How to Argue Against Common Fallacies
Species of Fallacious Arguments
The common fallacies are usefully divided into three categories: Fallacies of Relevance, Fallacies of
Unacceptable Premises, and Formal Fallacies. Many of these fallacies have Latin names, perhaps because
medieval philosophers were particularly interested in informal logic. You don’t need to know the Latin
names: what’s important is being able to recognize the fallacies.
Fallacies of Relevance
Fallacies of relevance offer reasons to believe a claim or conclusion that, on examination, turn out to not
in fact be reasons to do any such thing.
1. The ‘Who are you to talk?’, or ‘You Too’, or Tu Quoque Fallacy
Rejecting an argument because the person advancing it fails to practice what he or she preaches.
Responses like that probably sound familiar. But the doctor’s failure to look after her own health is
irrelevant to the argument, resting on a concern for the patient’s health, that the patient should quit
smoking.
2. The Red Herring Fallacy.
An arguer tries to sidetrack his or her audience by raising an irrelevant issue and then claims that the
original issue has effectively been settled by the irrelevant diversion.
Plans to eliminate or reduce pesticides probably don’t entail stopping the production of common
vegetables: the suggestion that they do is an irrelevant red herring.
3. The Strawman Fallacy.
Someone distorts or caricatures an opponent’s arguments or views, and then attacks the weakened
version rather than the real argument.
Roger claims that Margaret is proposing measures that would eliminate cars. Margaret has not said
anything equivalent to that. It’s a strawman.
A positive message from the Strawman: the importance of being charitable.
Showing that a strawman version of a position we oppose may win a debate, but it is unlikely to move us
toward the truth. If we can show that even the strongest version of a position we oppose is flawed, we
may make progress.
So good logical and critical thinking leads to the principle of charity: When representing an argument
that you do not agree with and are attempting to evaluate, it is important to represent that argument in
a way that is reasonably faithful to the argument as it is made by the originators, and as strong as
possible.
4. The Ad Hominem or ‘At the Person’ Fallacy.
Rejecting someone’s argument by attacking the person rather than evaluating their argument on its
merits.
But if Myer has given arguments in favour of his view, we should evaluate them like any other argument
– are they valid? Strong? Sound? Cogent? (we’ll explain these terms in the course) – rather than writing
them off because of facts about him.
Sometimes, however, an arguer’s position may be a reason to examine their arguments more carefully
than we might otherwise.
The following does not appear fallacious:
5. Fallacious Appeal to Authority.
Relying upon the view of apparent (as opposed to genuine) authorities to settle the truth of a statement
or argument.
Newsreaders look well informed, but they are essentially presenters. They are well known because
they’re on the news: not because they know about investments. If we rely upon a newsreader’s
endorsement to settle which investment fund we should trust, we would be accepting a claim without
adequate evidence. That would be a fallacious appeal to authority.
Appeals to authority also conflict with the basic tenet of good logical and critical thinking which calls
upon us to take responsibility for evaluating the grounds for our beliefs. Adopting a belief merely
because someone else simply told us it was true is a way of avoiding good logical and critical thinking.
Sometimes, however, good logical and critical thinking will itself lead us to rely on genuine authorities. If
I can’t assess the investment option for myself, I might reason that I should trust the advice of a genuine
investment advisor. That’s not avoiding logical and critical thinking: it’s reasoning about a matter related
indirectly to the question I’m trying to settle.
When I consider whether I should rely on a genuine authority, I should consider the following questions:
1. Is the authority a genuine authority: are they experts?
2. Are they giving advice in the areas within which they are a genuine authority? (We should listen
to actors about acting; not so much about investing or medicine).
3. Is there a broad consensus among authorities in the area? If not, we should not decide to
believe X solely because an authority says X is true, since other genuine authorities say that X
isn’t true.
4. Is the authority speaking sincerely (they might be giving an endorsement because they’re paid to
do so) and are they free of obvious bias?
Only if the answer to all four of these questions is “yes” should we accept a claim because an authority
endorses it, and even then, we should only do so if we are not in a position to evaluate the evidence for
the claim ourselves.
5. The Fallacy of Composition.
Arguing that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole. (All of the parts of the object O have
the property P. Therefore, O has the property P.)
