Errors in Reasoning

What is an Argument? Argument = ‘A set of Statements, one of which is the Conclusion, and the rest of which are Premises. An argument need not be a disagreement An argument is certainly not a shouting match Common Symbolism in Philosophy P1: Socrates is a human being P2: All human beings are mortal C: Socrates is Mortal

Fallacies A Fallacy is any error in reasoning that makes an argument fail to establish its conclusion. That also has a recognizable error in content

The Fallacies begin Appeal to ignorance – claiming something is true (or false) just because we cannot prove it is false (or true). For example: “you cannot prove that God does not exist. Therefore God does exist.” Or, “you cannot prove the defendant is innocent, therefore he is guilty.” The Problem is that lack of evidence often does not prove anything, although sometimes it does.

Appeal to false authority This fallacy claims that “so-and-so” says “X is true” or “X is false” and rests the argument on “so-and-so's” authority; but, in fact, “so-and-so” is not really an expert on the matter they speak for. For example: Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carey are public proponents for the view that some vaccines cause autism. But, of course, McCarthy and Carey have absolutely no expertise in this area.

Appeal to Popular opinion This fallacy holds that because the majority of people think something is true, it is, therefore, true. This kind of thinking is often behind opinion polls where we learn that, say, 57% of Americans think X or y. The problem is that the majority of people have often believed in terrible things, like thinking women should not be allowed to vote, or that slavery was a good thing. Nothing is right just because most people think it is so.

Appeal to tradition Quite similar to the appeal to popularity, but here the argument is that “we have always done it this way, so it is the right way to do things.” This argument suffers from the same flaw, just because something has always been done a certain way, does not mean it is right. For example: someone might claim that marriage must be between “one man and one woman” simply on the grounds that “it has always been so.” Nothing follows from this

Against the Person This argument attacks a person's character rather then their argument. For example: “Rush Limbaugh says global warming is not real. Limbaugh, however, is a big fat idiot! We must conclude therefore that Rush is wrong about Global warming. There are some other versions of this fallacy: you can attack someone's circumstances rather than their argument, you can poison the well, or use what is called the tu quoque (you too) fallacy.

Emotion based fallacies Appeal to pity – takes an emotional response to an unfortunate situation as a reason to believe or act in a certain way Appeal to Emotion – Believe that something is true because it makes me feel good, or that it is false because it makes me feel bad. Appeal to Force – This fallacy basically says “do this or something bad will happen to you!”

Some more Fallacies Straw Man – Person A offers an argument. Person B attacks a weaker and distorted version of the argument, rather than their argument itself. Ex: Ralph opposes mandatory prayer in public schools. Ralph Argues that as a nation we believe in freedom of religious practice, including the freedom to have no religion. Ellen attacks Ralph’s argument by saying “Ralph wants children to be taught to be atheists. To hate religion and anyone who is religious. Clearly, we should not allow our schools to force children to be atheists.”

Red Herring In this argument you divert attention away from your opponents original argument, to focus on another, completely different, argument. EX: Sue: Global Warming is serious threat to the planet. We must do something to address this threat immediately. Bob: Sue says we must do something about Global Warming. But I think a very serious threat is ISIS! We need to fight ISIS now, and sue denies this!

A few other fallacies Begging the question – assuming what you are trying to prove Hasty Generalization – making a conclusion about an entire group based on a small selection of samples. This is often a worry when opinion polls are taken False Dilemma- claiming that someone only has two options when they actually have at least three. Equivocation – using the same word but changing the meaning of it, while, at the same time, acting as if you did not do so.