Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings)
·
ad hominem
tu quoque. (to the
person- and you also)
·
Related ad
hominem Fallacies
·
Related
False Dilemma Fallacies
4) Misplacing the Burden of Proof
6) Appeals to Emotion Fallacies
A fallacy is a “mistake in reasoning.” Specifically, it's believing that you have
been given warrant to accept the claim or to dismiss a
claim when in fact you have not. There
are all kinds of different fallacies.
1) There a formal
fallacies. Here the mistake is taking a
formally invalid argument as providing warrant for its
conclusions when in fact the collection of premises is irrelevant to the
conclusion. These turn upon mistakes on formal
logical structures.
E.g. #1
All spheres
cast curved shadows.
The Earth
casts a curved shadow.
Therefore:
The Earth is
a sphere.
We have not covered this formal fallacy yet, but as we shall see
in a matter of weeks, this argument form suffers from the flaw of an
undistributed middle term. But we need
not get into the details of syllogistic logic to realize that, while spheres do
indeed cast curved shadows, so do disks.
So the fact that the earth casts a curve shadow
does not guarantee that the earth is a sphere.
It may be a disk (Just like Terry Pratchett thought.)
E.g. #2
If my
theory “T” is true, then I will have experimental observation “O.”
I have
experimental observation “O.”
Therefore:
My theory
“T” is true.
But close attention to form shows that this is the fallacy of
“Affirming the Consequence.”[1] Notice if I said, “If you pass the final
exam, you will pass the course.” and then you
discovered that you passed the course, it would be a mistake for you to
conclude that you passed the exam. I did
not say you will pass the course only if you pass the exam. I
only said passing the exam is a way of passing the course, but not necessarily
the only way. You might have a passing
average without actually passing the exam itself. But
passing the exam would guarantee that you passed the course. That's what my
initial conditional said. For more on standard formal fallacies, you may wish
to revisit my notes on formal
logic from earlier in the course.
2) But in
this module we are looking at informal fallacies.
These fallacies do not turn on an
inappropriate formal relationship between the premises offered as warrant and
the conclusion, but rather the fact that, while there may be a psychological
connection or emotional connection between these items, there is in fact no
logical connection between what is offered as warrant and what is presented as
the conclusion. These fallacies trick us
(sometimes) into accepting the conclusion because the premises serve to
distract us from the actual issue at hand.
These distractions are in fact irrelevant to the issue. For these
reasons they are sometimes called “red herrings.”
We will look at several specific versions, but we could identify
many more if we wished. I think it is
more helpful to focus on what these fallacies have in common (i.e. they are fallacies of relevance)
so as to recognize any member of this family of
fallacies.
1. Ad Hominem (tu quoque , abusive, circumstantial)
2. Straw Man Fallacy
3. False Dilemma
Fallacies (also called a False Dichotomy)
4. Fallacies
involved in misplacing the burden of proof
5. Begging
the Question (also called circular reasoning)
6. Appeals to
emotion (fear, pity, anger)
7. Fallacies
involved in arriving at irrelevant conclusions
A fallacy is a mistake in reasoning, an argument that doesn't
really support or prove the contention it is supposed to support or prove.
Here is an example of a fallacy:
You
tell me it's dangerous to text when I'm driving, but I have seen YOU
doing it.
The speaker is dismissing someone's claim that it's dangerous to
drive and text. However, the fact offered
to support this contention, that the other person texts while he or she drives,
has no bearing on whether texting while driving is dangerous. It is irrelevant to the issue at hand.
If one offers this as a way of disputing the initial claim or argument,
one is committed a fallacy - a mistake in reasoning. (And if one accepts it, one has fallen for a
fallacy.) More precisely, this is a
relevance fallacy, because the countercharge, “I have seen you doing it.” is
not relevant to the question at issue.
What’s
the issue?
“Is
texting while driving dangerous?”
What
is being offered as a relevant fact to the issue.
“You
do it.”
But “I have seen you doing it.” is NOT relevant to the issue in
question (i.e. whether texting while driving is dangerous).
The name translates as "argument to the person."
One commits this fallacy if one thinks that by dismissing the
person presenting a position, idea, proposal, claim, argument, etc., (or trying
to at least), one simultaneously is dismissing the position
itself.
There are three main types of ad hominem attack:
1.
