Types of Fallacies

FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE 1. Appeal to Force If you compute that t faultizing your opp unrivalednt is giving him a reason for believing that you be sort, then you ar using a sc be tactic and reasoning extractionaciously. casing David My father owns the department store that gives your unsandedspaper fifteen partage of all(prenominal) its advertising revenue, so Im sure you wont want to free any flooring of my arrest for spray painting the college. Newspaper editor Yes, David, I see your point. The story unfeignedly isnt newsworthy.David has given the editor a financial reason non to publish, but he has not given a relevant reason why the story is not newsworthy. Davids tactic atomic number 18 scaring the editor, but its the editor who commits the scare tactic error, not David. David has exactly used a scare tactic. This illusions name emphasizes the cause of the false belief preferably than the error itself. 2. Appeal to pathos You commit the phantasm of draw in to emotions when soulfulnesss appeal to you to accept their subscribe is accepted merely because the appeal arouses your feelings of anger, fear, grief, love, fall outrage, compassionateness, pride, sexuality, sympathy, relief, and so forth. use of appeal to relief from grief The speaker knows he is talking to an aggrieved individual whose raise is worth oft more than than $100,000. You had a great job and didnt deserve to lose it. I wish I could help more or lesshow. I do impart one idea. Now your family of necessity financial security even more. You need cash. I can help you. Here is a check for $100,000. that sign this standard sales agreement, and we can skip the realtors and all the headaches they would create at this critical conviction in your life.T present is nothing wrong with using emotions when you argue, but its a mistake to use emotions as the key infixs or as withalls to knock downplay relevant information. Regarding the error ofappeal to pity, it is proper to pity heap who have had misfortunes, but if as the persons history instructor you accept sludges claim that he earned an A on the history quiz because he skint his wrist while playing in your colleges last basketball game, then youve pull the error ofappeal to pity. *Appeal to Snobbery 3. Ad HominemYou commit this fallacy if you make an irrelevant attack on the arguer and suggest that this attack undermines the production line itself. It is a form of theGenetic Fallacy. Example What she says somewhat Johannes Keplers astronomy of the 1600? s moldiness be just so much garbage. Do you realize shes only fourteen years old? This attack may undermine the arguers credibility as a scientific authority, but it does not undermine her reasoning. That reasoning should stand or fall on the scientific evidence, not on the arguers age or anything else to the highest degree her personally.If the mentally ill reasoner points out irrelevant circumstances that the reasoner is in, th e fallacy is a circumstantial ad hominem. Tu Quoqueand cardinal Wrongs Make a Rightare other types of the ad hominem fallacy. The major difficulty with labeling a fraction of reasoning as an ad hominem fallacy is deciding whether the personal attack is relevant. For example, attacks on a person for their materially immoral sexual conduct are irrelevant to the quality of their mathematical reasoning, but they are relevant to blood lines promoting the person for a leadership position in the church.Unfortunately, humannessy attacks are not so easy to classify, such as an attack pointing out that the candidate for church leadership, while in the tenth grade, intentionally tripped a fellow student and broke his collar bone. *Ad Hominem Circumstantial Guilt by association is a version of thead hominemfallacy in which a person is give tongue to to be guilty of error because of the group he or she associates with. The fallacy occurs when we unjustly try to change the wall socket to be about the speakers circumstances rather than about the speakers actual argument. Also called Ad Hominem, Circumstantial. Example Secretary of State Dean Acheson is too soft on communism, as you can see by his inviting so numerous fuzzy-headed progressive tenses to his White House cocktail parties. Has any evidence been presented here that Achesons actions are inappropriate in regards to communism? This sort of reasoning is an example of McCarthyism, the technique of smearing liberal Democrats that was so effectively used by the late Senator Joe McCarthy in the early 1950s. In fact, Acheson was strongly anti-communist and the fashion designer of President Trumans firm form _or_ system of government of containing Soviet power. 