Phil 103 barnard exam 3

appeal to belief

"90% of those surveyed think we should not send Lindsey Lohan to jail, so you should too."

Appeal to Common Practice

"Hey, everyone speeds, so speeding isn't wrong."

Hasty Generalization

"I've only had soup here, but im sure that all the food is good."

Ad Hominem Circumstantial

"Manny was born in another country. he couldnt possibly understand enough about what goes on in this country to run for state government."

equivocation

"My older brother tries hard to be cool. I told him he has the personality of a cucumber. Since a refrigerator is a good place to keep things cool, he should spend some time there."

composition

"every person on the team has won an award, so the team has won an award."

post hoc

"every time mychal heard that song on the radio he sold more memberships to the club than usual and increased his commission. I think he should listen to that song each day before work."

False Dichotomy

"if you dont support the patriot act, you support terrorists."

concealed premise (BTQ)

"murder is always wrong. therefore, the death penalty is wrong." (the concealed premise: the death penalty is murder)

circular reasoning (BTQ)

"murderers have lost the right to live because anyone who takes the life of another person has given up that right"

bandwagon

"of course God exists. every real American believes that."

wishful thinking (BTQ)

"of course there is life after death: if I didn't believe that, life would be too depressing"

appeal to vanity/ snobbery

"of course you should cheat, all the cool people are doing it"

oversimplifying the cause

"our society is filled with violence and there is a lotto violence on TV. it is obvious that the violence in society is caused by people watching television."

Ad Hominem Abusive

"senator John Kerry says that we should spend more state revenue on education because doing so would result in a more productive work force. -but Kerry is a bleeding heart, liberal yankee from Massachusetts- so you know this his opinion is worthless"

division

"the congress is based in washington DC therefore each member of congress is in DC"

appeal to ignorance

"there is no life anywhere else in the universe. we have never received signals from any part of outer space. "

arguing from coincidence

"when ive used my lucky one before, ive passed the test; therefore ill fail if I don't use that pen"

generalization fallacies

- problems with evidential base for inference - characteristics of a few members of a group are assigned to the entire group

representativeness bias

-ignore base rates and prior probabilities - insensitive to sample size - misunderstand randomness and chance misperception of what is normal

distraction, weak induction, unwarranted assumption meaning and interpretation

4 major types of fallacies

Russell's Paradox

A paradox which demonstrates that certain sets are impossible because if something belongs to a particular set, it does not; if it does not, then it does. E.g.: "The sentence is false." If it is true, then it is false; if it is false, then it is true.

mean

A statistical measure of central tendency, or average, based on dividing a total by the number of individual cases.

Tu Quoque

A type of ad hominem fallacy distinguished by the attempt of one person to avoid the issue at hand by claiming the other person is a hypocrite. ex- "youve claimed that smoking is bad for ones health, but you smoke too."

weak analogy

Claiming that items with only minor similarities are the same in almost everything else ex- "Phil 101 is a philosophy class and has a lot of discussion. logic is a philosophy class. so it must also have a lot of discussion."

false cause fallacies

Occur when a causal connection is assumed to exist between two events when none actually exists.

straw man

Occurs when someone's written or spoken words are taken out of context, purposely distorting the original argument to create a new, weak argument that can be easily refuted ex- "those who support gun control are wrong: they believe that no one should have the right to defend themselves in any situation."

amphiboly

Where the conclusion of the argument depends on the fact that a sentence is syntactically ambiguous ( the sentence allows for more than one interpretation of its meaning) ex- "Noriss said he operates a small car shop. therefore you can't take you Cadillac to him"

equivocation

Where the conclusion of the argument depends on the fact that a word is being used in two different senses due to semantic ambiguity (one word having two or more definitions) ex- "every child is a special person. everyone person should vote against the school bond. therefore every child should vote against the school bond."

misleading precision

a claim that appears to be statistically significant but is not ex- "our cookies contain 30% less fat, so you should start eating them if you want to lose weight"

population

a group of objects or human beings

standard deviation

a measure of the amount of diversity in a set of numerical values

representativeness heuristic

a mental shortcut whereby people classify something according to how similar it is to a typical case- stereotyping

fallacy

a mistake in an argument which consists in something other than merely false premises

representative sample

a sample in which every member of the population has an equal chance of getting in

heuristic

a short cut for reducing a complex intellectual task to a simpler task

complex question

a single question that actually contains multiple parts and an unestablished hidden assumption. ex- "do you still cheat on your taxes?"

mode

a statistical average that is determined by locating the value that occurs most often

median

a statistical average what is determined by locating the value that separates the entire set of data in half

sample

a subset of the population

appeal to the people

accepting a claim only because someone else believes it is a fallacy. The tactic appeals to people's desire to belong to a group.

argument against the person

ad hominem. when the claim is rejected based on alleged characters laws or a negative stereotype of the person making the claim

suppressed evidence

an inductive argument which ignores overriding evidence which would prove a different conclusion ex- "rent to own: the cheaper way to buy!"

formal fallacy

an invalid deductive argument form ex- undistributed middle, existential fallacy

accident

applying a general rule to a case it was not designed to cover ex- "killing is bad. therefore, it was wrong for us to go to war against the nazis."

