A guide to fallacies and non-A guide to fallacies and non-rational persuasionrational persuasion

APPEAL TO AUTHORITY- to cite an expert in a field unrelated to that person’s expertise as an authority on an issue

“If you stay you’ve got to do what we tell you,” Dill warned.

“We-el,” I said, “who’s so high and mighty all of a sudden?”

“If you don’t say you’ll do what we tell you, we ain’t gonna tell you anything,” Dill continued.

“You act like you grew ten inches in one night.” To Kill A Mockingbird

-Harper Lee, p. 53Explanation: Dill is setting himself up as an authority to be reckoned with, although he is not as superior as he makes himself out to be.

Appeal to Common Belief -use of common opinions and beliefs by

everyday people to help verify a claim

“Tom’s death was Typical. Typical of a nigger to cut and run. Typical of a nigger’s mentality to have no plan, no

thought for the future, just run blind first chance he saw…” To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee, pg. 253

Explanation: Appeals to a common stereotype (or common belief) to justify a person’s opinion about a race of people.

Common Practice-believing that something is moral because it is widespread

“We who have from our earliest years had our minds filled with scenes of war of which we have read in the books that we most reverence and admire, who have remarked it in every revolving century, and in every country that has been discovered by navigators…” -James Boswell

Explanation: The people have been surrounded by violence since childhood, and therefore war seems moral, but only because it is so common to them.

Two Wrongs- a basis of accepting things because others are doing things as equally wrong

Explanation: The writer is saying that the man should not tell him what to do, when he himself can’t even lead a sober life.

-”You say I shouldn’t drink, but you haven’t been sober for more than a year.” -The Elements of Logic

Stephen F. Baker

Indirect Consequences

- to reject an action based on the worst possible outcome which may even be illogical

Explanation: The author rejects any military action due to the “unknown” and possible consequences that could come with it.

“What should we do about Israel? They have the bomb. Does Hussein have the bomb? What if he did? It keeps eyes off the depression we’re heading toward or we’re already in. It keeps the focus off the Palestinian cause. It does a lot of things to prevent the pickle Bush was almost finding himself in.” -The Michigan Daily, 29 November 1990

Wishful Thinking-to justify an action based on best possible circumstances which may or may not be probable

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged…” -“I Have A Dream” speech,

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Explanation: MLK looks forward into the future in hope that the concrete things in society will someday change, although his dream is extremely idealistic.

APPEAL TO FEAR

“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to his brother, “Raca” is answerable to the sandhedrin. But anyone who says “you fool!” will be in danger of the fires of hell.”Matthew 5:12

-form of persuasion utilizing a direct or indirect threat to scare the listener into submission

Explanation: The author’s objective is to frighten people in order to prevent them from calling someone a fool.

Appeal to Pity

“Hale: Take courage, you must give us all their names. How can you bear to see this child suffering? Look at her Tituba. Look at her God-given innocence; her soul is so tender ,we must protect her Tituba; the Devil is out and preying on her like a beast upon the flesh of the pure lambs.” The Crucible -Arthur Miller

- tactic of persuasion that tugs on the heart strings of the listener, appealing to one’s emotions, rather than logic or fact

Explanation: Tituba is asked to tell the speaker what he wants to hear on the basis that innocent children are suffering.

Appeal to Spite

-an attempt to tap into the listener’s animosity toward a person, group, thing, or idea. Differs from appeal to prejudice in that an appeal to prejudice deals with a predisposition in the audience, while the appeal to spite can be a call to join the speaker in their outrage or frustration

“This warlike character of communist policy is reflected in party expressions such as “strongholds of reaction,” “mobilizing the masses,” “advanced detachments of the proletariat,” “storming the fortress of capitalism,” “seizing the initiative.” -Masters of Deceit,

J. Edgar Hoover

Explanation: Portrays J.E. Hoover’s disapproval for communist policy and invites the reader to join him in his outrage against the militant tactics of the communist government.

Appeal to Loyalty

“My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you- ask what you can do for your country.”

- John F. Kennedy, Inauguration Address, January 20, 1961

-appeal that deals with one’s sense of acting or deciding a certain way based on the group’s best interest; regardless of the facts or merit

Explanation: Works on the listener’s sense of patriotism to get them to see the speaker’s point of view.

Appeal to Prejudice

“The jew forms the strongest contrast to the Aryan. Hardly in any people of the world is the instinct of self-preservation more strongly developed than in the so-called “chosen people.”

Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler

-tactic of persuasion based on the audience’s preconceived notions or stereotypes surrounding a group, thing, or idea

Explanation: Above greatly appeals to people’s prejudice against the Jewish race, which were the socialistic feelings of that era

Appeal to Vanity

“What you see before us of human culture today, the result of art, science, and techniques, is almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan…He is the Prometheus of mankind, out of whose bright forehead springs the divine spark of genius at all times, forever rekindling that fire which in the form of knowledge lightened up the night of silent secrets and thus made him climb the path towards the position of master of the other beings on this earth.”

-Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler,

-an attempt to create a predisposition toward agreement with the speaker based on flattery

Explanation: Flatters the listeners in an attempt to get them to follow his missions.

