#1 - Planting peach trees on their farm makes more sense for

[Dancingbambarina]

Also, the explanation of C says we need a relative positive or negative respectively.

Surely to weaken we could show they are the same ? I notice this often with anticausal arguments, where the conlcusion is X does NOT cause Y, and we need to show that indeed X causes Y. Would it work the same with conditionality and an example like this? I would have thought that with that causal example, we would have to show X does indeed cause Y, but with a weaken argument like this, surely we can just mitigate the praise of peach trees down to the level of the apricot tree?

Thanks very much

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Dancingbambarina,

I'm not sure that I'm entirely following your first question/example.

The argument is comparing/contrasting planting peach trees with planting apricot trees and concludes that planting peach trees is the better option for the Johnsons. This is based on the fact that peach trees are cheaper to buy/plant and they produce fruit sooner.

Anytime an argument involves choosing between two options, one should analyze the pros and cons of each option in order to determine which is option is better. Here, in this argument, several pros (i.e. benefits) are listed for planting peach trees. To weaken this argument, we would either want to show cons (i.e. downsides) of planting peach trees or show pros (i.e. benefits) of planting apricot trees. Either of these will weaken the argument that planting peach trees is the better choice.

Showing a similarity in some of the costs between the two options (as Answer C does) in no way weakens the argument. Since we already know that peach trees offer certain benefits from the premises, if other factors are similar, that is consistent with peach trees still being the better option. If Answer C had stated that it costs more to water and fertilize peach trees than apricot trees, this would be a con/downside of the peach tree option and would therefore weaken the argument.

It's important to realize that Answer C is only describing a partial cost of growing peach or apricot trees (watering/fertilizing), so this does not change the fact that peach trees are cheaper to buy and grow as stated in the premise of the argument.