Self-study
Director of Ace Manufacturing Company: Our management consultant proposes that we reassign staff so that all employees are doing both what they like to do and what they do well. █████ ███ █████ ████ █████████ ████████████ ██ █████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ███████████ ███ ███ █████████████ ███ █ █████████████ ██████████ ███ ██ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████████ ████████████ ███ ███████████████ █████ █████ ██ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ███████
Summarize Argument
The director of concludes that a consultant’s recommendations for improving productivity by giving employees work that they enjoy and are good at would violate company policy. This is because the consultant says her recommendations will “fully exploit” the company’s workforce resources, and the company’s policy is not to exploit its workers.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This is a cookie-cutter equivocation flaw: the director wrongly takes the term “exploit” to be the same between two different uses. When the consultant talks about “exploiting” the resources of the company, she’s just talking about making the best use of employees’ abilities. The company policy not to “exploit” workers refers to treating employees unfairly, which wouldn’t result from the consultant’s recommendations.
1.
The director's argument for rejecting ███ ██████████ ████████████ ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████
a
failing to distinguish ███ ████████ ██████ ██ █ ███ ████
The director doesn’t distinguish between two uses of “exploit” that have different meanings in their respective contexts. The director wrongly takes the consultant’s use of “exploit” (optimize resources) to be the same as the company policy’s use of “exploit” (treat unfairly).
b
attempting to defend ██ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███
The director doesn’t try to defend any action in this argument. There also isn’t any example discussed of an action that is frequently carried out.
c
defining a term ██ ████████ ██ ██ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ███ ████ ███████
The director doesn’t define any terms here. In fact, the flaw in the director’s argument is a failure to recognize two distinct definitions of the same term, “exploit”.
d
drawing a conclusion ████ ██████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ███ ████████
The director concludes that the consultant’s recommendation would violate company policy, which is not a premise used earlier in the argument.
e
calling something by █ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ████ █████
This argument doesn’t deal with offensive terminology, and the director doesn’t replace any usual terms with different ones.