You can take other roads, or go by boat or train or airplane. The fallacy is called the â€Å"False Dichotomy Fallacy† when the unfair menu contains only two choices. Think of the unpleasant choice between the two as being a charging bull. By demanding other choices beyond those on the unfairly limited menu, you thereby â€Å"go between the horns† of the dilemma, and are not gored. 12. Suppressed EvidenceIntentionally failing to use information suspected of being relevant and significant is committing the fallacy of suppressed evidence. This fallacy usually occurs when the information counts against one’s own conclusion. Perhaps the arguer is not mentioning that experts have recently objected to one of his premises. The fallacy is a kind of fallacy of  Selective Attention. Example: Buying the Cray Mac 11 computer for our company was the right thing to do. It meets our company’s needs; it runs the programs we want it to run; it will be delivered quickly; and it costs much less than what we had budgeted.This appears to be a good argument, but you’d change your assessment of the argument if you learned the speaker has intentionally suppressed the relevant evidence that the company’s Cray Mac 11 was purchased from his brother-in-law at a 30 percent higher price than it could have been purchased elsewhere, and if you learned that a recent unbiased analysis of ten comparable computers placed the Cray Mac 11 near the bottom of the list. FALLACIES OF WEAK INDUCTION 13. Appeal to Ignorance The fallacy of appeal to ignorance comes in two forms: (1) Not knowing that a certain statement is true is taken to be a proof that it is false. 2) Not knowing that a statement is false is taken to be a proof that it is true. The fallacy occurs in cases where absence of evidence is not good enough evidence of absence. The fallacy uses an unjustified attempt to shift the burden of proof. The fallacy is also called â€Å"Argument from Ignorance. † Example: Nobody has ever proved to me there’s a God, so I know there is no God. This kind of reasoning is generally fallacious. It would be proper reasoning only if the proof attempts were quite thorough, and it were the case that if God did exist, then there would be a discoverable proof of this.Another common example of the fallacy involves ignorance of a future event: People have been complaining about the danger of Xs ever since they were invented, but thereâ₠¬â„¢s never been any big problem with them, so there’s nothing to worry about. 14. Appeal to Unqualified Authority You appeal to authority if you back up your reasoning by saying that it is supported by what some authority says on the subject. Most reasoning of this kind is not fallacious, and much of our knowledge properly comes from listening to authorities.However, appealing to authority as a reason to believe something  is  fallacious whenever the authority appealed to is not really an authority in this particular subject, when the authority cannot be trusted to tell the truth, when authorities disagree on this subject (except for the occasional lone wolf), when the reasoner misquotes the authority, and so forth. Although spotting a fallacious appeal to authority often requires some background knowledge about the subject or the authority, in brief it can be said that it is fallacious to accept the words of a supposed authority when we should be suspicious of the autho rity’s words.Example: The moon is covered with dust because the president of our neighborhood association said so. This is a fallacious appeal to authority because, although the president is an authority on many neighborhood matters, you are given no reason to believe the president is an authority on the composition of the moon. It would be better to appeal to some astronomer or geologist. A TV commercial that gives you a testimonial from a famous film star who wears a Wilson watch and that suggests you, too, should wear that brand of watch is committing a fallacious appeal to authority.The film star is an authority on how to act, not on which watch is best for you. 15. Hasty Generalization A hasty generalization is a fallacy of  jumping to conclusions  in which the conclusion is a generalization. See also  Biased Statistics. Example: I’ve met two people in Nicaragua so far, and they were both nice to me. So, all people I will meet in Nicaragua will be nice to me . In any hasty generalization the key error is to overestimate the strength of an argument that is based on too small a sample for the implied confidence level or error margin.In this argument about Nicaragua, using the word â€Å"all† in the conclusion implies zero error margin. With zero error margin you’d need to sample every single person in Nicaragua, not just two people. 16. False Cause Improperly concluding that one thing is a cause of another. The Fallacy of Non Causa Pro Causa is another name for this fallacy. Its four principal kinds are the  Post Hoc Fallacy, the Fallacy of  Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc,  the  Regression  Fallacy, and the Fallacy of  Reversing Causation. Example: My psychic adviser says to expect bad things when Mars is aligned with Jupiter. Tomorrow Mars will be aligned with Jupiter.So, if a dog were to bite me tomorrow, it would be because of the alignment of Mars with Jupiter. 17. Slippery Slope Suppose someone claims that a firs t step (in a chain of causes and effects, or a chain of reasoning) will probably lead to a second step that in turn will probably lead to another step and so on until a final step ends in trouble. If the likelihood of the trouble occurring is exaggerated, the slippery slope fallacy is committed. Example: Mom: Those look like bags under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep? Jeff: I had a test and stayed up late studying. Mom: You didn’t take any drugs, did you?Jeff: Just caffeine in my coffee, like I always do. Mom: Jeff! You know what happens when people take drugs! Pretty soon the caffeine won’t be strong enough. Then you will take something stronger, maybe someone’s diet pill. Then, something even stronger. Eventually, you will be doing cocaine. Then you will be a crack addict! So, don’t drink that coffee. The form of a slippery slope fallacy looks like this: A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D. †¦ Z leads to HELL. We don’t want to g o to HELL. So, don’t take that first step A. 18. Weak Analogy The problem is that the items in the analogy are