Fallacies are all around us. Every time we turn on a TV, or a radio, or pick up a newspaper, we see or hear fallacies. According to Dictionary.com, a fallacy is defined as a false notion, a statement or an argument based on a false or invalid inference, incorrectness of reasoning or belief; erroneousness, or the quality of being deceptive (www.Dictionary.com). Fallacies are part of everyday and become a staple in certain aspects of life. Political campaigns and reporters would be lost without the use of fallacies. Fallacies can be divided into two broad groups: fallacies of relevance and fallacies of insufficient evidence. Fallacies of relevance occur because the premises are logically irrelevant to the conclusion. Fallacies of insufficient evidence occur because the premises fail to provide sufficient evidence to support the conclusion, even though the premises may be logically relevant to the conclusion (Bassham, 2000). In this paper I will define three fallacies, explain their significance to Critical Thinking, and discuss their general application to Decision Making. The three fallacies I will discuss are Ad Hominem (attacking the person), Two Wrongs Make a Right, and Slippery Slope. Ad Hominem (Attacking the Person) Ad hominem occurs when we reject a person's argument or claim by attacking the person rather than the person's argument or claim (Bassham 2000). This type of fallacy is a common occurrence in political debates. If a candidate cannot find valid reasons to dispute another candidate's claims or ideas then the candidate attacks the person himself, not the issues. It is important to mention that not every personal attack is a fallacy. A personal attack is only a fallacy if an arguer rejects another person's argument or claim, and the arguer attacks the person who offers the argument or claim, rather than attacking the merits of the argument or claim.
An example is “For instance, swine and humans are similar enough that they can share many diseases” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). The authors create a Hasty Generalization fallacy by concluding that because humans and swine are similar, they share diseases. Furthermore, this makes the audience feel lost because the authors do not provide evidence of how “swine and humans are similar” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). Similarly, the author says that “Because insects are so different from us, such risks are accordingly lowered” (Dicke and Van Huis 345). Again, the author fails to provide a connection between how the risk of getting an infection is lowered because humans and insects are different. The authors also create a Hasty Generalization fallacy because they conclude that the risk of humans getting infected is lowered just because insects and humans are different. In summary, the use of fallacies without providing evidence and makes the readers feel
Chesler make many compelling persuasive arguments; however, a few logical fallacies appear in her line of thinking.
usually be derived from a sometimes bias and misconstrued point of view. In a world today were
Summary – It can be very useful when things do not tend to fall your way by then switching things up on your opponent and using their most positive words in order to make it look negative. Every argument needs facts and if that does not work for you, you should probably redefine the issue being made. The importance and relevance of the argument should be taken into consideration. Remember that manipulating the definition of things in your favor is the way to go.
The Zundel vs. Citron case explains bias as, “a state of mind that is in some way predisposed to a particular result or that is closed with regard to particular issues,” (Zundel vs. Citron). Due to the importance that bias can play in a decision, the courts have created a legal test to determine if it exists in any given situation. The test is, “what would an informed person, viewing the matter realistically and practically – and having thought the matter through –
It is very common among the United States’ political sphere to rely heavily on T.V. commercials during election season; this is after all the most effective way to spread a message to millions of voters in order to gain their support. The presidential election of 2008 was not the exception; candidates and interest groups spent 2.6 billion dollars on advertising that year from which 2 billion were used exclusively for broadcast television (Seelye 2008.) Although the effectiveness of these advertisements is relatively small compared to the money spent on them (Liasson 2012), it is important for American voters to think critically about the information and arguments presented by these ads. An analysis of the rhetoric in four of the political campaign commercials of the 2008 presidential election reveals the different informal fallacies utilized to gain support for one of the candidates or misguide the public about the opposing candidate.
