Chapter 5
When such arguments are put forth as charges of hypocrisy, we get another ad hominem fallacy known as tu quoque (or "you're another"). The fallacious reasoning goes like this: Ellen claims that X, but Ellen doesn't practice/live by/ condone X herself—so X is false. Look:
Alice, the town liberal, tells us that we shouldn't drive SUVs because the cars use too much gas and are bad for the environment. But she drives an SUVs herself. What a hypocrite! I think we can safely reject her stupid pronouncements. But whether someone is hypocritical regarding their claims can have no bearing on the truth of those claims. We may, of course, condemn someone for hypocrisy, but we logically cannot use that hypocrisy as a justification for rejecting their views. Their views must stand or fall on their own merits.
• Appeal to tradition
Arguing that a claim must be true or good just because it's part of a tradition
Decision-point fallacy:
Arguing that because a line or distinction cannot be drawn at any point in a process, there are no differences or gradations in that process.
• Composition:
Arguing that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole
• Division:
Arguing that what is true of the whole must be true of the parts or that what is true of a group is true of individuals in the group
Two wrongs make a right:
Arguing that your doing something morally wrong is justified because someone else has done the same (or similar) thing.
• Slippery slope:
Arguing, without good reasons, that taking a particular step will inevitably lead to a further, undesirable step (or steps)
False dilemma:
Asserting that there are only two alternatives to consider when there are actually more than two
Good writers often combine arguments with emotional persuasion in the same piece of writing, and no fallacy need enter the picture. A strong argument is presented, and it's reinforced by strong feelings.
Consider this piece of persuasive prose: I am a mother though my child is dead. He did not die of an incurable disease, of a virus beyond the ken of medical science. He was not taken from me by a foreign enemy while defending his country. No, he was needlessly slaughtered on the highway. A drunk driver ran broadside into his motorcycle. My son was shot fifty feet through the air by the collision and hit the blacktop at forty-five miles per hour. My son's assassin is not yet out of high school and yet that boy was able to walk into a liquor store and purchase two sixpacks of beer, most of which he drank that evening. This boy does not have the mental capability to graduate from high school in the prescribed time (he was held back in his senior year), and yet the law has given him the right to purchase alcohol and decide for himself what is appropriate behavior with regard to alcoholic consumption. I do not trust most of my adult friends to make such mature judgments. How can anyone trust the eighteen-year-old? The law must change. Statistics have shown that states which have a mini- mum drinking age of twenty-one years also have significantly fewer automobile accidents caused by drunken teenagers. I lost my son, but why do any of the rest of us have to suffer as I have? Please, support legislation to increase the drinking age to twenty-one.4 This passage evokes sympathy and indignation—but also gives an argument using statistics to support a conclusion about the need for new legislation.
Euphemisms and Dysphemisms
Euphemisms are words used to convey positive or neutral attitudes or emotions in place of more negative ones; dysphemisms are words used to convey negative attitudes or emotions in place of neutral or positive ones. These rhetorical devices work by using the persuasive force of a word's connotations, the feelings and attitudes linked to the word's literal meaning. The devices can mislead, obscure, and confuse. To hide the truth, political, economic, or military leaders might use the euphemism meaningful downturn in aggregate output for recession; revenue enhancement for tax increase; downsizing for firing; armed reconnaissance for bombing; neutralize for kill; enhanced interrogation methods for torture; collateral damage for civilian casualties; or soft targets for people to kill.
APPLE POLISHING: the attempt to persuade people to accept a conclusion by flattering them.
Example: I know you'll vote for me in the upcoming election because you have the true American spirit and the genuine wisdom that comes from faith and hard work.
APPEAL TO PITY: the attempt to persuade people to accept a conclusion by evoking their pity, compassion, or empathy.
Example: I should get this merit scholarship. I'm homeless and penniless, so the money would be put to good use.
SCARE TACTICS: the attempt to persuade people to accept a conclusion by engendering in them an unwarranted fear.
Example: Unless we defeat Proposition 13, the homosexual agenda will be taught in our schools, and more kids will want to become gay.
Decision-Point Fallacy
Finally, here's a variation on the false dilemma ploy that you will encounter sooner or later, if you haven't already: the decision-point fallacy (also called the line-drawing fallacy). For the sake of clarity, let's start with a silly example: Joe lost the hair on his head. When he had a full head of hair and he lost just a hair or two, he clearly was not bald. If we are to say truthfully that he is bald, there must have been a point in the hair-loss process (a decision point) in which he became bald. (Maybe the loss of one more hair was enough to render him bald.) But obviously there is no such point at which we can legitimately decide that Joe went from not being bald to being bald. Therefore, we must infer that Joe did not become bald at all.
The appeal to tradition is arguing that a claim must be true just because it's part of a tradition.
For example: Acupuncture has been used for a thousand years in China. It must work. Of course publishing pornography is wrong. In this community there's a tradition of condemning it that goes back fifty years. Such appeals are fallacious because tradition, like the masses, can be wrong. Remember that an established tradition barred women from voting, stripped African Americans of their civil rights, promoted the vengeful policy of "an eye for an eye," and sanctioned the sacrifice of innocents to the gods. Be careful, though. Automatically rejecting a claim because it's traditional is not reasonable either. The point is that a tradition should be neither accepted nor rejected without good reason. Knee-jerk acceptance of tradition is as bad as knee- jerk rejection.