Tu Quoque: more Latin (meaning "you
too!"). You point to similar faults in your opponent when your actions or
character is called into question. More generally: you point to a fault
elsewhere to draw attention away from the fault being discussed.
2.
Abusive: you simply attack the character or
rationality of your opponent (or a group to which the opponent belongs like
"liberals" or "pro-lifers")
3.
Circumstantial: you point to circumstances
which make your opponent to imply that your opponent
is untrustworthy or suspect.
ad hominem tu
quoque. (to the person- and you also)
The texting and driving example above is
an ad hominem. More
specifically this is an ad hominem tu quoque.
Even if I went on to say:
Not
only have I seen you drive and text, but just last week you were saying it isn't
dangerous to do that.
This too is an argumentum ad hominem.
Instead of addressing whether it is dangerous to
text and drive, I am still talking about the other person.
Accusations of one’s opponent doing a "flip-flop" are
standard in political campaigns, despite the fact that
a person's being inconsistent or changing his or her mind has no bearing on the
wisdom of his or her position, either now or at any other time.
Now, if the issue happens to BE the
consistency or uniformity in commitment to certain values, that is a different issue/question. In that case, maybe a history
of flipflopping is an important question. But that is NOT what is at issue
here. Here the issue is whether texting
while driving is dangerous. And the
person is merely changing the subject.
Here is a different kind of example of argumentum ad hominem:
Q:
What do you think about the president's proposal for expanding Medicaid?
A:
It's ridiculous. He is a self-serving politician who just wants the votes of
those with low incomes.
This is an ad hominem
abusive. Here, the speaker is just
bad-mouthing the president, which doesn't tell us anything at all about the
strengths or weaknesses of the president's proposal. If the speaker wants to show that the president's
proposal is ridiculous, the speaker needs to talk about the proposal, not
the person making the proposal or what may or may not be his motivations.
Another slightly different example:
You
need not take seriously Father Hennessey’s arguments to establish the moral impermissibility
of abortion because Father Hennessey is a Catholic priest and priests are
required to hold such views.
This is not an ad hominem abusive
(unless you think calling someone a Catholic priest is an insult 😊), but
rather an ad hominem circumstantial.
The speaker in this example isn't exactly bad-mouthing Father Hennessey,
but he or she is still talking about the person offering the argument and isn't
talking about what Father Hennessey actually said. She or he is referencing a circumstance of
Father Hennessey (i.e. being a Catholic priest). If someone gave you this argument, you
wouldn't have the faintest idea what Father Hennessey actually
thinks the grounds for the impermissibility of abortion are, let alone
what is wrong with his moral reasoning.
Poisoning the Well
Attacking the person's consistency or character or circumstances
and by so doing, impugning their position.
Here one tries to undermine the validity of the claim being made by
asserting it comes from a suspect source.
But, for instance, some have alleged that Hitler was a vegetarian. What does this fact, even if true, have to do
with the propriety of a vegetarian lifestyle?
Nothing. If that’s the issue
under discussion, it would be irrelevant.
Guilt by Association
Outside of logic classes, the phrase "guilt by
association" refers to the concept that a person is judged by the company
he or she keeps. For example, if you
hang out with unsavory people, then others may think that you too have unsavory
qualities. But here we have something
else in mind. Here we use the phrase to
denote a very common version of the argumentum ad hominem. The fallacy Guilt
by Association occurs when a speaker or writer tries to persuade us to
dismiss a belief by telling us that someone we don't
like has that belief.
For example:
You
think waterboarding is torture? That sounds like something these left-wing, ivy
tower college professors would say.
What is the speaker’s intent here?
For
listeners to dismiss the idea that waterboarding is torture.
What “reason” has been offered?
That
idea is associated with "left-wing, ivy tower college professors."
The argument isn't a straightforward argumentum ad hominem, because
the speaker doesn't imply that "left-wing college professors" came up
with the idea that waterboarding is torture. He or she is just saying that they likely have
that idea. The fact that the idea is associated
with such people is offered as a reason for dismissing it. The belief is "guilty" by virtue of
its alleged association with supposedly left-wing college professors.
Genetic Fallacy
Here the suggestion is criticized because of the circumstances of
its origins.
God
is just an idea people came up with way back before they had science.