A straw man fallacy, in its most lucid form, is executed when a person not only disregards an opponent’s counterarguments, but also distorts them into exaggerated versions of themselves in the interest of making them easier to refute. In many cases, the adversary’s arguments are skewed to such a severe point that they wind up being completely different than what the adversaries were actually fighting for; however, this is all for the convenience of the proponent. An innumerable amount of politicians and authors are infamous for using this problematic method of disproving opposing arguments, even notable celebrities like George W. Bush. The straw man method of persuasion is a proficient way to make a personal stance sound factual, but it
Logical fallacies are tricks and illusions of thought. They are often very sneakily used by politicians and the media to fool people into thinking in a specific way. There are a lot of ways that people make terrible and invalid arguments. Making a good argument is about using logic to prove a conclusion based on some given facts. In a valid argument, the conclusion actually does follow from the facts. Unfortunately, this can go wrong in many ways. Facts don 't always support conclusions in the way an argument 's author thinks he does. Those not versed in logic are blissfully unaware of how much our brain messes up the most basic of arguments, leading to the mess of random thoughts, white lies, misinformation,
In this editorial from the Citizen-times, we are considering some issues about Iran and their uranium enrichment program. The foreign minister of Iran said that it would be against the ‘ways of Islamic thinking’ to produce weapons of mass destruction. Well, it should be against anyone’s ways of thinking to produce weapons of mass destruction. There are only a few reasons to make uranium, and most of them have to do with the making of explosives and types of weapons that create havoc and mayhem. So I’d have to say that one of the logical fallacies in this passage has to do with the foreign minister of Iran tiring to get us to believe that just because it’s ’against Islamic ways of thinking’, I’d have to say he needs to give us a little more information than that. Iran keeps tiring to tell us that the nuclear activities are peaceful. If I am correct, and I believe that I am, that anything to do with nuclear ‘activities’ probably wouldn’t fall into the peaceful category. I’m not too sure about the quote, “ Foreign Minister Kamel Kharrazi told reporters. "Iran is a promoter of the elimination of nuclear weapons around the world and, based on our ideology, on our Islamic thinking, it is forbidden to produce and use nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction." I think that I’d have to label this as a logical fallacy. Some of this quote might be true, but if anything, I think that Iran is just trying to get us to believe them so we will get off their case. They have had weapons of mass destruction before, so why wouldn’t they have them again? Although Iran keeps trying to convince us of this, the state of this nation still is convinced by mister Bush that Iran is ’’the world’s primary state in sponsoring of terror’’. I don’t really know how true this statement is, but I’m pretty sure that Bush is proposing a logical fallacy here when he says this.
The ad-hominem fallacy is defined as “an argument or reaction that is directed against a person, rather than the position they are maintaining” (source). Governor Romney
First example is several of the presidential candidate Donald Trump where he oversimplify an opponent point of view then attacks that weak hollow argument that he created. Another example, which happens a lot on many different levels, when someone generalize a characteristic for a whole group of people, racially or religiously, in simpler words “stereo typing”, which as matter of fact another fallacy that our fierce presidential candidate Donald Trump commits on regular basis. A fallacy that we experience on daily basis is “everyone is doing this and that’s why I do the same” that’s a very common fallacy that we don’t only experience we usually are the abusers too. A final example to illustrate more on fallacies is not getting to the point in a discussion or avoiding the point by changing the
Is a personal attack against your opponent instead of properly rebutting their point you in essence attack the person’s character. For intense. If I were to get up to make a speech under the topic that. Resolved: The U.S should be the world’s military power, and I as the affirmation stand up to give my speech. Instead of giving a clear or logical reason as to why their points don’t hold water, I would say. “We all know that we clearly can’t trust what my opponents have said, because they don’t believe the U.S should be the world’s military power. Therefore, they’re evil, and none of their points stand.” As we can see this is not a true rebuttal to the point, but a personal attack against your opponent
First, we should understand what Ad Hominem is. An Ad Hominem fallacy has many different meanings depend on the situation and the people in that case. The online dictionary states that this fallacy means "appealing to one's prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one's intellect or reason, "or "attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument.". According to Glen Whitman at Northridge University, "Ad Hominem is argument directed at the person. This is the error of attacking the character or motives of a person who has stated an idea, rather than the idea itself. The most obvious example of this fallacy is when one debater maligns the character of another debater." But in philosophy study at Lander University, Ad Hominem is defined as "the fallacy of attacking the character or circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the statement or the soundness of the argument." Based on what I see in my personal life, this fallacy means that people judge each other's action by their emotions, experiences and what they are told about others rather than their actions, ideas or their abilities.
It is a form of argument where an attack is intended towards the person rather than the substance of the argument made by that individual. Sometimes the attacker resorts towards a bit of sarcasm which is also directed towards the one being attacked. It can be considered as the logical fallacy of attempting to undermine the speaker’s argument by means of attacking the speaker instead of addressing the argument
2. Getting caught up in the “intentional fallacy” means that the critic becomes fixated on