Related to red herring is the fallacy of the straw man—the distorting, weakening, or oversimplifying of someone's position so it can be more easily attacked or refuted. A straw-man argument works like this: Reinterpret claim X so that it becomes the weak or absurd claim Y. Attack claim Y. Conclude that X is unfounded.
For example: David says that he's opposed to the new sodomy laws that make it illegal for consenting adult homosexuals to engage in sex acts in their own homes. Obviously he thinks that gay sex is something special and should be protected so it's allowed to take place just about anywhere. Do you want gays having sex all over town in full view of your children? David does, and he's dead wrong. Senator Kennedy is opposed to the military spending bill, saying that it's too costly. Why does he always want to slash everything to the bone? He wants a pint-sized military that couldn't fight off a crazed band of terrorists, let alone a rogue nation. Lawyers for the ACLU have sued to remove the massive Ten Commandments monument from the lobby of the courthouse. As usual, they are as anti- religious as ever. They want to remove every vestige of religion and faith from American life. Don't let them do it. Don't let them win yet another battle in their war to secularize the whole country. In the first passage, David is opposed to laws prohibiting sexual activity be- tween consenting, homosexual adults in their own homes. His opponent, however, distorts his view, claiming that David is actually in favor of allowing gay sex virtually anywhere, including in public. David, of course, is not asserting this (few people would). This distorted version of David's position is easy to ridicule and reject, allowing his actual view to be summarily dismissed. In the second passage, Senator Kennedy is against the military spending bill on the grounds that it costs too much. His position, though, is twisted into the claim that the military should be pared down so drastically that it would be ineffective even against small groups of terrorists. The senator's views on military spending are thus made to appear extreme or ludicrous. But it is unlikely that Senator Kennedy (or any other senator) wants to see the U.S. military reduced to such a level. He simply wants a less expensive military—not necessarily an ineffective one. The third passage is typical of the kind of fallacious arguments that crop up in debates over church-state separation. Here, the ACLU wants a monument displaying the Ten Commandments removed from the lobby of a government building, a view that is characterized as anti-religious. But a request that a religious symbol be removed from a government context is not, in itself, necessarily anti-religious. Many have argued, for example, that such requests should be made to protect freedom of religion by preventing the government from giving preferential treatment to one religion over another. Also, wanting to get rid of a religious display on public property is a far cry from wanting to remove "every vestige of religion and faith from American life." Characterizing the ACLU suit as anti-religious, though, is a way to generate strong opposition to it. Note that in church-state debates, the straw-man tack is also used to bolster the other side of the dispute. Those who favor religious displays on government property are sometimes characterized as fanatics who want to turn the government into a theocracy. But, of course, from the fact that people want to allow such a religious display it does not follow that they want anything like a theocracy.
The fallacy of the appeal to popularity (or to the masses) is arguing that a claim must be true merely because a substantial number of people believe it. The basic pattern of this fallacy is "Everyone (or almost everyone, most people, many people) believes X, so X must be true."
For example: Most people approve of the government's new security measures, even though innocent people's privacy is sometimes violated. So I guess the measures must be okay. Of course the war is justified. Everyone believes that it's justified. The vast majority of Americans believe that there's a supreme being, so how could you doubt it?
The appeal to ignorance is arguing that a lack of evidence proves something. In one type of this fallacy, the problem arises by thinking that a claim must be true because it hasn't been shown to be false.
For example: No one has shown that ghosts aren't real, so they must be real. It's clear that God exists because science hasn't proved that he doesn't exist. You can't disprove my theory that JFK was killed by LBJ. Therefore, my theory is correct.
The fallacy of equivocation is the use of a word in two different senses in an argument.
For example: The end of everything is its perfection. The end of life is death. Therefore, death is the perfection of life. Only man is rational. No woman is a man. Therefore, no woman is rational. Laws can only be created by law-givers. There are many laws of nature. Therefore, there must be a Law-Giver, namely, God. In the first argument, end is used in two different senses. In the first premise it means purpose, but in the second it means termination. Because of this flip-flop in meanings, the conclusion doesn't follow from the premises—but it looks as if it should. In the second argument, man is the equivocal term. In the first premise it means humankind, but in the second, male. So the conclusion doesn't follow, making it appear that a sound argument has banished women's rationality. In the third argument, laws is used in two senses— rules of human behavior in the first premise, regularities of nature (as in "law of gravity") in the second. Consequently, the conclusion trying to establish the existence of God doesn't follow. The fallacy of equivocation occurs whenever a word has one meaning in one premise and another meaning in another premise or the conclusion. This switch of senses always invalidates the argument.
Red Hearing
For instance: Every woman should have the right to an abortion on demand. There's no question about it. These anti-abortion activists block the entrances to abortion clinics, threaten abortion doctors, and intimidate anyone who wants to terminate a pregnancy. The legislators should vote for the three-strikes-and-you're-out crime control measure. I'm telling you, crime is a terrible thing when it happens to you. It causes death, pain, and fear. And I wouldn't want to wish these things on anyone. Notice what's happening here. In the first example, the issue is whether women should have the right to abortion on demand. But the arguer shifts the subject to the behavior of anti-abortion activists, as though their behavior has some bearing on the original issue. Their behavior, of course, has nothing to do with the main issue. The argument is bogus. In the second example, the issue is whether the legislators should vote for a three-strikes crime bill. But the subject gets changed to the terrible costs of crime, which is only remotely related to the main issue. (There's also an appeal to fear.) We can all agree that crime can have awful consequences, but this fact has little to do with the merits and demerits of enacting a three-strikes law.