too dissimilar.When reasoning by analogy, the fallacy occurs when the analogy is irrelevant or very weak or when there is a more relevant disanalogy. See also  Faulty Comparison. Example: The book  Investing for Dummies  really helped me understand my finances better. The bookChess for Dummies  was written by the same author, was published by the same press, and costs about the same amount. So, this chess book would probably help me understand my finances, too. FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY 19. Accent The accent fallacy is a fallacy of ambiguity due to the different ways a word is emphasized or accented.Example: A member of Congress is asked by a reporter if she is in favor of the President’s new missile defense system, and she responds, â€Å"I’m in favor of a missile defense system that effectively defends America. † With an emphasis on the wo rd â€Å"favor,† her response is likely to  favor  the President’s missile defense system. With an emphasis, instead, on the words â€Å"effectively defends,† her remark is likely to be  againstthe President’s missile defense system. And by using neither emphasis, she can later claim that her response was on either side of the issue.Aristotle’s version of the fallacy of accent allowed only a shift in which syllable is accented within a word. 20. Amphiboly This is an error due to taking a grammatically ambiguous phrase in two different ways during the reasoning. Example: In a cartoon, two elephants are driving their car down the road in India. They say, â€Å"We’d better not get out here,† as they pass a sign saying: ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR Upon one interpretation of the grammar, the pronoun â€Å"YOUR† refers to the elephants in the car, but on another it refers to those humans who are driving cars in the vicini ty.Unlike  equivocation, which is due to multiple meanings of a phrase, amphiboly is due to syntactic ambiguity, ambiguity caused by multiple ways of understanding the grammar of the phrase. 21. Equivocation Equivocation is the illegitimate switching of the meaning of a term during the reasoning. Example: Brad is a nobody, but since nobody is perfect, Brad must be perfect, too. The term â€Å"nobody† changes its meaning without warning in the passage. So does the term â€Å"political jokes† in this joke: I don’t approve of political jokes. I’ve seen too many of them get elected. FALLACIES OF GRAMMATICAL ANALOGY 22.Composition The composition fallacy occurs when someone mistakenly assumes that a characteristic of some or all the individuals in a group is also a characteristic of the group itself, the group â€Å"composed† of those members. It is the converse of the  division  fallacy. Example: Each human cell is very lightweight, so a human be ing composed of cells is also very lightweight. 23. Division Merely because a group as a whole has a characteristic, it often doesn’t follow that individuals in the group have that characteristic. If you suppose that it does follow, when it doesn’t, you commit the fallacy of division.It is the converse of the  composition  fallacy. Example: Joshua’s soccer team is the best in the division because it had an undefeated season and shared the division title, so Joshua, who is their goalie, must be the best goalie in the division. 24. Figure of Speech or Parallel-word Construction A fallacy characterized by ambiguities due to the fact that different words in Greek (and in Latin) may have different cases or genders even though the case endings or gender endings are the same. Since this is not widespread in other languages or since it coincides with other fallacies (e. g. quivocation, see above) writers tend to interpret it very broadly. Examples: â€Å"Activists have been labeled as idealists, sadists, anarchists, communists, and just about any name that can come to mind ending in  -ist, like  samok-ist, saba-ist, bad-ist,  and of course, who could forgetdevil-ist? † (The writer has the unsaid argument that any name ending in  -ist  is viewed as â€Å"trouble-makers† by our society. ) An introductory book on philosophy has an appendix entitle â€Å"List of Isms† the proceeds to list the schools of thought in philosophy. (Not all words that end in  -ism  is a school of thought: take for example,  syllogism. )

Alcoholism Is A Serious Issue - 1303 Words

Alcoholism is a chronic and often progressive disease that includes problems controlling your drinking, being preoccupied with alcohol, continuing to use alcohol even when it causes problems, having to drink more to get the same effect (physical dependence), or having withdrawal symptoms when you rapidly decrease or stop drinking. (Clinic, 2014) Alcoholism is a very serious issues and very hard to break. One of society biggest issue is alcoholism. It can cause many problems in a person’s life without the person even knowing. Drinking alcohol is like taking a drug. It is a form of drug abuse, and drug addiction. This is a worldwide problem that many people are involved in. The effects that a person will get are all based on certain†¦show more content†¦Alcoholism also devastates families and loved ones of the addicted individual. Of the approximate 18 million alcoholics in the United States, each one adversely affects at least four other people. Families of alcoholics suffer the same symptoms of the disease as the alcoholic (Kronenwetter, 68). Excessive use of alcohol claims at least 100,000 lives each year, either through accidents or health problems. This is 25 times more loss of life than all illegal drugs combined (Bender, 168). Alcoholism and related problems cost taxpayers an overwhelming $85.8 billion in mortality and reduced productivity (Sora, 193). However, alcohol is still looked upon as a non-threatening dilemma. (Webmaster, 2009) Drinking only a daily base can lead to effects such as: blackouts, where you can’t remember what happened, and insomnia, where you can’t fall asleep. While you are drinking you will be less alert, less aware of your surroundings, lose your muscular coordination, have difficulty walking, have blurred vision, and have slow reaction times. This can lead to accidents, injuries, and death. Also after drinking you may get a hangover the next morning which will include effects like headaches, nausea, thirst, heartburn, dizziness, and fatigue. If you are not careful with the amount of alcohol that you drink you can get some bad side-effects. Once you start to become