The speaker is dismissing the idea of God because of its origin. But keep in mind a lot of innovative
scientific revolutions originated quite by accident. Einstein allegedly came up with the idea of
general relativity while riding on the trolley car and wondering what it would
be like if he were riding on a beam of light. The chemical structure of benzene occurred to Friedrich
August Kekulé while he was dozing by the fire. He claimed to have seemed to have seen
serpents biting at their tails. Penicillin
was discovered by accident as well. But
the accuracy of the benzene molecular structure or the effectiveness of
penicillin have nothing to do with the origins of these ideas.
Straw Man Fallacy[2]
This is an attempt to dismiss a contention by distorting or
misrepresenting it in such a way as to make it appear absurd or otherwise
easily defeated.
Q:
Should we outlaw large ammunition clips?
A:
Disarming everyone, leaving them weak and vulnerable to criminal armed attacks is
ridiculous and dangerous.
Well, what A has said might very well be true, But
that is not what is at issue here. No
one is proposing “disarming everyone,” at least not in this context.
You:
I think we should legalize medical marijuana.
Your
friend: Maybe you think
everyone should go around stoned, but I think that's absurd.
Straw Man: So rather than
defeat one’s actual opponent one attacks a “straw man,” easily
defeated, in part, because he can't strike back. Defeating the Straw Man leaves the actual
opponent unscathed.
False
Dilemma Fallacy (Ignoring other alternatives)
The False Dilemma (also called a false dichotomy) is a fallacy
that happens when someone tries to establish a conclusion by offering it as the
only alternative to something we will find unacceptable, unattainable, or
implausible.
Premise
1: We must either completely eliminate Social Security
or our country will go bankrupt.
Premise
2 : (Implied, but unstated premise) We
must not allow our country to go bankrupt.
Therefore:
We
must eliminate Social Security completely.
This looks like a disjunctive syllogism and in fact it is. There is nothing really wrong
with the form of this argument.
It is a valid argument form:
Either
A or B
Not
B
Therefore
A
So it is not a formal fallacy. However, it is an informal fallacy because the
speaker is falsely suggesting that there are only two options, when in fact
there are more than two. Similarly:
Either
we allow the oil companies to drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico or we will be
at the mercy of OPEC. Therefore, we shouldn't prevent the oil companies from
drilling for oil in the Gulf.
Same fallacy here. Are
these really the only two alternatives?
(No.)
Related False Dilemma Fallacies:
The Perfectionist Fallacy & The
Line-Drawing Fallacy
Two false dilemma arguments are so common that they have their own
names. One is called the Perfectionist Fallacy. The other is called the Line-Drawing
Fallacy.
Perfectionist Fallacy
The fallacy is committed when a speaker or writer ignores options
between "perfection" and "nothing." Here's an example:
Increasing
restrictions on assault weapons will not end gun violence in this country. So there's no reason to do it.
Though the proposal may not be perfect, this alone is no reason to
suggest that it would not be effective and worthwhile to any degree.
Line-Drawing Fallacy
This fallacy occurs when a speaker or writer assumes that either a
crystal-clear line can be drawn between two things, or else there is no
difference between them. Here is an example:
It
doesn't make sense to say that someone is rich. After all, nobody can say just
how much money a person has to have in order to be
"rich."
Even if there is no sharply drawn and
universally agreed on line between state A and state B, that does not mean in
and of itself that it is impossible to distinguish between state A and state B. We have many vague, but perfectly serviceable,
words (as we noted earlier in the course: e.g. twilight, bald, flat, etc.). The fact that there is no precise line drawn
between being bald and not being bald does not mean there is no difference
between being bald and not being bald.
There are individuals who are clearly bald, others who are clearly not
bald and then the borderline cases in the middle.
Misplacing the Burden of Proof
This fallacy occurs when people try to support or prove their own position
by misplacing the burden of proof on those who reject it. Here is an example:
There
is no reason NOT to believe in the healing power of crystals since no one has
conclusively shown they do not have healing powers.
The old debaters’ motto is: The one who asserts must prove.[3] That’s fairly right.
In general, if what I am asserting is something exceptional or conflicts with
common sense, then the burden of proof falls to me.
Another example:
Guns
should be outlawed. Give me one good
reason for thinking they shouldn't.