Hasty Generalization
Here we need only recall that we are guilty of hasty generalization when we draw a conclusion about a whole group based on an inadequate sample of the group. This mistake is a genuine fallacy of unacceptable premises because the premises stating the sample size are relevant to the conclusion, but they provide inadequate evidence. For example: You should buy an iPhone. They're great. I bought one last year, and it has given me nothing but flawless performance. The only male professor I've had this year was a chauvinist pig. All the male professors at this school must be chauvinist pigs. Psychology majors are incredibly ignorant about human psychology. Believe me, I know what I'm talking about: My best friend is a psych major. What an ignoramus! The French are snobby and rude. Remember those two high-and-mighty guys with really bad manners? They're French. I rest my case. The food at Pappie's Restaurant is awful. I had a sandwich there once, and the bread was stale.
Two wrongs make a right is a piece of fallacious reasoning that we are all probably guilty of. It is arguing that your doing something morally wrong is justified because someone else has done the same (or similar) thing:
I have a clear conscience. I stole his laptop because he took mine a month ago. My wife had an affair, so I'm within my rights to have one too. Okay, I snatched a few of those little Brach candies at the supermarket. So what? Three other people did too.
The problem here is that a lack of evidence is supposed to prove something— but it can't. A lack of evidence alone can neither prove nor disprove a proposition. A lack of evidence simply reveals our ignorance about something.
In another variation of this fallacy, the breakdown in logic comes when you argue that a claim must be false because it hasn't been proved to be true. Look at these: No one has shown that ghosts are real, so they must not exist. It's clear that God doesn't exist because science hasn't proved that he does. You can't prove your theory that JFK was killed by LBJ. Therefore, your theory is false. Again, the moral is: Lack of evidence proves nothing. It does not give us a reason for believing a claim.
Innuendo
Innuendo is suggesting something denigrating about a person without explicitly stating it. Through innuendo you can indirectly convey the false claim that someone is bad, though you make only true statements. For example: I'm fairly sure that Senator Johnson's youthful indiscretions involving alcohol, mari- juana, and crack cocaine probably have no influence on her current public service. I think we can assume that Mr. Abernathy absolutely does not embezzle— anymore. Innuendo was employed in a notorious smear of Senator John McCain in the South Carolina Republican primary in 2000. In a sham telephone survey, voters were asked, "Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?"
Rhetorical Definitions
One of the more subtle means of persuasion uses rhetorical definition. The point of this tactic is not to accurately define but to influence through an emotion- charged skewed definition. Usually we are most interested in what is called a lexical definition, which reports the meaning that a term has among those who use the language. For example, among English-speaking people, the word "rain" is used to refer to (or mean) condensed atmospheric moisture falling in drops, which is the lexical definition. A stipulative definition reports a meaning that a term is deliberately assigned, often for the sake of convenience or economy of expression. If you assign a meaning to a familiar term or to a term that you invent, you give a stipulative definition. A precising definition reports a meaning designed to decrease ambiguity or vagueness. It qualifies an existing term by giving it a more precise definition. Someone, for example, might offer a precising definition for the word "old" (as it applies to the age of humans) by specifying that "old" refers to anyone over eighty.
Persuaders: Rhetorical Moves
Rhetoric presents us with a large repertoire of techniques for influencing hearts and minds through emotion—while proving nothing through reason. Very often rhetorical devices do nothing more than promote a negative (or positive) attitude toward someone or something, but this ploy can be extraordinarily persuasive. Here are a few of the better known examples.
Ridicule
Ridicule is the use of derision, sarcasm, laughter, or mockery to disparage a person or idea. Ridicule succeeds when it gets an emotional reaction from you that leads you to dismiss people or their claims for no good reason. Its aim is to put people or beliefs in a ridiculous or absurd light, to make them a laughing- stock. Look: Trust the New York Times to report the news fairly? Right, just like I trust the airlines to be always on time. You think Fox News is fair and balanced? Ha! Remember, when ridicule does its work, it makes no appeal to evidence or argument. It may be interesting or amusing, but it gives you no good reason to believe anything. When the credibility of claims is at stake, ridicule is best seen as an emotional trick.
The fallacy of the appeal to emotion is the use of emotions as premises in an argument. That is, it consists of trying to persuade someone of a conclusion solely by arousing his or her feelings rather than presenting relevant reasons. When you use this fallacy, you appeal to people's guilt, anger, pity, fear, compassion, resentment, pride—but not to good reasons that could give logical support to your case.
Take a look: You should hire me for this network analyst position. I'm the best person for the job. If I don't get a job soon my wife will leave me, and I won't have enough money to pay for my mother's heart operation. Come on, give me a break. Political ad: If school music programs are cut as part of the new district budget, we will save money—and lose our children to a world without music, a landscape without song. Let the children sing. Vote no on Proposition 13. As arguments, these passages are fallacious not just because they appeal to strong emotions, but because they appeal to almost nothing but strong emotions. They urge us to accept a conclusion but offer no good reasons for doing so. We may feel compassion for the job hunter and his mother, but those feelings have no bearing on whether he is truly the best person for the job. We may recoil from the idea of children in a stark, tuneless world, but that overblown image and the emotions it evokes in us provide no logical support for the conclusion.
