Fallacies

• Fallacies are flaws in an argument. There are

many types of flaws that can occur in an
argument, such as confusing cause and effect;
failling to meet necessary conditions;
attacking the character of a person rather
than evaluating their reasoning;
misrepresentation; and using emotive
language.
• Arguments may be flawed because:
• The authors did not recognize that their own
arguments were flawed
• The authors intended to mislead their
audiences and deliberately distorted the
reasoning or misused language to create
particular responses.
• We are going to study fallacies for two
reasons. The first is to help you avoid them in
your own thinking and identify them when
they are used against you in debate.
Forewarned is forearmed. The second reason
is that understanding why these patterns of
argument are fallacious will help us
understand the nature of good reasoning.
• False analogies
• An analogy is a comparison made to draw out
similarities between two things.
• In creative writing (poetry), analogies are
acceptable whatever their nature. But in
critical thinking, analogies are valid when they
help to give more accurate understanding of
the argument.
• Examples
• The heart works as a pump, moving blood through the
body by opening and constricting.
• Cloning of human cells should never be allowed: it will
create another Frankenstein’s monster. We do not want
such monsters.
• As the basis of an argument, the premises are like the
foundations of a building. If the premises are not well-
founded, the argument is likely to collapse.
• Guns are like hammers—they’re both tools with metal
parts that could be used to kill someone. And yet it would
be ridiculous to restrict the purchase of hammers—so
restrictions on purchasing guns are equally ridiculous.
• Deflection, complicity and exclusion
• Language can be used skilfully to construct a
powerful argument. However, it can also be
used in ways that are unfair and which
produce flaws in the line of reasoning.
• Deflective language
• An author can use language to suggest there is no
need to prove the argument, deflecting the
audience from critically evaluating the reasoning.
• - Suggesting the argument is proved by using
words such as: obviuosly, of course, clearly,
naturally.
• Appeals to modern thinking.
« We are not in the 19th century, it is no longer
1940, it is like being back in the dark age » deflect
the audience from critical reasoning.
• Encouraging complicity
• - Everybody knows, as we all know, we all know
that, surely, we all share the view that, everyone
believes, it is well established that.
• ‘People like us’: in-groups and out groups.
Examples:
Anyone with any sense knows that women are
naturally better at housework than men.
• As British/ Catholics/ Muslims/Amazigh we are all
want…
• Emotive language
• Emotive language uses words, phrases and
examples that intend to provoke an emotional
response. Some subjects such as nation,
identity, heaven, honor, children…are emotive.
Using these unnecessarily as arguments can
manipulate the audience’s emotions.
• Example of emotive language:
• Closing the community centre will leave our poor
children with nowhere to play after school.
Parents are rightly furious. After the death of five
childern from the area on a school canoeing trip,
feelings are running very high. The
neighbourhood just cannot take any more. If the
community centre closes, parents will worry that
their childern are being left to suffer all over
again.
• Appeal to authority
• Often we add strength to our arguments by
referring to respected sources or authorities and
explaining their positions on the issues we’re
discussing. If, however, we try to get readers to
agree with us simply by impressing them with a
famous name or by appealing to a supposed
authority who really isn’t much of an expert, we
commit the fallacy of appeal to authority.
• An authority is someone whose word carries
special weight, someone who can speak with
authority because of expertise in some area of
knowledge such as law, science, or medicine.
It is perfectly appropriate to rely on the
testimony of authorities if the conditions of
credibility are satisfied. If they are not
satisfied, however, the appeal to authority is
fallacious
• Example
• We should abolish the death penalty. Many
respected people, such as actor Guy
Handsome, have publicly stated their
opposition to it.
• To solve our transportation problems, we have
to put more money into mass transit. CBS
News said so last night.
• Ad populum/Appeal to Majority
• The Latin name of this fallacy means “to the
people.” There are several versions of the ad
populum fallacy, but in all of them, the arguer
takes advantage of the desire most people
have to be liked and to fit in with others and
uses that desire to try to get the audience to
accept his or her argument.
• The fallacy of appeal to majority is committed
whenever someone takes a proposition to be
true merely because large numbers of people
believe it (regardless of whether those people
actually constitute a majority).
• Example:
Gay marriages are just immoral. 70% of
Americans think so!
• Attacking the person/Ad Hominem
• Argumentation implies taking counter
arguments into account. This means making a
critical analysis of the line of reasoning, not
using personal attacks on those with opposing
views. Attacks on a person rather then the
argument are often used to undermine the
credibility of an opposing point of view- but it
is not a valid method of critical thinking.
• An ad hominem argument rejects or dismisses
another person’s statement by attacking the
person rather than the statement itself. As we
will see, there are many different forms of this
fallacy, but all of them involve some attempt
to avoid dealing with a statement logically,
and in each case the method is to attempt to
discredit the speaker by citing some negative
trait.
• Example of attacking the person:
• Andrea Dworkin has written several books arguing that
pornography harms women. But Dworkin is just ugly
and bitter, so why should we listen to her?
• How can you say that animals have rights and should
not be killed, when you eat meat?
• John Stuart Mill says that happiness is the oscillation
between tranquillity and excitement. But he spent
years dealing with terrible depression, so he can’t
really know what happiness is.
• Straw Man
• In the straw man fallacy, someone attacks a
position the opponent does not really hold.
Instead of contending with the actual
argument, he or she instead attacks the
equivalent of a bundle of straw.
• Example:
• A) Because of global warming we should create
incentives to purchacing electric cars and impose more
taxes on old diesel ones.
• B) The Senator thinks the environment is such a wreck
that no one’s car choice or driving habits would make
the slightest difference.”
• Feminists want to ban all pornography and punish
everyone who looks at it! But such harsh measures are
surely inappropriate, so the feminists are wrong: porn
and its fans should be left in peace.
• Hasty Generalization
• Hasty generalizations are general statements
without sufficient evidence to support them.
They are general claims too hastily made, hence
they commit some sort of illicit assumption,
stereotyping, unwarranted conclusion,
overstatement, or exaggeration.
• A simple way to avoid hasty generalizations is to
add qualifiers like “sometimes,” "maybe,"
"often," or "it seems to be the case that . . . ".
• Example of hasty generalization
• People nowadays only vote with their
emotions instead of their brains.
• My roommate said her philosophy class was
hard, and the one I’m in is hard, too. All
philosophy classes must be hard!
• Post Hoc fallacy (after this fallacy)
• The Latin name of this fallacy is short for post hoc ergo propter hoc: “after
this, therefore because of this.” The fallacy has to do with causality, and it
has the structure: A occurred before B A caused B Such reasoning is
fallacious because many events that precede a given event have nothing
to do with it, as in the old joke: “Why are you whistling?” “To keep the
elephants away.” “But there aren’t any elephants around here.” “See? It
works.”

