Chapter 5 Flashcards
(19 cards)
Fallacies involving irrelevant premises:
- Genetic Fallacy
- Appeal to the Person
- Composition X
- Division X
- Equivocation
- Appeal to Popularity
- Appeal to Common Practice
- Appeal to Tradition
- Appeal to Ignorance
- Appeal to Emotion
- Red Herring
- Straw Man
Fallacies involving unacceptable premises:
- Begging the Question
- False Dilemma
- Slippery Slope
- Hasty Generalization
- Faulty Analogy
The genetic fallacy:
Arguing or assuming that a claim is true or false solely because of its origin.
The Fallacy of Composition:
arguing or assuming that what is true of the parts must be true of the
whole
e.g.
“Each part of this new aircraft is lightweight; therefore the whole aircraft is lightweight.”
The fallacy of division:
Arguing or assuming that what is true of the whole must be equally true of the
parts
e.g.
“Jane is black. Therefore, every cell in her body is a black.”
The Fallacy of Appeal to the Person (or the ad hominem fallacy):
(attacking the person)
arguing that we should reject a
claim solely because of the person who made it.
eg.
“Don’t believe what Jack says about love. He’s been a reckless pot smoker ever since I met him.” (based on speaker’s character)
The Fallacy of Equivocation:
When a word or expression is used in two different senses in an argument. Typically, one premise uses the word in one way, and another premise uses the word in a different way.
e.g
“A feather is light.
What is light cannot be dark.
Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.”
Appeal to popularity:
Arguing that a claim must be true simply because it is a popular belief.
e.g
“Of course the war is unjustified! After all, everybody thinks so.”
Appeal to common practice:
Arguing that something should be done a certain way simply because it is commonly done that way
e.g
“Nobody has pop quizzes at university. So, there shouldn’t be any pop quizzes at university”
Appeal to Tradition:
Arguing that a claim must be true simply because it is part of a tradition.
“Obviously, God exists: after all, various religious traditions have said so for thousands of years!”
Appeal to ignorance:
An argument which states or assumes a claim like this:
We don’t know that P is true, therefore P is false.
or
We don’t know that P is false, therefore P is true.
e.g.
“No one has shown that ghosts are real, so they must not exist.”
“God must exist, since science hasn’t proven otherwise.”
Appeal to Emotion:
This fallacy occurs when emotions (guilt, anger, pity, fear, etc.) are appealed to, instead of relevant reasons, in an argument.
e.g
“You should judge this person innocent. After all, she’s a poor single mother who didn’t have many chances in life, and if you find her guilty, her life will be ruined”
“Red Herring”:
an irrelevant topic into a discussion in order to divert attention away from the original issue.
e.g
“We shouldn’t worry about the environment when there are so many people who can’t even find jobs.”
or
“The federal government should bring in mandatory minimum sentences for a greater range of serious crimes. I’m telling you, crime is a terrible thing when it happens to you. It causes death, pain, and
fear. And I wouldn’t want to wish these things on anyone!”
Strawman fallacy:
when someone misrepresents or oversimplifies another person’s argument to make it easier to attack or refute
e.g.
“You say we should have stricter gun laws, but that just means you want to take away everyone’s right to self-defense.”
or
“Marcus says that students who cheat on exams should not automatically be expelled from school. But it’s
ridiculous to insist that students should never be punished for cheating.”
The Fallacy of Begging the Question (Circular Reasoning):
(unacceptable)
when the conclusion is assumed in the premise — basically, the argument goes in a circle without proving anything new.
e.g.
“Reading is essential because it’s really important to read.”
or
“God exists. We know that God exists because the Bible says so, and we know that God wrote the Bible”
The Fallacy of False Dilemma (False Dichotomy)
when someone presents only two options as the only possible choices, when in reality there are more.
or
“You’re either with us or against us”
” You’re either a teacher or a student”
The Slippery Slope Fallacy:
When someone argues that a relatively small first step will inevitably lead to a chain of negative events, without providing evidence for such a progression.
e.g
“If we allow voluntary, physician-assisted suicide, then tomorrow we’ll have non-voluntary assisted suicide on unconscious patients. Then we’ll have involuntary assisted-suicide on unwilling patients. Soon, no hospital will be safe from ‘helpful’ doctors!”
The Fallacy of Hasty Generalization:
when someone makes a broad or sweeping conclusion based on a small or unrepresentative sample of evidence
e.g
“I met two people from that city, and they were rude, so everyone from that city must be rude.”
The fallacy of faulty analogy:
when someone makes a comparison between two things that aren’t really alike in relevant ways, leading to a misleading or incorrect conclusion
e.g
“Just like we don’t let cars drive without licenses, we shouldn’t let people own pets without training.”
or
“Allowing students to use calculators on tests is like letting athletes use performance-enhancing drugs in sports.”