The idea is that someone else's wrong acts can somehow make yours right. But if your action is morally impermissible, someone else's deed cannot make it otherwise. If your action lacks justification, it cannot acquire justification by what someone else does.
That is not to say that justification for your behavior is impossible to obtain. Most ethicists would say that self-defense against other people's injurious actions can be a legitimate reason for your doing something that normally would be wrong. It surely must be permissible, they would argue, to knock down a mugger who is busy trying to knock you down. Likewise, a nation surely must be justified in going to war against a foreign power that first made war against it. And to many, in the name of justice, punishment by the state for criminal acts can also be justified. But what about "an eye for an eye" justice? Can't we avenge a wrong done to us by someone else—can't we do unto him as he has done to us? In many cultures, the answer is an emphatic yes. If a man kills your goat, you are justified in killing his. If a woman steals your coat, you can legitimately steal hers. But most ethicists would probably say no: this "eye for an eye" principle (and similar "two wrongs make a right" views) is not justice but personal vengeance, which is immoral.
• Begging the question:
The attempt to establish the conclusion of an argument by using that conclusion as a premise
• Straw man
The distorting, weakening, or oversimplifying of someone's position so it can be more easily attacked or refuted
Hasty generalization:
The drawing of a conclusion about a target group based on an inadequate sample size
Begging the Question
The fallacy of begging the question (or arguing in a circle) is the attempt to es- tablish the conclusion of an argument by using that conclusion as a premise. To beg the question is to argue that a proposition is true because the very same proposition supports it: p Therefore, p. The classic question-begging argument goes like this: God exists. We know that God exists because the Bible says so, and we should believe what the Bible says because God wrote it. Or, more formally: The Bible says that God exists. The Bible is true because God wrote it. Therefore, God exists. This argument assumes at the outset the very proposition ("God exists") that it is trying to prove. Any argument that does this is fallacious.
False Dilemma
The fallacy of false dilemma is asserting that there are only two alternatives to consider when there are actually more than two. For example: Look, either you support the war or you are a traitor to your country. You don't support the war. So you're a traitor. This argument contends that there are only two alternatives to choose from: Either you back the war, or you are a traitor. And since you don't back the war, you must be a traitor. But this argument works only if there really are just two alternatives. Actually there are other plausible possibilities here. Maybe you are loyal to your country but don't want to see it get involved in a costly war. Maybe you are a patriot who simply disagrees with your government's rationale for going to war. Because these possibilities are excluded, the argument is fallacious.
Slippery Slope
The fallacy of slippery slope is arguing, without good reasons, that taking a particular step will inevitably lead to a further, undesirable step (or steps). The idea behind the metaphor, of course, is that if you take the first step on a slippery slope, you will have to take others because, well, the slope is slippery. A familiar slippery-slope pattern is "Doing action A will lead to action B, which will lead to action C, which will result in calamitous action D. Therefore, you should not do action A." It's fallacious when there is no good reason to think that doing action A will actually result in undesirable action D.
Another form of this fallacy emphasizes not a person's character but his or her circumstances. Here someone making a claim is accused of inconsistency— specifically, of maintaining a view that is inconsistent with his or her previous views or social or political commitments. Edgar asserts that evolution is true, but he's an ordained minister in a fundamentalist church that has taken a firm stand against evolution. So he can't accept this theory; he must reject it. Madison says she's opposed to abortion, but you can't take her seriously. Her view goes against everything her party stands for.
These arguments are fallacious if they're implying that a claim must be true (or false) just because it's inconsistent with some aspect of the claimant's circumstances. The circumstances are irrelevant to the truth of the claim.
Faulty Analogy
We will also discuss arguments by analogy in Chapter 8. Like hasty generaliza- tions, defective arguments by analogy, or faulty analogies, are also fallacies in- volving unacceptable premises.
In another variation of circumstantial ad hominem reasoning, someone might deduce that a claim is false because the person making it, given his or her circumstances, would be expected to make it. For example:
Wilson claims that the political system in Cuba is exemplary. But he has to say that. He's a card-carrying communist. So forget what he says. But whether Wilson is a communist, and whether he would be expected or required to have certain views because of his connection to communism, is irrelevant to the truth of his claim.
So the following are examples of the genetic fallacy (restricted sense):
You can safely dismiss that alternative energy plan. It's the brainchild of a liberal think tank in Washington. We should reject that proposal for solving the current Social Security mess. It comes straight from the Republican Party. Russell's idea about tax hikes for the middle class came to him in a dream, so it must be bunk. These arguments fail because they reject a claim based solely on where it comes from, not on its merits. In most cases, the source of an idea is irrelevant to its truth. Good ideas can come from questionable sources. Bad ideas can come from impeccable sources. Generally, judging a claim only by its source is a recipe for error.
A rhetorical definition, on the other hand, wants to sway you toward particular attitudes or beliefs. Someone who opposes abortions for any reason, for example, might rhetorically define "abortion" as "the murder of innocent human beings and the rejection of God." Someone who believes that some abortions are morally permissible might define "abortion" as "the termination of a human embryo or fetus."
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Again: Either those lights you saw in the night sky were alien spacecraft (UFOs), or you were hallucinating. You obviously weren't hallucinating. So they had to be UFOs. This argument says that there are only two possibilities: The lights were UFOs, or you hallucinated the whole thing. And they must have been UFOs be- cause you weren't hallucinating. But as is the case with the majority of alleged paranormal events, there are many more possible explanations than most people realize. The lights could have been commercial aircraft, military aircraft, meteors, atmospheric conditions, or the planet Venus (which, believe it or not, is often mistaken for a UFO). Since the argument ignores these reasonable possibilities, it's fallacious.