Sadly, for Tim, a long-suffering Blues Fan, the conclusion of this argument was false even though the
premises were true.
And, showing that famous philosophers are not immune:
6. The Fallacy of Division.
Arguing that what is true of the whole must be true of the parts. (The opposite of the fallacy of
composition: Object O has the property P. Therefore all the parts of the object O have the property P.)
Tim would have to be taller than 188cm/6ft 2in to be taller than Sharapova: he’s not.
7. Equivocation.
A key word is used in two or more senses in the same argument and the apparent success of the
argument depends on the shift in meaning.
When the two senses of ‘law’ (laws regulating human conduct vs. uniformities of nature) are made
explicit, it is apparent that the first premise is irrelevant, hence a fallacious argument.
And, showing that famous philosophers are not immune again, we see John Stuart Mill arguing that
happiness is desirable:
But ‘desirable’ is used in two different ways in this passage, to mean ‘can be desired’ (just like ‘visible’
means ‘can be seen’) and ‘worthy of being desired’.
8. Appeal to Popularity.
Arguing that a claim must be true because lots of people believe it.
Perhaps the Bible is true, but the fact lots of people believe it to be so is irrelevant to whether it is or
not. We should investigate and evaluate their reasons for believing it, rather than taking the mere fact
that they believe it as a reason to do so.
But … sometimes a consensus among properly informed people may be a fairly good guide to the truth
of a claim: see the circumstances in which an appeal to authority might not be fallacious.
9. Appeal to Tradition.
Like appeals to popularity except the appeal is to how long something has been believed, rather than to
the number of people who have believed it
But all of the objections to arguments from majority belief apply here, too.
10. Appeal to Ignorance: Argumentum Ad Ignorantiam.
The arguer asserts that a claim must be true because no one has proven it false, or that a claim must be
false because no one has proven it to be true.
Note: When we describe someone as ignorant, we often mean it as an insult. Here we use it to describe
the situation in which we do not know (are ignorant of) something. In this sense, the smartest of us are
ignorant of quite a lot. (We don’t want any equivocation in our use of the term ‘ignorant’).
Both claims assume that the lack of evidence for (or against) a claim is good reason to believe that the
claim is false (or true). Ignorance – in the sense of a lack of knowledge – features as part of the proof of
the conclusion. But in general, the mere fact that a claim has not yet been proven is not enough reason
to think that claim is false.
However, are there some non fallacious appeals to ignorance?
a) If qualified researchers have used well-designed methods to search for something for a long
time, without success, and it’s the kind of thing people ought to be able to find, then the fact
that they haven’t found it might constitute some evidence that it doesn’t exist.
b) Some practices (e.g. law – see week 6) require us to reject a claim until a certain standard of
proof is met: the presumption that defendants are innocent until proven guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt for example.
11. Appeals to Emotion – e.g., pity, affection.
An arguer attempts to evoke feelings of pity or compassion, when such feelings are not logically relevant
to the arguer’s conclusion.
That would be an appeal to emotion, in this case love. Note that the persistent child might continue:
That would be a strawman, not contemplated by the father or entailed by his actual view, and attacking
that. Being able to spot the common fallacies can be very useful in the home.
Remember, there are three species of fallacies. The Fallacies of Relevance sketched so far attempt to
introduce premises that are irrelevant to the conclusion.
Fallacies of Unacceptable Premises
Fallacies of Unacceptable Premises attempt to introduce premises that, while they may be relevant,
don’t support the conclusion of the argument.
12. Begging the Question.
In philosophy, unlike in many other areas, ‘begging the question’ does not mean ‘raises a question which
must be answered’. In philosophy, when someone begs the
Question, they state or assume as a premise the very thing they are trying to prove as a conclusion.
The Bible could only be divinely inspired if God existed. So Arthur’s appeal to the Bible to prove the
existence of God assumes the very thing he’s trying to prove.
13. False Dilemma or False Dichotomy.
Occurs when an argument presents two options and gives the impression that only one of them may be
true, never both, and that there are no other possible options.
It’s possible that Shakespeare didn’t write all of the plays attributed to him, but that doesn’t mean Bacon
did: there are other possibilities.
In the Shakespeare/Bacon case the false dilemma was explicit (either Shakespeare wrote all the plays …
or Bacon did), but often the dilemma is implicit.