4. Appeal to the PeopleIf you suggest too strongly that souls claim or argument is correct simply because its what most foreveryone believes, then youve committed the fallacy of appeal to the people. Similarly, if you suggest too strongly that someones claim or argument is mistaken simply because its not what most everyone believes, then youve also committed the fallacy. Agreement with touristed opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of truth, and deviation from popular opinion is not necessarily a reliable sign of error, but if you assume it is and do so with enthusiasm, then youre guilty of committing this fallacy.It is essentially the same as the fallacies of ad numerum, appeal to the gallery, appeal to the masses, argument from popularity, argumentum ad populum, commonality practice, mob appeal, past practice, peer pressure, traditional wisdom. The too strongly mentioned above is important in the comment of the fallacy because what most everyone believes is, for that reason, somewhat akinly to be true, all things considered. However, the fallacy occurs when this degree of support is overestimated. Example You should turn to channel 6. Its the most discovered channel this year.This is duplicitous because of its implic itly evaluate the questionable premise that the most watch outed channel this year is, for that reason alone, the best channel for you. If you stress the idea of appealing to anewidea of the gallery, masses, mob, peers, people, and so forth, then it is a bandwagon fallacy. *Bandwagon If you suggest that someones claim is correct simply because its what most everyone is coming to believe, then youre committing the bandwagon fallacy. Get up here with us on the wagon where the band is playing, and go where we go, and dont think too much about the reasons.The Latin term for this fallacy of appeal to novelty is Argumentum ad Novitatem. Example Advertisement More and more people are buying sports utility vehicles. Isnt it time you bought one, too? You commit the fallacy if you buy the vehicle solely because of this advertisement. Like its close cousin, the fallacy of appeal to the people, the bandwagon fallacy needs to be carefully severalize from properly defending a claim by pointi ng out that many people have canvass the claim and have come to a reasoned demonstration that it is correct.What most everyone believes is likely to be true, all things considered, and if one defends a claim on those grounds, this is not a fallacious inference. What is fallacious is to be sweep up by the excitement of a new idea or new fad and to decidedly give it too luxuriously a degree of your belief solely on the grounds of its new popularity, perhaps thinking simply that new is better. The key ingredient that is missing from a bandwagon fallacy is knowledge that an item is popular because of its high quality. Appeal to Past People (You too) 5. Accident We often father at a generalization but dont or cant disposition all the exceptions. When we reason with the generalization as if it has no exceptions, we commit the fallacy of accident. This fallacy is sometimes called the fallacy of sweeping generalization. Example People should follow their promises, right? I loaned Dwayne my knife, and he said hed return it. Now he is refusing to give it book binding, but I need it right now to chance event up my neighbors who disrespected me.People should keep their promises, but in that location are exceptions to this generaliztion as in this case of the psychopath who wants Dwayne to keep his promise to return the knife. 6. Straw Man You commit the still hunt man fallacy whenever you attribute an soft refuted position to your opponent, one that the opponent wouldnt endorse, and then proceed to attack the easily refuted position (the straw man) believing you have undermined the opponents actual position. If the misrepresentation is on purpose, then the straw man fallacy is caused by lying.Example (a debate before the city council) Opponent Because of the killing and suffering of Indians that followed Columbuss discovery of America, the City of Berkeley should declare that Columbus Day go away no longer be detect in our city. Speaker This is ridiculous , fellow members of the city council. Its not true that everybody who ever came to America from some other country somehow suppress the Indians. I say we should continue to observe Columbus Day, and vote down this resolution that will make the City of Berkeley the laughing stock of the nation.The speaker has twisted what his opponent said the opponent never said, nor even indirectly suggested, that everybody who ever came to America from another country somehow oppressed the Indians. The critical thinker will respond to the fallacy by reflection, Lets get back to the original produce of whether we have a good reason to discontinue observing Columbus Day. 7. lacking the Point The conclusion that is drawn is irrelevant to the premises it misses the point. Example In court, Thompson testifies that the defendant is a skilful person, who wouldnt harm a flea.The excuse attorney commits the fallacy by rising to say that Thompsons testimony shows once again that his client was not n ear the murder scene. The testimony of Thompson may be relevant to a request for leniency, but it is irrelevant to any claim about the defendant not universe near the murder scene. 