The following appeared in an article in a human resources magazine:
"Six months ago, in an experiment aimed at boosting worker productivity, Company Z started providing free gourmet lunches to its employees. The Company hoped that these office lunches would encourage employees to remain in the building during lunch-hour and motivate employees to work harder throughout the day. A survey found that soon after the lunch program was implemented, the average number of hours worked by most Company Z employees increased dramatically. During this same period, the Company's profits also increased substantially. Thus, it is safe to say that the lunch program was a huge success and that Company Z should make the program permanent."
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. Point out flaws in the argument's logic and analyze the argument's underlying assumptions. In addition, evaluate how supporting evidence is used and what evidence might counter the argument's conclusion. You may also discuss what additional evidence could be used to strengthen the argument or what changes would make the argument more logically sound.

YOUR RESPONSE:

The argument that lunch program was a huge success and helped company increase its profits substantially omits various concerns on basis of which it could be evaluated. The argument's recommendation that company should make the program permanent is unconvincing and ill-proofed. Therefore the argument is not sound and convincing.

First, the argument mentions that company Z started offering free gourmet lunches to its employees to encourage them to remain in building and work hard. This statement is followed by a claim that lunch program increased the average number of hours worked employees and also company's profits. This claim itself is not convincing and does not demonstrate any correlation. For example, it could be that after the lunch program, company had to lay-off employees to cut off costs, and because of this lay-off average number of hours worked by employees increased. Also, it could be that because of free gourmet lunches workers started spending more time on work but that time did not translate into any productive work. So, without having any information about lay-offs and actual increase in productivity the claim is ill-reasoned and no correlation can be proved.

Second, The argument provides an evidence that company's profit during the same period increased. This evidence does not help to substantiate the argument. Company's profit depends on number of factors such as operational cost, manufacturing costs and profit margin etc. The argument does not mention any of these factors.For instance, during the same period competitor's market share drop or there could be new product launches during the same period and these factors helped company take a lead and increase its profits,so even though program may have been a success, it did not play much role in increasing company's profits. Without any information on them, the argument's recommendation to make program permanent is unconvincing.

In conclusion, if the argument could have proved a strong correlation and mentioned all the factors involved in increasing its profits, the argument would have been better substantiated. But in this case, without any convincing information the argument's recommendation is illogical and therefore, the argument is unpersuasive and open to debate.