Some Basic Logical Fallacies

More documents

Recommendations

Info

"Shouldn’t you read the document first, before you come out publicly against it?" To which Curren replied: "There’sno virtue in delay”.Indeed, there is no virtue in delay. Virtue is a disposition, a good habit, and 'delay' is an unexpected lapse of time, orlateness. Virtue and delay have nothing to do with one another. But the question was: “Shouldn’t you read the documentfirst, before you come out publicly against it?”Or, consider Pierre Elliot Trudeau's classic statement that duped a generation of Canadians'There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation'The issue is not whether there is a place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation, but whether the state should makelaws governing sexual behaviour which bears upon character, and which in turn plays a part in determining the characterof the state as a whole; for law makes a statement which instructs and shapes the character of the people who are underthat law. In order to bolster his position that people should be allowed to do what they want when it comes to sexualmatters, Trudeau asserts that there is no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation, evoking images of police orpublic officials entering into a person's bedroom in order to take note of what is going on.Species of Ignoring the Question:Ad hominem (to the man): This involves the criticism of some person's position or belief by criticizing the person ratherthan the position itself. For instance,Einstein couldn't have been right about Relativity, for just look at the way he combs his hair.Father Damian couldn’t be a good and holy priest, for just look at his belly.He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Just listen to his stuttering.I’m not going to vote for him; I can’t stand the way he looks.The Fallacy of Ridicule (bully tactics): This is a kind of ad hominem argument. One tries to discredit a person’sargument by ridiculing him. “That’s just ridiculous!” “Only a fool would think such a thing!” “Did you leave your brainat the door when you came here?” “Do you know how ridiculous you sound?”The Fallacy of the Double Standard: This is a fallacy that involves an inconsistent application of a principle orstandard, that is, applying it differently to two different persons, without any rational basis. Perhaps it is a latent adhominem argument. For example, the typical liberal will argue that former President Bill Clinton (a Democrat) cancommit perjury, adultery, and sexually abuse a woman young enough to be his daughter and lie about it under oath, andremain a good president because “his private life has nothing to do with his public life.” But when these same peoplediscover even the slightest moral flaw in the history of a Republican candidate, the latter is immediately be dismissed asunworthy of political office. Consider:“You can't possibly understand menopause because you are a man.”“Those rules don't apply to me since I am older than you.”Consider the following excerpt from Chris Horner’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming: “People weretraveling more (vehicle-miles traveled were up by 140 percent), the U.S. Gross Domestic Product was up 147 percent, andU.S. population climbed 33 percent. Still, air pollution fell. For eight years, Clinton-Gore took credit for these gains—which had been under way for decades—while they simultaneously claimed tens of thousands of annual deaths from airpollution whenever such claims could justify greater regulatory controls. <strong>Some</strong>how, though, environmentalist groups andthe media woke up on the rainy day of President George W. Bush’s inauguration and found that there was no good news.Things were getting worse, every day, we were told, every day. This gloomy drumbeat for years doubtless laid thefoundation for what Gallup concluded in its 2005 annual “Earth Day” poll. That march, 63 percent of Americans polledsaid the environment was getting worse, even though the positive, long-running positive trends continued during the Bushadministration.” (Cf. Chapter 3: The Sky is Falling)
Ad verecundiam (Shame): (Latin: Verecundia: “shame”). This fallacy, otherwise known as the fallacy of misplacedauthority, consists of appealing to the testimony of an authority on an issue that is outside his or her proper field ofexpertise."My doctor assured me that Fords are the best cars. Therefore, I'm going to buy a Ford. After all, he is a doctor."Consulting Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry, Physics, and Medicine in order that they may shed light on world issuesand offer political solutions to the world's problems is also an instance of the fallacy of misplaced authority. Anothermode of this fallacy consists in appealing to an authority in order to shame an opponent in debate: “Who are you to argueagainst his point of view. He’s got a Ph.D. What do you have?”Ad Populum (The Fallacy of Appeal to the People): This fallacy occurs when a speaker attempts to get some group toagree to a particular position by appealing solely to their bigotry, biases, and prejudices or, in some cases, merely to theirdesire to hear what they already believe. As an example, consider the election when Canadian politicians appealed to thepeople's fears about medicare and began to accuse the Conservative Party (then Alliance Party) of advocating a two tieredheath care system. They were appealing to their prejudices, but they were not engaged in rational argument.The Fallacy of Appeal to Ignorance: I have been tempted to call this the fallacy of an appeal to awareness. Very oftena person will imply that a claim is false because he or even most people are unaware of what it is one is claiming to be thecase. In her interview with Ben Shapiro, Alyona Minkovski began by asking viewers: “When you watch some of themost popular television shows, do you feel like you’re being brainwashed to conform to a Liberal agenda?” The answer,for most people, is clearly no. But that is irrelevant. No conclusion can be drawn from this fact; for if a person is aliberal, then they are not going to feel as if they are being “brainwashed to conform to a Liberal agenda”. If a person isnot a liberal, he or she might see things differently. Who sees more clearly? Awareness or lack of awareness does notsettle the issue. I was completely unaware of how inappropriate prime time television was until I started watching TVwith my 5 year old daughter. When I travel through the American South or through the province of Quebec, I am notaware of any racism towards black people, but that does not mean there isn’t any. Two of my black colleagues are veryaware of being treated differently in these places; my lack of awareness is the result of the fact that I am not black.The fallacy of appeal to ignorance occurs whenever someone concludes that a claim is false because it has not beenproved to be true, or is true because it has not been proved to be false. For example, “Much effort has been spent tryingto show that people do not communicate with one another through mental telepathy, and yet no one has succeeded inshowing that telepathy does not occur. That is why we argue that communication through mental telepathy occurs”. Or,after listening to a debate, one says something to the effect that: “For all we know, he could be making this up; perhapssomeone could argue the opposite. Who’s to know?”The Fallacy of False Cause (Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc): This fallacy consists in assuming that when one event precedesanother, it is the cause of the succeeding event. Consider the following:“On the road I travel to the mall in Wheaton, Md., two white men severely beat two black women Tuesday. One wasdoused with lighter fluid, and her attacker tried to set her afire. Both men cursed the women for being black. I couldn'thelp but shudder: That could have been me. This heinous act happened only hours after Pat Buchanan voters gave him 30percent of the vote in the Maryland GOP presidential primary." — USA Today columnist and former "Inquiry" pageeditor Barbara Reynolds, March 6, 1992.”The Fallacy of Begging the Question: This involves assuming the point that needs to be proven. One ends up arguing ina vicious circle. For example, to show that abortion is a basic right and thus should be enshrined in law, a person argues:All rights should be enshrined in law.Abortion is a basic human right.Therefore, abortion should be enshrined in law.The problem is that the person must show that abortion is a basic human right. He merely assumes the point that he needsto establish.As an example, consider the following argument for Same-Sex Marriage legislation:
Page 1: Some Basic Logical FallaciesDcn Dou
Page 5: moderation. Cowardice is a vice not

Some Basic Logical Fallacies

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?