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Alas, critical thinking is undone by more than just fallacies. It is easily weakened or wrecked by subtler means—by rhetoric, the use of nonargumentative, emotive words and phrases to persuade or influence an audience
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An analogy is a comparison of two or more things alike in specific respects. An argument by analogy reasons this way: Be- cause two or more things are similar in several respects, they must be similar in some further respect. For example: In the Vietnam War, the United States had not articulated a clear rationale for fighting there, and the United States lost. Likewise, in the present war the United States has not articulated a clear rationale for fighting. Therefore, the United States will lose this war too. A watch is a mechanism of exquisite complexity with numerous parts precisely arranged and accurately adjusted to achieve a purpose—a purpose imposed by the watch's designer. Likewise the universe has exquisite complexity with countless parts—from atoms to asteroids—that fit together precisely and accurately to produce certain effects as though arranged by plan. Therefore, the universe must also have a designer.
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And here are two opposing arguments that are far more serious: The abortion-rights version: At conception, an embryo is not a person (not an entity with full moral rights, including a right to life). And in the long process of gestation, there is no precise point at which we can definitively say that the fetus has gone from being a nonperson to being a person. Therefore, the fetus does not become a person at any point in gestation—the fetus is simply not a person. The right-to-life version: In the long process of gestation, there is no point at which we can definitively say that the fetus has become a person. People have suggested different points at which personhood arises (at viability, for example), but none of these is plausible. Conception, however, is plausible as the beginning of personhood, for at that instant the embryo receives what will make it fully human—DNA. Therefore, personhood arises at the moment of conception.
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Appeals to ignorance involve the notion of burden of proof. Burden of proof is the weight of evidence or argument required by one side in a debate or disagreement (in the critical thinking sense). Problems arise when the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side. For example, if Louise declares that "no one has shown that gremlins aren't real, so they must be real," she implicitly puts the burden of proof on those who don't agree with her. She's asserting, in effect, "I say that gremlins are real, and it's up to you to prove I'm wrong." Or to put it another way, "I'm entitled to believe that gremlins are real unless you prove that they're not." But as we saw earlier, this line is just an appeal to ignorance, and the burden of proof for showing that gremlins are real rests with her—not with those who don't share her belief. If her claim is unsupported, you need not accept it. If you take the bait and try to prove that gremlins don't exist, you are accepting a burden of proof that should fall on Louise's shoulders, not yours.
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Arguments try to persuade through logic and reasons, but rhetoric tries to persuade primarily through the artful use of emotion-laden language
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But keep in mind that euphemisms often perform a useful social purpose by allowing us to discuss sensitive subjects in an unoffensive way. We may spare people's feelings by saying that their loved ones "have passed on" rather than that they "have died," or that their dog "was put to sleep" rather than "killed." Nevertheless, as critical thinkers, we should be on guard against the deceptive use of connotations. As critical writers, we should rely primarily on argument and evidence to make our case.
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But what if our moral was wrong? If we could prove something with a lack of evidence, we could prove almost anything. You can't prove that invisible men aren't having a keg party on Mars—does this mean that it's true that invisible men are having a keg party on Mars? You can't prove that Socrates belched at his famous trial—does this prove that he didn't belch? There are cases, however, that may seem like appeals to ignorance but actually are not. Sometimes when we carefully search for something, and such a thorough search is likely to uncover it if there is anything to uncover, the failure to find what we're looking for can show that it probably isn't there. A botanist, for example, may scan a forest looking for a rare plant but not find it even though she looks in all the likely places. In this case, her lack of evidence—her not finding the plant after a thorough search—may be good evidence that the plant doesn't exist in that environment. This conclusion would not rest on ig- norance, but on the knowledge that in these circumstances any thorough search would probably reveal the sought-after object if it was there at all.
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Fallacies are often beguiling; they can seem plausible. Time and again they are psychologically persuasive, though logically impotent. The primary motivation for studying fallacies, then, is to be able to detect them so you're not taken in by them.
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Fallacies at least have the semblance of arguments, but rhetorical devices are nonargument persuaders.
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Fallacies: Irrelevant Premises • Certain types of defective arguments that occur frequently are known as fallacies. Fallacies are often psychologically persuasive but logically flawed. • We can divide fallacies into two broad categories: (1) those that have irrele- vant premises and (2) those that have unacceptable premises. • Fallacies with irrelevant premises include the genetic fallacy (arguing that a claim is true or false solely because of its origin), composition (arguing that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole), division (arguing that what is true of the whole must be true of the parts or that what is true of a group is true of individuals in the group), appeal to the person (rejecting a claim by criticizing the person who makes it rather than the claim itself), equivocation (the use of a word in two different senses in an argument), appeal to popularity (arguing that a claim must be true merely because a substantial number of people believe it), appeal to tradition (arguing that a claim must be true or good just because it's part of a tradition), appeal to ignorance (arguing that a lack of evidence proves something), appeal to emotion (the use of emotions as premises in an argument), red herring (the deliberate raising of an irrelevant issue during an argument), straw man (the distorting, weakening, or oversimplifying of someone's position so it can be more easily attacked or refuted), and two wrongs make a right (argu- ing that your doing something morally wrong is justified because someone else has done the same thing).