argument from unqualified authority

arguing for a conclusion based on the testimony of someone who is not qualified to speak on the relevant subject ex- "im nick panning, quarterback for the los Angeles seals. I've been eating oaties for breakfast since I was a kid. oaties taste great, and they have all the nutrition kids need. you should get some for your kids today."

appeal to force

arguing via threat ex- "I deserve a good grade, wouldn't you agree? if you don't agree, I'm afraid a out what might happen: I just can't control my dog bruno here."

begging the question

assumes as evidence in the premises the very thing that it attempts to prove in the conclusion ex- "you can believe him. he never lies. he always tells the truth. he is someone that you can believe"

slippery slope

attempts to make a final event the inevitable outcome an initial act ex- "legalizing tobacco leads to the legalization of cocaine. if you legalize cocaine, you'll be able to buy crack and every other drug at your local 7-11."

appeal to ignorance

drawing conclusions based on a premise which sates nothing has been shown ex-"no one has ever proven ghosts don't exist. therefore they obviously do."

informal fallacy

fallacy that depends on the content of the argument

post hoc (coincidence, common cause) slippery slope

false cause fallacies

rigid application of a generalization

from general to specific- when a generalization is inappropriately applied to the case at hand ex- "I can't believe that the police didn't give the driver of that ambulance any citations. the driver was speeding went through a red light. the ambulance swerved from lane to lane without using any turn signals."

hasty generalization

from specific to general. an argument that relies on a small sample that is unlikely to represent the population ex- "I saw a frat guy act rudely to a fast food employee today. probably most fraternity and sorority members are rude and arrogant."

Sorites Paradox

how many grains define a heap? where do you draw the line? there is no non-arbitrary place

framing

initial impressions persist and inform subsequent judgement

post hoc

involves a short term pattern noticed after the fact: X occurred before Y, therefore X caused Y ex- "researchers have found a pattern showing the while a democrat was president, morphiacola topped all soft drink sales. while a republican was president, opiacola topped all sales. you should invest in the soft drink company based on who is in the White House."

fallacies of weak induction

makes bad inductions seem good

fallacies of distraction

makes what is irrelevant seem relevant

fallacies based on personal attacks

occur when an argument is rejected solely on the attack against the person making the argument, not on the merits of the argument itself

fallacies based on emotional appeals

occur when an argument relies solely on the arousal of a strong emotional or psychological reaction to get a person to accept the conclusion

false dichotomy

occurs when it is assumed that only two choices are possible, when in fact others exist ex- "either you agree with me or you are not idiot."

(post hoc) common cause

occurs when one event is assumed to cause another when both events are the result of a common case ex- "a falling barometer is the cause of a storm"

red herring

occurs when someone completely ignores an opponents position and changes the subject, diverting the discussion in a new direction ex- "

A) person X presents an argument B) person Y attacks the character or circumstances of person X C) based solely on the attack against person X, person Y rejects person X's argument

pattern of fallacies based on personal attacks

conjunctive

people overestimate the probability of _________ events

disjunctive

people underestimate the probability of ________ events

assume at the beginning

petitio principii

(Post Hoc) Coincidence

results from the accidental or chance connection between two events ex- "I can prove that some dreams let us see into the future. last week, I dreamed that my cousin Charlie was in a terrible car wreck. just now, I got a phone call from charlies wife saying he was in a car accident."

false

t/f- a hasty generalization fallacy occurs when a generalization is inappropriately applied to the case at hand

composition

the mistake transfer of a(1) an attribute of the individual parts of an object to the object as a whole or (2) an attribute of the individual members of a class to a class itself ex- "all the cells in his body or tiny. thus he is tiny."

division

the mistaken transfer of (1) an attribute of an object as a whole to its individual parts or (2) an attribute of a class to the individual members of the class ex- "the cake taste burnt so you must have used burnt ingredients."

Ancient Greece

the study of informal fallacies goes back to ________ _________ where the first philosophers and logicians sought to control the demagogues and their teachers

appeal to pity

trying to support a conclusion by evoking pity in the listener ex- "I need to pass this class in order to graduate. if I don't graduate, my parents will kill me. therefore I should receive a passing grade in the class."

biased sample

uses a non representative sample as support for a statistical claim about an entire population ex- "evidence shows that approx 85% of all Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. recently a sample of catholics revealed that 85% believe that abortion is morally wrong."

ad hominem circumstantial

when a claim is rejected based on the life circumstances of the person making the claim ex- "senator hilltop thinks my administrations tax proposals are bad for the country. his. political party lost the last election. members of the losing party are always jealous of the winning party ."

poisoning the well

when a person is attacked before she has a chance to present her case. ex- "before you read her article, know that she was arrested 6 times for protesting in front of the White House. she also has been investigated by the FBI.... these people want to take away our freedoms. we must not let them"

random sample

when every member of the population has an equal chance of getting into the sample

missing the point

when premises that seem to lead logically to one conclusion are used instead to support an unexpected conclusion ex- "the death penalty is the only way to punish criminals. why? because the justice system in this country has gone straight to hell-- what with murderers, rapists, and robbers getting off scot free! it has got to change."

cognitive bias

when the built in assumptions of a heuristic do not necessarily match the world

fallacies of assumption

when you assume the truth of the conclusion, or frame the inference based upon such an assumption

fallacies of meaning and interpretation

when you say one thing but mean another