Really Remember that a fallacy is just an invalid argument An invalid argument is one where even if the premises are true the conclusion can still be false So there are lots of fallacies However there are certain tricky patterns that often fool people These patterns come to have names ID: 143740
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Slide1
Fallacies
(Really)Slide2
Remember that a fallacy is just an invalid argument. An invalid argument is one where even if the premises are true, the conclusion can still be false. So there are lots of fallacies.
However, there are certain tricky patterns that often fool people. These patterns come to have names.Slide3
Straw Man FallacySlide4
Straw Man Fallacy
The Straw Man Fallacy (sometimes in the UK called “Aunt Sally Fallacy”) is when you misrepresent your opponent, and argue against the misrepresentation, rather than against your opponents claim.Slide5
http://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOn7DInBWK4&feature=related
Slide6
Assuming the Original Conclusion
Assuming the original conclusion* involves trying to show that a claim is true by assuming that it is true in the premises. It has the form:
X is true. Why? Because X.
*This is Aristotle’s name for the fallacy.Slide7
Example:
“It
says in the Bible that God exists. Since the Bible is God's word, and God never speaks falsely, then everything in the Bible must be true. So, God must exist
.”Slide8
Example
Premise 1: The bible is God’s word.
Premise 2: God never speaks falsely.
Conclusion: Everything in the bible is true.
Premise 1: Everything in the bible is true.
Premise 2: The bible says that God exists.
Conclusion: God exists.Slide9
Note
The most common name of the fallacy of assuming the original conclusion is “begging the question”. There’s a long story about why that is.
Sometimes people misuse “begging the question” to mean “inviting or raising the question”. You should know that some people look down at you if you do this.Slide10
Mark
Liberman
of Language Log found:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2290
‘if
we search the NYT index for recent uses of "beg the question", we find that out of the first 20 hits, 15 use "beg the question" to mean "raise the question" — and of the five that don't, four are usage articles berating people for misusing the phrase
!’Slide11
False Equivocation
Equivocation (or “false equivocation”) is when one word is used with two meanings in the same argument, rendering it invalid.
Slide12
Silly Example
God is love.
Love is blind.
Ray Charles is blind.
So, Ray Charles is God.Slide13
False Equivocation
If evolution is true, then we should expect that creatures act selfishly.
If evolution is true, then creatures
ought
to act selfishly.
But we know that it’s morally wrong to act selfishly.
Creatures
ought not
to act selfishly.
So evolution is false.Slide14
Begging the Question + Equivocation
“To
allow every man unbounded freedom of speech must always be, on the whole, advantageous to the state; for it is highly conducive to the interests of the community that each individual should enjoy a liberty, perfectly unlimited, of expressing his sentiments” Richard
Whately's
Elements of Logic
(1826)Slide15
Loaded Question Fallacy
Sometimes certain forms of words presuppose certain things. For example:
1. John’s son won the race.
2. John’s son did not win the race.
Both sentences presuppose that John has a son.Slide16
So if I ask you “Did John’s son win the race?” whether you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ you are agreeing that John has a son.Slide17
Suppose instead that I ask you:
“At what age did you first use drugs?”
Any answer to this question is an admission that you used drugs at some point. Slide18
Or consider:
“Have you stopped beating your wife?”
‘I stopped beating my wife’ and ‘I didn’t stop beating my wife’ both presuppose that at some point in the past, you beat your wife. You can’t answer this question without admitting guilt.Slide19
Masked Man FallacySlide20
Inderscernability of
Identicals
Normally, if you have two things X and Y, but X and Y are really one thing, because X = Y, then if something is true of X, it’s true of Y. For example:
Confucius was the greatest Chinese philosopher.
Confucius =
Kongzi
.__________________
Therefore,
Kongzi
was the greatest Chinese philosopher.Slide21
Indiscernibility of Identicals
This also means that if something is true of X, and it’s not true of Y, then X and Y are different things:
This gas is deadly to humans.
Oxygen is not deadly to humans.
Therefore this gas ≠ not oxygen.Slide22
Masked Man Fallacy
Sometimes, however, this argument doesn’t work:
I know who Bruce Wayne is.
I don’t know who Batman is.
Therefore, Bruce Wayne ≠ Batman.Slide23
More serious example…
I know that I have a mind.
I don’t know that I have a
brain
._____________
Therefore, the mind ≠ brain.Slide24
False Dilemma
An argument commits the false dilemma fallacy when it presents two options as the only options, even though there are actually more options.Slide25
False Dilemma
Premise 1: We can either raise taxes on everyone, or cut social programs.
Premise 2: Raising taxes on the poor would be terrible, they can’t afford it.
Conclusion: We should cut social programs.Slide26
Fallacy of the Mean
The fallacy of the mean is the assumption that a “middle point” between two views is the right one.Slide27
Fallacy of the Mean
Candidate 1: “We should raise taxes on everyone”
Candidate 2: “We should cut social programs”
Therefore,
Compromise: We should raise taxes on everyone a little and cut social programs a little.Slide28
Distribution Fallacy
The distribution fallacy is committed when one assumes that individuals have the properties of groups to which they belong.
Lingnan
has an excellent philosophy department.