8. Red Herring A red herring is a fetid fish that would distract even a bloodhound. It is also a digression that leads the reasoner off the rails of considering only relevant information. Example Will the new tax in Senate Bill 47 unfairly hurt business?One of the provisions of the bill is that the tax is higher for large employers (fifty or more employees) as opposed to small employers (six to forty-nine employees). To decide on the fairness of the bill, we must number 1 retrieve whether employees who work for large employers have better working conditions than employees who work for small employers. Bringing up the issue of working conditions is the red herring. FALLACIES OF PRESUMPTION 9. Begging the Question A form ofcircular reasoningin which a conclusion is derived from premises that presuppose the conclusion.Normally, the point of good reasoning is to start out at one place and end up somewhere new, namely having reached the goal of increasing the degree of bonny belief in the conclusion. The point is to make progress, but in cases of mendicancy the question in that respect is no progress. Example Women have rights, said the Bullfighters Association president. But women shouldnt fight bulls because a bullfighter is and should be a man. The president is saying basically that women shouldnt fight bulls because women shouldnt fight bulls. This reasoning isnt making any progress.Insofar as the conclusion of a deductively valid argument is contained in the premises from which it is deduced, this containing efficiency take care to be a case of presupposing, and thus any deductively valid argument might seem to be begging the question. It is still an open question among logicians as to why some deductively valid arguments are considered to be begging the question and othe rs are not. Some logicians suggest that, in informal reasoning with a deductively valid argument, if the conclusion is psychologically new insofar as the premises are concerned, then the argument isnt an example of the fallacy.Other logicians suggest that we need to look instead to surrounding circumstances, not to the psychology of the reasoner, in order to assess the quality of the argument. For example, we need to look to the reasons that the reasoner used to accept the premises. Was the premise warrant on the basis of accepting the conclusion? A third group of logicians say that, in deciding whether the fallacy is committed, we need more. We must determine whether any premise that is key to deducing the conclusion is adopted rather blindly or instead is a reasonable assumption made by someone accepting their burden of proof.The premise would here be termed reasonable if the arguer could defend it independently of accepting the conclusion that is at issue. 10. Complex Question Y ou commit this fallacy when you frame a question so that some controversial presupposition is made by the wording of the question. Example Reporters question Mr. President Are you going to continue your policy of wasting taxpayers money on missile defense? The question unfairly presumes the controversial claim that the policy really is a waste of money. The fallacy of complex question is a form of begging the question. 11. False DichotomyA reasoner who unfairly presents too few choices and then implies that a choice must be made among this short menu of choices commits the false dilemma fallacy, as does the person who accepts this faulty reasoning. Example I want to go to Scotland from London. I overheard McTaggart say there are devil roads to Scotland from London the high road and the low road. I support the high road would be too risky because its through the hills and that means dangerous curves. But its raining now, so both roads are probably slippery. I dont like either choic e, but I guess I should take the low road and be safer.This would be fine reasoning is you were limited to only two roads, but youve falsely gotten yourself into a dilemma with such reasoning. There are many other shipway to get to Scotland. Dont limit yourself to these two choices. You can take other roads, or go by boat or train or airplane. The fallacy is called the False Dichotomy Fallacy when the unfair menu contains only two choices. Think of the unpleasant choice betwixt the two as being a charging bull. By demanding other choices beyond those on the unfairly limited menu, you thereby go between the horns of the dilemma, and are not gored. 