The speaker has incorrectly shifted the burden of proof to the
listener, despite the fact that it is the speaker who
is making the assertion. In point of fact, the United States Constitution is
interpreted as giving people the right to own a gun, so the burden of proof is
on the speaker to explain why the right does not in fact exist or why the right
should be removed.
Related fallacy: When someone asserts that we should believe a
claim because nobody has proved it false, the fallacy is a version of
misplacing the burden of proof known as Appeal to Ignorance.
Special Legal Burden of Proof
Of course, in a criminal court, the burden of proof always falls
on the prosecution. The defense is not required to prove innocence of the
accused. To win the case, it must only prevent
the prosecution from succeeding in its attempt to prove guilt beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Begging the Question Fallacy (Begin my
assuming what you are supposedly trying to prove)
In everyday language, to beg the question has lately come
to mean simply to raise the question. However, traditionally, and in
logic, Begging the Question means something else. A speaker or writer is
guilty of begging the question logically when he or she tries to
"support" a contention by offering as "evidence" what
amounts to a repackaging of the very contention in question. Were I to claim
that it is morally wrong to engage in human cloning because human cloning is
unethical, I am begging the question. My
conclusion here is that it is immoral to engage in human cloning. My premise is that “It is unethical to engage
in human cloning.” But my “premise”
assumes to be true what my conclusion states and is merely a restatement of it.
Incidentally, it might be worth noting that begging the question
arguments are all formally valid. That is, if the premises are true, then the
conclusion would have to be true. Consider
this argument.
Premise:
Snow is white.
Therefore:
Conclusion:
Snow is white.
If my premise is true, then my conclusion must be true, which is
the very definition of a formally valid argument. Nevertheless, this is a terrible argument
given that the purpose of an argument is to persuade. If you accept my premise, then you've already
accepted my conclusion, and so I have not persuaded you. On the other hand, if you don't accept my
premise, then you won't accept my conclusion on the basis of
that premise and therefore I have not persuaded you. This is what makes begging the question such a
terrible argument form.
Here the person evokes an emotional response on the part of the listener
so as to distract them from the fact that they have
offered no actual reason to accept the conclusion. Here are a few (in no particular order):
·
Appeal to Pity
·
Argument from Outrage
·
Scare Tactics
·
Peer Pressure Fallacy.
·
Apple Polishing
·
Guilt Tripping
·
Appeal to Envy
·
Appeal to Jealousy
Appeal to Pity
I'll merely elaborate a little bit on the first one on our list, “appeals
to emotions, in part because I get this one a lot. Students will come to me at the end of the
semester and tell me that I should award them a higher grade in my course
because if they don't pass my course with a higher grade, they will lose their
scholarships. Clearly what such a student
is trying to get me to do is to feel bad for him or her and award a grade sufficient
to prevent losing the scholarship.
However, if the issue is whether or not
they earned the grade that I have calculated for them, the fact that they will
lose their scholarship is irrelevant, an irrelevant appeal to my emotions,
specifically to pity. Sometimes lost on
students is that, the reason they might lose their
scholarship is because they really aren't very good students, as evidenced by
their poor performance in my class. But that's another story.
Nevertheless, you get the idea here. The nature of all these fallacies are to evoke in the hearer a kind of emotional response
which makes the hearer sympathetic to the conclusion that the fallacious
reasoner wants the hearer to support, be that emotion pity, anger, peer pressure,
et cetera.
Keep in mind that one might use these fallacious devices along
with more substantial logical arguments to bolster the arguments’ effectiveness. In other words, I might appeal to emotions in order to make my conclusion more emotionally attractive
to you and you might thereby accept an additional though very
weak argument as compelling, one you would have otherwise rejected.
What we've looked at are some of the most common fallacies of
relevance. These are patterns that occur with enough frequency that there is
some usefulness to categorizing them and thus making them a bit easier to
recognize.
However it would be impossible to enumerate categories sufficient that
cover all of the fallacies that occur where
conclusions are “supported” with irrelevant facts and there are diminishing
returns to attempting to get too fine-grained.
These others we can simply refer to as “fallacies of irrelevant
conclusion” as a generic umbrella term.
Epilogue:
Finally, if I pull a gun on you and tell you to give me your wallet,
I'm not committing a fallacy; I'm mugging you.