I am a philosopher at
Lingnan
._________
Therefore, I am an excellent philosopher.Slide29
Distribution Fallacy
Kooks and quacks will often try to make their theories sound better “by association”:
Having a PhD.
Making one’s work sound “science-y”.
Debating serious scholars.
Associating oneself with respectable institutions (Stanford, Smithsonian, etc.)Slide30
Composition Fallacy
The converse of the distribution fallacy is the composition fallacy, assuming that groups have the properties of the individuals that compose them.
For example: “A point doesn’t have any length; lines are made out of points; therefore, a line doesn’t have any length.”Slide31
Condorcet Paradox
One example of the composition fallacy is the Condorcet Paradox, where every voter can have rational preferences (doesn’t prefer A to B, B to C, and prefer C to A), but the preferences of all the voters taken together are irrational.Slide32
Condorcet Paradox
First Choice
Second Choice
Third Choice
Voter #1
George
Bill
Barry
Voter #2
Barry
George
Bill
Voter #3
Bill
Barry
GeorgeSlide33
Condorcet Paradox
Here, the preferences of the group are irrational:
A majority like George better than Bill.
A majority like Bill better than Barry.
A majority like Barry better than George.Slide34
Ecological Fallacy
Here’s an “ecological inference”.
Countries where, on average, people consume more fat have higher rates of breast cancer.
Therefore, consuming more fat leads to a higher risk of breast cancer.Slide35
There’s a potential problem here with “confounding variables”.
Maybe countries that consume more fat, on average, are also countries that have more pollution, on average (perhaps because pollution and fat consumption both correlate with poverty). So maybe it’s the pollution and not the fat that causes breast cancer.Slide36
Ecological Fallacy
But let’s assume we know there aren’t any confounding variables. Does the premise support the conclusion:
Premise: Countries that on average consume more fat on average have higher rates of breast cancer.
Conclusion: Consuming fat leads to a higher risk for breast cancer.Slide37
Ecological Fallacy
But the conclusion doesn’t follow.
Suppose that in Country A (10 people):
5 people eat 4 pounds of fat a day.
5 people eat 0 pounds of fat a day.
Average fat consumption: 2 pounds/ day.Slide38
Ecological Fallacy
In Country B (also 10 people):
5 people eat 2 pounds of fat/ day
5 people eat 1 pound of fat/ day
Average fat consumption 1.5 pounds fat/ day.
Country B on average consumes less fat.Slide39
Ecological Fallacy
Now assume that in Country A, all 5 people who consume
no
fat get breast cancer. And in
C
ountry B, no one gets breast cancer.
So on average, Country B consumes less fat and has a lower rate of breast cancer. Country B consumes more fat and has a higher rate of breast cancer. Slide40
Ecological Fallacy
But still, this doesn’t mean people who consume more fat are more likely to get breast cancer.
It’s the people who consume
no
fat that get cancer!Slide41
Ecological Fallacy
A famous (purported) instance of the ecological fallacy was Durkheim’s argument that since suicide rates in Catholic countries were lower than in Protestant countries, Catholics were less likely to commit suicide than Protestants.Slide42
Prosecutor’s Fallacy
Suppose you are arrested on the basis of some evidence– you have very large feet, just like the footprints we found at the scene of the crime.
If someone is the killer, there’s a 100% chance that they have very large feet.
If someone is not the killer, there’s a 95% chance they don’t have very large feet.Slide43
Prosecutor’s Fallacy
The Prosecutor’s Fallacy is to assume that therefore you must be guilty.
Why does this not follow?
What other fallacy (already discussed) is identical to the Prosecutor’s Fallacy?Slide44
Argument from Ignorance
The argument from ignorance goes like this:
“You can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. Therefore God exists.”
It assumes that because there is no argument
against
a position, that that position must be correct.Slide45
Shifting the Burden of Proof
A similar fallacy is “shifting the burden of proof”. It goes:
“God exists. If you think otherwise,
prove
that he doesn’t!”
Here, you make a claim (“God exists”) but instead of giving evidence for it, you require that your opponent give evidence for the opposite.Slide46
Genetic Fallacy
The genetic fallacy seeks to evaluate a claim on the basis of its origin.
So, for example, someone might say, “Eugenics is wrong, because the Nazis began it and did horrible things for its sake.”
Eugenics may be wrong, but the fact that the Nazis began it is irrelevant to
this claim.Slide47
Genetic Fallacy
The genetic fallacy seeks to evaluate a claim on the basis of its origin.
So, for example, someone might say “Clearly God does not exist. The reason I know this is that your argument for his existence is fallacious. Since you provided a fallacious argument that God exists, it follows that God does not exist.”Slide48
Appeal to Motive
Sometimes people argue that a certain claim must be false, or an argument invalid, because of the motives of the person making the claim/ argument.Slide49
Appeal to Motive
For example:
“My opponent claims that the government should give free cookies to everyone. But he stands to benefit most, because he likes cookies so much!”Slide50
Tu
Quoque
“
Tu
quoque
” is Latin for “you too”. It’s a defense of an invalid argument that goes:
“You’ve made a similar argument. So you cannot criticize the flaws in this argument.”
Just because other people are doing it doesn’t make
it right!