Because

  How to Analyze and Evaluate Ordinary Reasoning

  Analysis 1

 G. Randolph Mayes

 Department of Philosophy

 Sacramento State University

Instructions:  Carefully analyze the following example in Rationale 2.0.  Print your answer and turn it in at the beginning of class on 10/1.  Be sure to identify the rationale as an argument or an explanation as we have been doing in class.  Use the Reasoning format, not the Grouping format or Advanced Reasoning format.   Black and white printing is acceptable.

Everyone knows that old people are bad for the economy, but are they bad for the environment, too?  After all, most old people don't seem to care too much about the environment: they crank their air conditioning and heating to whatever level suits and they think that global warming is a hoax.   So here is a surprising fact:  crotchety old geezers are easier on the environment than their environmentally correct offspring .  How can that be? The reason is actually pretty simple:  old people, because they are retired, tend  to have less money than younger working people.  People with less money buy fewer things and, as a result, cause less energy to be used.  Even the ones that do have money tend to spend less of it than they did when they were younger because they just don't have the youthful energy required to consume.  So even if old people don't seem to care much about the environment, they still live in a way that does less damage to it