If I spend all of the week partying, I won’t have time to study and I’ll fail. If I spend all week studying, I’ll
be over-prepared and stressed and I’ll fail. So I’m going to fail either way. I might as well spend the week
partying.
Here the dilemma is unstated – “The only options are to spend all week studying or to spend all week
partying” – and once stated it surely isn’t plausible: the student could spend some of the week studying
and some of the week partying?
14. Decision Point Fallacy or the Sorites Paradox.
Sometimes the conditions that make the use of a term appropriate vary along a continuum and there is
no sharp cut off between circumstances in which the term is correctly applied and those in which it is
not.
If an arguer claims that because we cannot identify a precise cut-off or decision point, we cannot
distinguish between correct and incorrect uses of the term, they are arguing fallaciously.
But we can tell the difference between people who are bald and not bald, between heaps and non-
heaps, and embryos and babies, even if we can’t tell exactly when something stopped being one thing
and became the other.
15. The Slippery Slope Fallacy.
Arguers say that an innocent-looking first step should not be taken because once taken, it will be
impossible not to take the next, and the next, and so on, until you end up in a position you don’t want to
be in.
Slippery Slope arguments are fallacious if it is possible to stop at one of the steps: couldn’t I get a credit
card with a maximum, or exercise a bit of control, or get the local animal protection society to help me
feed the dog?
16. Hasty Generalisations.
Arguer draws a general conclusion from a sample that is biased or too small.
The claim that smoking carries significant health risks isn’t falsified by a single case and trials drawing
population wide conclusions must recruit representative study- populations.
17. Faulty Analogies.
The conclusion of an argument depends upon a comparison between two (or more) things that are not
actually similar in relevant respects, or without pointing out how the two differ and why it does or does
not matter. (See reasoning by analogy in Week 6).
Are visits to after-hours medical clinics with a sick child analogous to visits to a gas station or a
restaurant?
18. And … the Fallacy Fallacy!
The fallacy of inferring that merely because an argument contains a fallacy, its conclusion must be false.
The conclusion of an argument may be true, even if the argument contains a fallacy. Finding a fallacy just
means that the arguer needs to look for other, better reasons in support of their conclusion.
Formal Fallacies
The third species of fallacy are Formal Fallacies. Some arguments are fallacious not because of their
content – because of what they say – but because of their form or structure. Any argument with these
forms or structures will be invalid, no matter what content we put into them.
Patrick will talk a little more about the standard forms or structures of arguments in weeks 2 to 4. The
most familiar versions have some number of premises, followed by a conclusion, and if they’re valid
(Patrick will talk about that in week 3) the truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion.
There are some common argument forms, however, which look quite like the valid versions, but which
are not valid. Here we’re just going to identify two formal fallacies that will come up later in the course.
19. Affirming the consequent.
Suppose I have a guard dog, Brutus, and I’m confident he will bark if an intruder comes into my house.
I might reason like this:
That’s valid: If it’s true that Brutus will bark if there’s an intruder, and if Brutus hasn’t barked, then there
can’t be an intruder.
If the premises are true, then the conclusion must be true too. But what if I reason like this:
That’s not valid. Why? Well the premises might be true, but the first premise doesn’t say that Brutus will
bark if and only if there’s an intruder.
The first premise can be true – that is it can be the case that Brutus will bark if there’s an intruder – even
if Brutus occasionally barks for other reasons as well.
Notice that you can’t respond here “Oh, the burglar might have fed Brutus tranquilized steak. That’s why
he hasn’t barked. There is a burglar!” That rejects the first premise (If there’s an intruder, Brutus will
bark), and we’re seeing what happens if the premises are true. So here, if the premises are true, the
conclusion must follow.
20. Denying the Antecedent.
Suppose I hear barking and reason like this:
That’s valid. If the premises are true – if it’s true that if it barks it’s a dog and it barks – then the
conclusion must be true too.
But what if I reason like this:
That’s not valid. The first premise says that if something barks then it’s a dog (i.e., that only dogs bark),
but it doesn’t say that every dog barks. So we can’t be sure that the conclusion of this second argument
is true even if the premises are true.
It might be true that something doesn’t bark (i.e., the antecedent is false, or denied, as the second
premise says), but is a dog.
