Assignment 08

SUS1501 – Sustainability and Greed

Student Number:
Date:
Teaching Assistant Name:

Declaration:

By submitting this assignment, I implicitly declare that this is my own work.

I am aware that if ANY unacknowledged copying is detected in ANY part of this assignment, I
will get 0 (zero) for the entire assignment.

INSTRUCTIONS:
 Read the “1. Introduction” section below;
 Fill in your assignment contributions under the relevant headings 2-5 below;
 Save the file as a Word document with a short name (myUnisa will reject files with long names);
 Submit this file into the Assignments tool on myUnisa;
 Take a screen grab of the final submission acknowledgement on myUnisa and save this
somewhere safe in case of any disputes:
 Check under the Assignments tool that there is a date in the “Processed” cell for the SUS1501
Assignment 8.

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1. INTRODUCTION (Written for you by Prof Eccles)

In assignment 2 we debated the fact that Whitey Basson earned R 620 million in 2010. In the final
analysis we were asked two questions:

 “2. What do you think about Whitey Basson earning ZAR 620,000,000.00?”
 “3. Why do you think this?”

In effect we were asked to present an argument (the answer to question 3) supporting a conclusion (the
answer to question 2).

Students opinions on this could be divided into two groups:

 Those who had no real problem with someone earning that amount of money; OR
 Those who had a real problem with someone earning that sort of money.

In this assignment, I’m going to:

 Analyze the argument of a fellow student whose conclusion I disagree with;

 Tell you what was wrong with the premises;
 Tell you how their argument might not be valid; and finally
 Present you with a much better argument supporting my own option on this matter

2. A BAD ARGUMENT

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What you need to do in this section is go back to the Assignment 2 discussion forum and find a
submission from one of your fellow students who presented the opposite opinion to what you think.

In other words, if you think there is no problem with someone earning R 620 million in a year then
choose an assignment where the student argues that there is a problem. Or if you think there is a
problem, choose an assignment where the student argues that there is no problem.

We want you to copy the section of this assignment where the student answered the questions: “2.
What do you think about Whitey Basson earning ZAR 620,000,000.00?”and “3. Why do you think this?”
and paste it here.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU PUT THIS IN INVERTED COMMAS (“) AND THAT YOU PUT THE NAME OF THE
STUDENT WHO SUBMITTED IT
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3. THE PREMISES AND THE CONCLUSION

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Here we want you to:
1. List the premises (explicit and implicit) that your fellow student used in drawing their
conclusion
2. Restate the conclusion
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4. WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE PREMISES

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Here you need to:
1. Evaluate the acceptability of the premises;
2. Evaluate the validity of the argument
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5. MY BETTER ARGUMENT

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Here you need to:
1. State your opinion on Basson’s earning R 620 000 000;
2. List the premises that you think support your opinion
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