Hasty Generalization-an argument in which there are not enough examples to base the generalization on

“He walks by in silence apparently engaged as to his thoughts and plotting some infernal hole among the roofs or arranging for some future catastrophe with the water pipes.” Anthony Trollope

Explanation: The author automatically assumes the worst of the plumber. He immediately makes up what he thinks that the plumber would be doing, purely based upon his own opinion and not actual facts.

Argument from Silence

- a generalization based on NO examples at all

“What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don’t you tell the truth, child, didn’t Bob Ewell beat you up? ” -To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Explanation: A defense made of suppositions and not any facts to base Atticus’ claim against Bob Ewell.

Sweeping Generalization-making a conclusion based on what appears to be valid evidence, when in fact there is not enough to even draw a conclusion

“The meat available from butchers and supermarkets comes from animals who were not treated with any real consideration at all while being reared.” Animal Liberation

Peter Singer

Explanation: Making a generalization concerning all packaged meat based on the author’s own opinions or limited experiences.

Part for the Whole

-inserting of a non-equivocal part in place of the whole part for arguing a point

“Seeing that eye and hand and foot and every one of our members has some obvious function, must we not believe that in like manner a human being has a function over and above these particular functions?” -Aristotle, Introduction to Logic (Tenth Edition)

Explanation: Maintains that since each member of our body has a particular function, then humanity as a whole has a greater purpose.

Whole for the Parts- a statement that inserts the whole in the place of the

part which is being judged by itself

“Thomas Carlyle said of Walt Whitman that he thinks he is a big poet because he comes from a big country.” -Alfred Kazin, The Introduction to Logic

Explanation:Implies that just because the poet came from a great country then he himself must be a great poet.

Ad Hominem- an very common argument in which indirectly attacks a person, rather than the ideas themselves

“It is one thing to be attacked by an honorable opponent in an honorable way. This happens all the time in philosophy. But in my view Sommers’s intellectual methods are dishonest. She ignores the most elementary protocols of philosophical disputation.”

-Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 65, Sandra Lee Bartky

Explanation:The speaker attacks Sommers instead of her argument.

.Post Hoc.- an argument that assumes that the precedent caused the antecedent all because the precedent was before

“The death penalty of the United States has given us the highest crime rate and greatest number of prisoners per 100,000 population in the industrialized world.”

- “Death Penalty Ethics”, Harvey Isaak

Explanation: Automatically assumes that the death penalty in the United States is responsible for our high crime rate.

Straw Man- Portraying an opponent’s argument to be weaker than it really is, and then attacking the argument.

“We all want our families, our soldiers, our unions, our sports teams to be united toward clear, common goals. But is it not dangerous for a democratic populace weighing if and how to wage a war to value unity above all else? It’s all too easy to mandate patriotism, as the New York Board of Education did last week, bringing back the pledge of allegiance to classrooms as if that will stop the Osama bin Ladens of the

world.”

-Thomas L. Friedman

Explanation: Speaker tries to disprove his opponents and then argues his point based on the reintroduction of the pledge of allegiance--a trivial matter concerning the subject.

-when one argues that a proposition is true because it cannot be proved false.

“No, there isn’t. There really isn’t, but there is no evidence to the contrary, either.” -“Wisconsin to Cut Welfare,” Ann Arbor News, 11 April 1992.

Explanation: The Wisconsin governor switches the burden of proving the fallaciousness of his argument.

CIRCULAR

REASONING

- another way of “begging the question”

“Why do certain individuals survive? Because they are the fittest. How do we know they are the fittest? Because they survive.”- Nature ,E.W.MacBride

Explanation:

Irrational logic which attempts to prove itself by using an unproven fact.

?Loaded Question

- An almost abrupt question with a false assumption, that automatically “demands” an immediate answer.

Hale: When the Devil comes to you does he ever come- with another person? Perhaps another person in the village? Someone you know.” Parris: Who came with him?Putnam: Sarah Goode? Did you ever see Sarah Goode with him? Or Osburn?Parris: Was it man or woman came with him? -The Crucible

Arthur Miller

Explanation: The question automatically assumes that Tituba saw someone with the Devil, and encourages her to give a name although she has not admitted that anyone was there.

False Dilemma

“We must consider his work itself or nothing.” Plato to Dryden,

Gilbent

Explanation: The author is saying giving two options and implying that it must be one of the two options given.

- A situation in which the speaker proposes two separate options, that can be true and false, but usually are both false and opposites.

False Compromise

-when two similarly compared arguments join together and provide a new conclusion

“There shall be a firm and universal peace between His Britannic Majesty and the United States, and between their respective countries, territories, cities, towns, and people, of every degree, without exception of places or persons. All hostilities, both by sea and land, shall cease as soon as this treaty shall have been ratified by both parties, as hereinafter mentioned.” -The Treaty of Ghent ,1814

Explanation: Both parties revert back to the way it was before the war by “splitting the difference”.

False Equity

- a somewhat “appealing” argument, mainly because of both sides of it being equal

“Who did you pass on the road?”the king went on, holding his hand out to the messenger for some hay. “Nobody,”said the messenger. “Quite right,”said the king ‘this young lady say him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you.” -Introduction to Logic, Irving B.Copi and Carl Cohen

Explanation: The first use of “nobody”, meaning no person, is replaced by its second use as a name, “Nobody”.