PT1.S3.Q9 - Environmentally damaging accidents

lawschoolusahopeful

Stimulus
1. Fines against environmental accidents are so high that it costs more to pay the fine than prevent the incident.
2. If a business values their profits, they will install safeguards/prevent accidents.

I fell into a trap and selected 'D' as my answer choice. After reviewing the question again, I realized that I made an assumption when choosing 'D' as the answer choice.

A) "Businesses generally greatly underestimate the risk of future accidents". This was easy for me to glance over because I was looking for a STRONG weakener. However, the correct answer choice doesn't have to be super strong to work. This answer choice works because it demonstrates the "it will probably won't happen to us" mentality. These business may meet the sufficient condition of "values their profits" but there may be an alternative reason or an explanation for their lack of environmental safeguards. If this is true, the conclusion doesn't follow. Therefore, A is the correct answer choice.

B ) We don't know if preventing accidents are long-term or short-term, so what?

C) Business sense is NOT equal to profit. NEXT.

D) This is tricky. "Businesses treat fines that are levied against them as an ordinary business expense". If you're like me, you made an assumption if you selected this answer choice. You probably assumed that businesses wouldn't install safeguards because the cost of the fines are worked into the budget. However, this answer choice could actually strengthen the argument. If businesses meet the sufficient condition of "Values their profits", avoiding accidents could improve their bottom line. Then there's a reason to install safeguards.

E) What does this have to do with their profits???

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Please critique or provide your reasoning.

McBeck418

We know that it is now cheaper to prevent certain environmentally damaging disasters rather than to handle them when they come up. But, businesses value profit, so they will want to take these preventative measures to shield themselves from loss.

Okay, but what if they don't expect to encur any losses? If that's the case, they won't take preventative measures, because they don't believe it will ever happen to them.

A gets to this. Businesses underestimate the the risk of future accidents. If you don't think it will happen to you, then why bother spending money. That's just money you will spend for something that won't happen.

B. This answer tells us that they're concerned with maximising short-term and long-term profits, but we might assume this, because we know they value their profits. It seems too broad as well. We are talking about preventing environmental disasters affecting profits and maximising profits in general just doesn't seem to speak to the specific issue at hand.

C. This is a weird value judgment that the stimulus doesn't give us any cause to think about. The stimulus doesn't tell us anything about doing the environmentally right thing. We also don't know what good business sense is.

D. This seems to suggest that they're paying the fines. Okay. That's good, I suppose. I think this answer does try to get you to think that if they don't care about getting the fines, why would they bother to put up preventative measures, but we can't know this. I also think this focuses on the context and not the argument. The premise and conclusion focus on profits and environmental safeguards. It does not focus on fines.

E. This answer just seems like irelevant nonsense. That businesses are learning to exploit the public has nothing to do with their profits and why they will or will not install these new preventative measures.