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Fallacies: Unacceptable Premises • Fallacies with unacceptable premises include begging the question (the attempt to establish the conclusion of an argument by using that conclusion as a premise), false dilemma (incorrectly asserting that only two alternatives exist), decision-point fallacy (arguing that because a line or distinction cannot be drawn at any point in a process, there are no differences or grada- tions in that process), slippery slope (arguing, without good reasons, that taking a particular step will inevitably lead to a further, undesirable step or steps), hasty generalization (the drawing of a conclusion about a group based on an inadequate sample of the group), and faulty analogy (an argument in which the things being compared are not sufficiently similar in relevant ways).
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Finally, we have the ad hominem tactic known as "poisoning the well." In this one, someone argues like this: X has no regard for the truth or has nonrational motives for espousing a claim, so nothing that X says should be believed— including the claim in question. The idea is that just as you can't get safe water out of a poisoned well, you can't get reliable claims out of a discredited claimant. This tack is fallacious because the fact that someone might have dubious reasons for making a claim does not show that the claim is false, nor does it mean that every- thing that comes out of the "poisoned well" can be automatically dismissed.
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Finally: We must legalize drugs. We either legalize them or pay a heavy toll in lives and the taxpayer's money to continue the war on drugs. And we cannot afford to pay such a high price. At first glance, these two alternatives may seem to exhaust the possibilities. But there is at least one other option—to launch a massive effort to prevent drug use and thereby reduce the demand for illegal drugs. The argument does not work because it fails to consider this possibility.
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Here are some more examples: If assault rifles are banned in this country, then handguns will be next. Then sporting rifles will be banned. And ultimately all guns will be banned, and our fundamental freedom to own guns will be canceled out altogether. So if assault rifles are banned, we might as well strike the Second Amendment from the Constitution because it will be worthless. We must ban pornography in all forms. Otherwise, rape and other sex crimes will be as common as jaywalking. All Americans should be against laws permitting consensual homosexual sex in one's own home. If that kind of thing is allowed, before you know it anything goes—bestiality, prostitution, illegal drug use, and violence. These arguments follow the basic slippery-slope pattern. They are fallacies not because they assert that one event or state of affairs can inevitably lead to others, but because there is no good reason to believe the assertions
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In a faulty analogy, the things being compared are not sufficiently similar in relevant ways. Such analogical arguments are said to be weak. For instance, you could argue that: Dogs are warm-blooded, nurse their young, and give birth to puppies. Humans are warm-blooded and nurse their young. Therefore, humans give birth to puppies too. This argument by analogy is about as weak as they come—and a little silly. Dogs and humans are not sufficiently similar in relevant ways (in physiology, for one thing) to justify such a strange conclusion.
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In debates about gun ownership, those who want to restrict gun ownership may characterize their position as "anti-assault weapon." Those opposed to this position may label it as "anti-self-defense." Both these labels are meant to provoke certain attitudes toward the subject matter—attitudes that may not be supported by any evidence or argument. Consider the disparate impact on the reader of these pairs of terms, both of which refer to the same thing: full-figured - Fat guerrillas - freedom fighters routed the enemy - made a strategic withdrawal Resolute- Pigheaded Emphatic- Pussy Sweat- perspire
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Note that these three arguments are expressed in disjunctive (either-or) form. But they can just as easily be expressed in a conditional (if-then) form, which says the same thing: Look, if you don't support the war, then you are a traitor to your country. You don't support the war. So you're a traitor. If those lights you saw in the night sky were not alien spacecraft (UFOs), then you were hallucinating. You obviously weren't hallucinating. So they had to be UFOs. We must legalize drugs. If we don't legalize them, then we will pay a heavy toll in lives and the taxpayer's money to continue the war on drugs. And we can- not afford to pay such a high price.
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Now take a look at these politically motivated rhetorical definitions: Government entitlements should be discontinued. They're just handouts to people who don't want to work. For conservatives, tax reform means making the rich richer and the middle class poorer. Gun control is code for "Let's get rid of every gun in America." Capital punishment is legalized murder.
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Perhaps the most blatant fallacy of irrelevance is the red herring, the deliberate raising of an irrelevant issue during an argument. This fallacy gets its name from the practice of dragging a smelly fish across a trail to throw a hunting dog off the scent. The basic pattern is to put forth a claim and then couple it with additional claims that may seem to support it but in fact are mere distractions
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Persuaders: Rhetorical Moves • Critical thinking is also undermined by rhetoric, the use of nonargumentative, emotive words and phrases to persuade or influence an audience. • Rhetorical devices include innuendo (suggesting something denigrating about a person without explicitly stating it), euphemisms (words used to convey positive or neutral attitudes or emotions in place of more negative ones), dysphemisms (words used to convey negative attitudes or emotions in place of neutral or positive ones), stereotyping (drawing an unwarranted conclusion or generalization about an entire group of people), ridicule (the use of derision, sarcasm, laughter, or mockery to disparage a person or idea), and rhetorical definition (influencing opinion through an emotion-charged definition).
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Some arguments may look like slippery-slope fallacies but are not because there is good reason to think that the steps are connected as described. Observe: If you have Lyme disease, you definitely should get medical treatment. Without treatment, you could develop life-threatening complications. Man, you could die. You should see your doctor now. This is not a fallacious slippery-slope argument. There are good reasons to believe that the series of events mentioned would actually happen.
