A tannery's manager writes to the pollution board: 'The board's finding that our effluent has raised the salt in the wells of Rasoolpur cannot be correct. Were it correct the tannery would have to close, eleven hundred workers would lose their livelihood, and the town's leather trade would go down with us.' The manager's reasoning is most open to criticism because it

The salt in Rasoolpur's wells is where it is regardless of what follows for the tannery; a consequence tells us what is at stake in an answer and never which answer is right. The manager's letter would read the same whether the finding were sound or unsound, which is the mark of a reason that is doing no work. His three consequences may well be good reasons for the board to allow time or to require treatment rather than closure — that is a question about what to do, and he has smuggled it into a question about what is so. He asks nothing about the number of wells tested; he does not assume the tannery is the only source, since he denies being a source at all; and he says nothing against the inspectors.