12. Suppressed EvidenceIntentionally failing to use information suspected of being relevant and world-shattering is committing the fallacy of curb evidence. This fallacy usually occurs when the information counts against ones own conclusion. Perhaps the arguer is not mentioning that experts have recently objected to one of his premises. The fallacy is a harming of fallacy ofSelective Attention. Example Buying the Cray Mac 11 computer for our company was the right thing to do. It meets our companys needs it runs the programs we want it to run it will be delivered quickly and it costs much less than what we had budgeted.This appears to be a good argument, but youd change your assessment of the argument if you learned the speaker has intentionally suppressed the relevant evidence that the companys Cray Mac 11 was purchased from his brother-in-law at a 30 percent higher price than it could have been purchased elsewhere, and if you learned that a recent unbiased analysis of ten like computers placed the Cray Mac 11 near the bottom of the list. FALLACIES OF WEAK INDUCTION 13. Appeal to Ignorance The fallacy of appeal to ignorance comes in two forms (1) Not knowing that a certain statement is true is taken to be a proof that it is false. 2) Not knowing that a statement is false is taken to be a proof that it is true. T he fallacy occurs in cases where absence of evidence is not good enough evidence of absence. The fallacy uses an unjustified attempt to shift the burden of proof. The fallacy is also called Argument from Ignorance. Example Nobody has ever proved to me theres a divinity, so I know there is no God. This kind of reasoning is generally fallacious. It would be proper reasoning only if the proof attempts were quite thorough, and it were the case that if God did exist, then there would be a discoverable proof of this.Another common example of the fallacy involves ignorance of a future event People have been complaining about the danger of Xs ever since they were invented, but theres never been any big problem with them, so theres nothing to pose about. 14. Appeal to Unqualified Authority You appeal to authority if you back up your reasoning by saying that it is supported by what some authority says on the subject. Most reasoning of this kind is not fallacious, and much of our knowledge properly comes from listening to authorities.However, appealing to authority as a reason to believe somethingisfallacious whenever the authority appealed to is not really an authority in this particular subject, when the authority cannot be trusted to classify the truth, when authorities disagree on this subject (except for the occasional lone wolf), when the reasoner misquotes the authority, and so forth. Although spotting a fallacious appeal to authority often requires some background knowledge about the subject or the authority, in brief it can be said that it is fallacious to accept the words of a hypothetic authority when we should be suspicious of the authoritys words.Example The moon is covered with dust because the president of our neighborhood association said so. This is a fallacious appeal to authority because, although the president is an authority on many neighborhood matters, you are given no reason to believe the president is an authority on the organization of the moon. It would be better to appeal to some astronomer or geologist. A TV commercial that gives you a testimonial from a famous film star who wears a Wilson watch and that suggests you, too, should wear that brand of watch is committing a fallacious appeal to authority.The film star is an authority on how to act, not on which watch is best for you. 15. Hasty Generalization A hasty generalization is a fallacy ofjumping to conclusionsin which the conclusion is a generalization. See alsoBiased Statistics. Example Ive met two people in Nicaragua so far, and they were both nice to me. So, all people I will meet in Nicaragua will be nice to me. In any hasty generalization the key error is to overestimate the force play of an argument that is based on too small a sample for the implied confidence level or error margin.In this argument about Nicaragua, using the word all in the conclusion implies zero error margin. With zero error margin youd need to sample every single person in Nicaragua , not just two people. 16. False Cause Improperly concluding that one thing is a cause of another. The Fallacy of Non Causa Pro Causa is another name for this fallacy. Its four principal kinds are thePost Hoc Fallacy, the Fallacy ofCum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc,theRegressionFallacy, and the Fallacy ofReversing Causation. Example My psychic adviser says to expect bad things when Mars is aligned with Jupiter. Tomorrow Mars will be aligned with Jupiter.So, if a cover were to bite me tomorrow, it would be because of the alignment of Mars with Jupiter. 