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Sometimes we encounter stand-alone disjunctive phrases, rather than full- blown false dilemma arguments. These are false choices often presented as one- liners or headlines in tabloid newspapers, TV news programs, and magazines. For example: Iraq: Quagmire or Failure? Microsoft: Bad Cop or Evil Giant? Is the Administration Incompetent or Just Evil? By limiting the possibilities, these headlines can imply that almost any outlandish state of affairs is actual—without even directly asserting anything. People are often taken in by false dilemmas because they don't think beyond the alternatives laid before them. Out of fear, the need for simple answers, or a failure of imagination, they don't ask, "Is there another possibility?" To ask this is to think outside the box and reduce the likelihood of falling for simplistic answers.
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Stereotypes are especially prevalent in politics, where they are often mixed in with dysphemisms, the straw man fallacy, innuendo, appeal to the person, and other fallacious thinking. A few examples: We all know that the Democrats are pro-taxes and anti-rich. All the Republicans want is a free ride for rich people and no entitlements for the less well off. Don't elect Southerners. They're all anti-government, states-rights fanatics.
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Such arguments are fallacious because they attempt to discredit a claim by appealing to something that's almost always irrelevant to it: a person's character, motives, or personal circumstances. Claims must be judged on their own merits; they are not guilty by association. We are never justified in rejecting a claim be- cause of a person's faults unless we can show how a person's faults translate into faults in the claim—and this is almost never the case. Even when a person's character is relevant to the truth of claims (as when we must consider the merits of testimonial evidence), we are not justified in believing a claim false just because the person's character is dubious. If the person's character is dubious, we are left with no reason to think the claim either true or false.
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Take a look at this classic example: We absolutely must not lose the war in Vietnam. If South Vietnam falls to the communists, then Thailand will fall to them. If Thailand falls to them, then South Korea will fall to them. And before you know it, all of Southeast Asia will be under communist control. s argument was commonplace during the Cold War. It was known as the domino theory because it asserted that if one country in Southeast Asia succumbed to communism, they all would succumb, just as a whole row of dominoes will fall if the first one is pushed over. It was fallacious because there was no good evidence that the dominoes would inevitably fall as predicted. In fact, after South Vietnam was defeated, they did not fall as predicted.
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The fallacy of appeal to the person comes in several varieties. One is the personal attack (mentioned earlier), often simply consisting of insults. The gist is familiar enough: Reject X's claims, ideas, or theories because X is a radical, reactionary, extremist, right-winger, left-winger, fool, bonehead, moron, nutbar, or scum of the earth. Whatever psychological impact such terms of abuse may have, logically they carry no weight at all.
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The term genetic fallacy has both a general and specific meaning. In the general sense—that is, when it applies to arguments that a claim is true or false solely because of its origin—it refers to nonhuman and abstract origins (such as a group of people or a piece of writing) as well as to particular individuals (such as John Smith). But to avoid confusion, it's best to restrict genetic fallacy to nonhuman and abstract origins, and to use the terms appeal to the person or ad hominem (discussed later) to refer to individual persons.
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These arguments are fallacious because they assume that a proposition is true merely because a great number of people believe it. But as far as the truth of a claim is concerned, what many people believe is irrelevant. Many people used to believe that certain women were witches and should be burned, that slavery was perfectly acceptable, that Earth was the center of the universe, and that bleeding and purging were cures for just about every ill. Large groups of people are no more infallible than an individual is. Their belief in a proposition, by itself, is no indication of truth. What many other people believe, however, can be an indication of truth if they are experts or have expert knowledge in the issue at hand. If almost all farmers say that the fall harvest will be abundant, ordinarily we should believe them.
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This kind of inductive reasoning is widespread in science. Drugs, for example, are tested for toxicity on rodents or other animals before the drugs are given to humans. If after extensive testing no toxic effects are observed in the animals (which are supposed to be relevantly similar to humans), the lack of toxicity is considered evidence that the drug will probably not cause toxic effects in humans. Likewise, in the realm of extraordinary claims, some scientists regard the failure to find the Loch Ness monster or Bigfoot after decades of searching to be evi- dence that these creatures do not exist.
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Unfortunately, most question-begging arguments are not as obviously fallacious as "p is true because p is true." They may be hard to recognize because they are intricate or confusing. Consider this argument: It is in every case immoral to lie to someone, even if the lie could save a life. Even in extreme circumstances a lie is still a lie. All lies are immoral because the very act of prevarication in all circumstances is contrary to ethical principles. At first glance, this argument may seem reasonable, but it's not. It reduces to this circular reasoning: "Lying is always immoral because lying is always immoral." Among the more subtle examples of question-begging is this famous one, a favorite of critical thinking texts: To allow every man unbounded freedom of speech must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the state; for it is highly conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty, perfectly unlimited, of expressing his sentiments.5 This argument, as well as the one preceding it, demonstrates the easiest way to subtly beg the question: Just repeat the conclusion as a premise, but use different words.
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Usually, the burden of proof rests on the side that makes a positive claim—an assertion that something exists or is the case, rather than that something does not exist or is not the case. So in general, if a person (the claimant) makes an unsupported positive claim, he or she must provide evidence for it if the claim is to e accepted. If you doubt the claim, you are under no obligation to prove it wrong. You need not—and should not—accept it without good reasons (which the claimant should provide). Of course, you also should not reject the claim without good reasons. If the claimant does provide you with reasons for accepting the claim, you can either accept them or reject them. If you reject them, you are obligated to explain the reasons for your rejection.