• This fallacy happens when you mistake something for the cause just
because it came first.
• Example:
• “Yesterday, I walked under a ladder with an open umbrella indoors. That
must be why I am having such a bad day today. It is bad luck.”
• President Jones raised taxes, and then the rate of violent crime went up.
Jones is responsible for the rise in crime.
• Two Wrongs do not Make a Right
• Another form of flawed argument is to argue that
an action is acceptable simply because someone
else acted in a similar way. Similarly, it is usually
considered to be flawed reasoning to argue for
consistent treatment when this would mean that
an injustice or an illogical outcome was
perpetuated by doing so. For example, if one
person cheats in an exam, then it is not
reasonable to argue that other people should be
able to cheat too.
• Example:
• The opposing party is wrong to condemn the
leader of the council for selling off public
assets at a low price to its own supporters.
When the opposition had a majority in the
council, they sold off cemeteries and houses
below the commercial price, benefiting their
own supporters. If they can do it, then the
current council can do it too.
• Analyze the following texts
• At a rally in September, one of the few African
Americans in the audience asked Moore when
America was last "great." He responded: "I
think it was great at the time when families
were united — even though we had slavery —
they cared for one another. ... Our families
were strong, our country had a direction."
• "It seems that every day, Bitcoin seems to hit a
new high. But the reported price can move up and
down by $1,000 or so within a few hours. This
might have made it a great investment for those
who got in at the right price and are nimble
enough to get out in time. But it doesn't make it a
useful means of exchange. When the price is
rising fast, those who use bitcoin will be reluctant
to part with it; when the price falls, those who sell
goods will be reluctant to accept it."
• Turkey’s top religious body, the Directorate of
Religious Affairs (Diyanet), has issued a fatwa
on hair dye, stating that dyeing men’s hair black is
inappropriate according to Islam.
• “Dyeing the hair, beard or mustache is
permissible as long as the purpose is not to
deceive people. But dyeing a man’s hair black is
never permissible, according to Islamic rules. It is
considered inappropriate,” the statement read,
responding to a question via its official website.