the quality of arguments: fallacies pei lei: [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
Three Basic Fallacies
• Problematic premise: arguments that for any reason fail to fulfill the acceptability requirements.
• Irrelevant reason: an argument fails to minimally satisfy the criteria of relevance.
• Hasty conclusions: all evidence and links taken together fail to meet the test of sufficiency.
Basic Fallacy #1: Problematic Premise
• Begging the question
• Fallacy of incompatibility
Problematic Premise
• Free speech is good for the society because it is conducive to the interests of the community.
• Begging the Question
Basic Fallacy #1: Problematic Premise
• Green-card holder should get voting rights. They live in this country so they should have their voting rights to protect their interest. However, this wouldn’t harm the citizens’ interests, because the statistics shows not many of immigrants really get involved in their local affairs like voting for community leaders.
• Fallacy of incompatibility
Basic Fallacy #2:Irrelevant Reason
• Argument ad hominem• Straw person fallacy• Red herring• Poisoning the well• Guilt by association• Appeal to fear• Appeal to popularity• Appeal to tradition
Irrelevant Reason• Examples– Fallacious: Attacking a candidate for
President of the debate club for failing a math examination.–Not fallacious: Attacking a candidate for the
Ministry of Health for cheating on medical exams.
–Ad Hominem
Irrelevant Reason• Example: Someone opposing the death
penalty argues that the death penalty risks executing an innocent person. The straw person response might be: “you’re suggesting we open the doors of our prisons and let everyone out to avoid wrongfully convicting anyone.”
• Straw Person
Irrelevant Reason• George W. Bush announced that the congress
got two bills and they’ll pass one of it. One is to ban cyclists across the nation the other is to launch the war in Iraq. A journalist asked why he wanted to ban cyclists. George responded: “ See, nobody cares Iraq. So we’ll pass the second motion.”
• Red Herring
Irrelevant ReasonAdditional Fallacies
• “Robert is an American. We can’t expect him to help Chinese debate education.”
• Poisoning the well:
• “How can you possibly expect Pei Lei to help with debate teaching in China. After all, she works for Robert!”
• Guilt by Association:
Irrelevant ReasonAdditional Fallacies
• attempting to take the focus off the argument by shifting the focus solely on the basis of fear. “If you vote for my opponent, we should all build bomb shelters because we will be attacked.”
• Appeal to fear:
Irrelevant ReasonAdditional Fallacies
• “All the nations in the world are taking actions towards CO2 emission. So should China.”
• Appeal to popularity: Using the popularity of someone or something to justify a favorable evaluation.
Irrelevant ReasonAdditional Fallacies
• “The Chinese has been using fireworks for hundreds of years so we should continue to do so in the future.
• Appeal to tradition:
Basic Fallacy #3Hasty Conclusion
• Hasty generalization• Fallacious slippery slope arguments• Two wrongs fallacy• Improper appeal to practice• Fallacy of composition• Fallacy of division• Post hoc fallacy• Faulty analogy
Hasty Conclusions
• I have five students in my class from Xi’an and they are all failing. I suppose Xi’an does not produce good students.
• Hasty Generalization
Hasty Conclusions• “If the university bans electric ovens in
dormitory. They will also ban TV. Then computer. Then our smartphones will also be banned. Even an iwatch will not be allowed. We will have no appliance or any electronic products at all. Because they produce heat and probably cause fire! ”
• Fallacious Slippery Slope Arguments
Hasty Conclusions
• As a college teacher, you shouldn’t complain about your salary, because college teachers are supposed to devote(sometimes sacrifice) themselves and ask for no return.
• Two Wrongs Fallacy
Hasty ConclusionsAdditional Fallacies
• “Why should government set a quota for woman in the office? Other businesses have more men than women.”
• Improper appeal to practice:
Hasty ConclusionsAdditional Fallacies
• “Tim Howard, the keeper for Manchester United, is a superb keeper. Therefore, Manchester United is one of the best football teams in Europe.”
• Fallacy of composition:
Hasty ConclusionsAdditional Fallacies
• “Harvard is an excellent university, therefore Law Professor Lawrence Tribe must be an excellent Professor.”
• Fallacy of division: The evidence is drawn from the whole, but the conclusion is about the part.
Hasty ConclusionsAdditional Fallacies
• the assumption that because one thing precedes another, the first must have caused the first. “After Barak Obama was elected, the U.S. economy went into recession. Therefore Obama was the cause of the recession.”
• Post hoc fallacy:
Hasty ConclusionsAdditional Fallacies
• Abortion practices are just like Hitler’s murder of six million Jews.
• Faulty analogy: this fallacy occurs when two events are compared to each other but are not similar in terms of the comparison.
Fallacies:Some Concluding Thoughts
• Fallacies are about the quality of an argument’s construction, not its truth.– An argument free of fallacies is not necessarily a
true argument. – An argument is not necessarily false just because
it contains a fallacy.
• Arguments are not either categorically “good” or “bad.” They exist on a continuum from more -or-less good to more-or-less bad.