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We can divide fallacies into two broad categories: (1) those that have irrelevant premises and (2) those that have unacceptable premises.
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We can divide fallacies into two broad categories: (1) those that have irrelevant premises and (2) those that have unacceptable premises.1 Irrelevant premises have no bearing on the truth of the conclusion. An argument may seem to offer reasons for accepting the conclusion, but the "reasons" have nothing to do with the conclusion. Unacceptable premises are relevant to the conclusion but are nonetheless dubious in some way. An argument may have premises that pertain to the conclusion, but they do not adequately support it. Premises can be unacceptable because they are as dubious as the claim they're intended to support, because the evidence they offer is too weak to adequately support the conclusion, or because they're otherwise so defective that they provide no support at all.
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What's wrong with these decision-point arguments? In many processes, there is no decision point, no dynamic moment that suddenly transforms something into something else—and our concepts are fuzzy to reflect this fact. Bald and hairy are such terms. But none of this means that those concepts don't sometimes apply. Even though we can't say at what point a man becomes bald, we can normally use the word bald just fine to accurately describe a man who has hair loss. The decision-point fallacy would have us assume that there must be a specific transforming point even though no such point exists or needs to exist. It is often an easy assumption to make—and to avoid.
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Like the fallacy of composition, the fallacy of division is frequently used in statistical arguments: The average SAT test score of seniors [as a group] is higher than the average SAT score of sophomores. Therefore, this senior's test score must be higher than the score of that sophomore.
true Just because the average score for seniors is higher than the average score for sophomores doesn't mean that any individual senior must have a higher score than any sophomore. The scores of individuals, which make up the average, may vary greatly.
The fallacy of composition is arguing that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole. The error here is thinking that the characteristics of the parts are somehow transferred to the whole, something that is not always the case. Likewise, the error is committed whenever we assume that what's true of a member of a group is true of the group as a whole.
true For example, The atoms that make up the human body are invisible. Therefore, the human body is invisible. Each member of the club is productive and effective. So the club will be productive and effective. Each note in the song sounds great. Therefore, the whole song will sound great. Every part of this motorcycle is lightweight; therefore, the whole motorcycle is lightweight. Sometimes, of course, the parts do share the same characteristics as the whole. We may safely conclude that since all the parts of the house are made of wood, the house itself is made of wood. We commit the fallacy of composition, though, when we assume that a particular case must be like this.
The fallacy of composition often shows up in statistical arguments. Consider: The average small investor puts $2000 into the stock market every year. The average large investor puts $100,000 into stocks each year. Therefore, the group of large investors as a whole invests more money in the stock market than the small-investor group does.
true Just because the average small investor invests less than the average large investor does not mean that small investors as a group invest less than large investors as a group. After all, there may be many more small investors than large investors.
The flip side of the fallacy of composition is the fallacy of division—arguing that what is true of the whole must be true of the parts. The fallacy is also committed when we assume that what is true of a group is true of individuals in the group.
true This machine is heavy. Therefore, all the parts of this machine are heavy. Since the committee is a powerful force in Washington politics, each member of the committee is a powerful force in Washington politics. University students study every conceivable subject. So that university student over there also studies every conceivable subject. These arguments are fallacious because they assume that characteristics of the whole must transfer to the parts or that traits of the group must be the same as traits of individuals in the group.
The fallacy of appeal to the person (or ad hominem, meaning "to the man") is rejecting a claim by criticizing the person who makes it rather than the claim itself.
ture For example: Jones has argued for a ban on government-sanctioned prayer in schools and at school-sponsored events. But he's a rabid atheist without morals of any kind. Anything he has to say on the issue is bound to be a perversion of the truth. We should reject Chen's argument for life on other planets. He dabbles in the paranormal. You can't believe anything Morris says about welfare reform. He's a bleeding- heart liberal.
Faulty analogy:
: An argument in which the things being compared are not sufficiently similar in relevant ways
• Appeal to ignorance
: Arguing that a lack of evidence proves something
• Appeal to the person
: Rejecting a claim by criticizing the person who makes it rather than the claim itself
• Red herring
: The deliberate raising of an irrelevant issue during an argument
• Equivocation
: The use of a word in two different senses in an argument
• Appeal to emotion
: The use of emotions as premises in an argument
Stereotyping
A stereotype is an unwarranted conclusion or generalization about an entire group of people. To stereotype someone is to judge her not as an individual, but as part of a group whose members are thought to be all alike. We think because she is a member of the group, and we assume without good reason that all the members are rude and arrogant, that she must also be rude and arrogant. We wrongly assume that because all members of ________ (insert name of any political, ethnic, or class group) are _________ (insert name of any negative attribute), the member of that group standing before us also must have that attribute. By asserting that someone is part of a hated stereotyped group, a speaker or writer can induce others to form a baseless, negative opinion of that person. This slanted opinion in turn can cause people to react dismissively, disdainfully, or angrily to any member of the disparaged group. This is the well-worn path of bigots of all stripes—and a painful indication that critical thinking is needed.
• Genetic fallacy
Arguing that a claim is true or false solely because of its abstract or nonhuman origins.
• Appeal to popularity
Arguing that a claim must be true merely because a substantial number of people believe it