17. Slippery Slope Suppose someone claims that a first step (in a chain of causes and effects, or a chain of reasoning) will probably lead to a second step that in turn will probably lead to another step and so on until a final step ends in trouble. If the likelihood of the trouble occurring is exaggerated, the slippery slope fallacy is committed. Example Mom Those look like bags under your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep? Jeff I had a tes t and stayed up late studying. Mom You didnt take any drugs, did you?Jeff Just caffeine in my coffee, like I always do. Mom Jeff You know what happens when people take drugs Pretty presently the caffeine wont be strong enough. Then you will take something stronger, maybe someones diet pill. Then, something even stronger. Eventually, you will be doing cocaine. Then you will be a scissure addict So, dont drink that coffee. The form of a slippery slope fallacy looks like this A leads to B. B leads to C. C leads to D. Z leads to HELL. We dont want to go to HELL. So, dont take that first step A. 18. Weak Analogy The problem is that the items in the analogy are too dissimilar.When reasoning by analogy, the fallacy occurs when the analogy is irrelevant or very weak or when there is a more relevant disanalogy. See alsoFaulty Comparison. Example The bookInvesting for Dummiesreally helped me understand my finances better. The bookChess for Dummieswas written by the same author, was publish ed by the same press, and costs about the same amount. So, this chess book would probably help me understand my finances, too. FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY 19. Accent The accent fallacy is a fallacy of ambiguity collectable to the different ways a word is emphasized or accented.Example A member of Congress is asked by a reporter if she is in favor of the Presidents new missile defense system, and she responds, Im in favor of a missile defense system that effectively defends America. With an emphasis on the word favor, her response is likely tofavorthe Presidents missile defense system. With an emphasis, instead, on the words effectively defends, her remark is likely to beagainstthe Presidents missile defense system. And by using neither emphasis, she can later claim that her response was on either side of the issue.Aristotles version of the fallacy of accent allowed only a shift in which syllable is accented within a word. 20. Amphiboly This is an error due to taking a grammatically in determinate phrase in two different ways during the reasoning. Example In a cartoon, two elephants are driving their car down the road in India. They say, Wed better not get out here, as they pass a sign saying ELEPHANTS PLEASE STAY IN YOUR CAR Upon one interpretation of the grammar, the pronoun YOUR refers to the elephants in the car, but on another it refers to those humans who are driving cars in the vicinity.Unlikeequivocation, which is due to multiple meanings of a phrase, amphiboly is due to syntactic ambiguity, ambiguity caused by multiple ways of correspondence the grammar of the phrase. 21. Equivocation Equivocation is the illegitimate switching of the meaning of a term during the reasoning. Example Brad is a nobody, but since nobody is perfect, Brad must be perfect, too. The term nobody changes its meaning without warning in the passage. So does the term semipolitical jokes in this joke I dont approve of political jokes. Ive seen too many of them get elected. FALLACIES O F GRAMMATICAL ANALOGY 22.Composition The composition fallacy occurs when someone erroneously assumes that a characteristic of some or all the individuals in a group is also a characteristic of the group itself, the group composed of those members. It is the converse of thedivisionfallacy. Example Each human kiosk is very lightweight, so a human being composed of cells is also very lightweight. 23. Division simply because a group as a whole has a characteristic, it often doesnt follow that individuals in the group have that characteristic. If you suppose that it does follow, when it doesnt, you commit the fallacy of division.It is the converse of thecompositionfallacy. Example Joshuas association football team is the best in the division because it had an undefeated season and shared the division title, so Joshua, who is their goalie, must be the best goalie in the division. 24. Figure of Speech or Parallel-word Construction A fallacy characterized by ambiguities due to the fact that different words in Greek (and in Latin) may have different cases or genders even though the case endings or gender endings are the same. Since this is not general in other languages or since it coincides with other fallacies (e. g. quivocation, see above) writers tend to interpret it very broadly. Examples Activists have been labeled as idealists, sadists, anarchists, communists, and just about any name that can come to mind ending in-ist, likesamok-ist, saba-ist, bad-ist,and of course, who could forgetdevil-ist? (The writer has the unsaid argument that any name ending in-istis viewed as trouble-makers by our society. ) An introductory book on philosophy has an appendix entitle List of Isms the proceeds to list the schools of supposition in philosophy. (Not all words that end in-ismis a school of thought take for example,syllogism. )