Basic Concept Exercises

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1 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX EXERCISES Determine which fallacy, if any, is committed in each of the following passages. For the Intermediate and Challenging Exercises, look also for argumentative fallacies and other rhetorical pitfalls. Basic Concept Exercises 1. Fred: Every liberal believes in the right to choose. Sue: My friend Elisa is a liberal, and she is opposed to abortion. Fred: She can t be a real liberal. 2. The mayor s argument is that the developers fee would reduce the number of building starts, ultimately the city would lose more money than it would gain through the fee. But I can t go along with that. Mayor Tower is a member of the Board of Realtors, and you know what they think of the fee. 3. Horace, you re new to this town, and I want to warn you about the local newspaper. It s in cahoots with all them left-wing environmental nutcakes that are wrecking the economy around here. You can t believe a thing you read in it. 4. Look, maybe you think it s a good idea to legalize tribal casinos, but I don t. Letting every last group of people in the country open a casino is a ridiculous idea, bound to cause trouble. 5. I know you think that women are better at handling stress than men, but of course you would think so; you re a woman. 6. My parents gave me a lecture on not smoking marijuana because it s bad for you, but forget them! I overhear them talking all the time about how they smoked it when they were younger. 7. My professor said the other day that my paper was bad, but what does he know. I heard that his wife cheated on him. Obviously he can t even make his wife happy. 8. Do you know who was behind the effort to get Proposition 93B on the ballot? It was a group of child-molestors, that s who! There s no way I m voting for that monstrous bill. Definitional Sulk Ad Hominem Circumstantial. The Board of Realtors may have certain interests regarding the fee, but we cannot conclude that therefore anything any member of the board says about the fee is false. Poisoning the Well. We haven t been presented any views of the paper to consider, but this tirade (mostly ad hominem abusive) is intended to get you to dismiss or disregard any argument or position put forward by the paper. Straw Man. Allowing and regulating tribal casinos on tribal lands is not the same as letting every group in the country open a casino. It may still be a bad idea, but it should be judged on its own merits. Ad Hominem Circumstantial. Tu Quoque I may have put this in the wrong section. Looking at it, I would diagnose it as being a Red Herring. The professor s family life is not a basis to judge his ability to grade papers. Genetic Fallacy. Certainly one would want to look more carefully at a measure supported by child molesters, but the fact that they support it is not a reason by itself to reject it. It might be about free speech, for example. Notice that this argument hints at a deductive pattern as displayed here:

2 If you are a child molester, you support this bill. You support this bill. Therefore, you a child molestor. 9. My professor told us that we shouldn t worry about the upcoming exam as long as we study. I guess that means it will be very easy. 10. Ha! You said that Professor Laurie s Intro to Philosophy class was totally different from his Logic class. You don t even know what you re talking about. Both classes had around 40 students, and that s a clear similarity. This argument is an affirming the consequent fallacy. The question is whether the bill comports with one s political philosophy, not whether repugnant people support it. Missing the Point. The exam could still be difficult, but if you study well for a difficult exam, you should still be able to pass it (at least generally) We could diagnose this argument as a Straw Man. Saying that two classes are totally different does not mean that they are different in each and every way, but only that there are major relevant differences. They could be in the same classroom, or have the same number of men and women, etc., and still be totally different. Intermediate Exercises 11. Democrats and President Obama accused the Chamber of Commerce of using foreign money to influence the 2010 election. The New York Times reported that there was no evidence of this claim. Bob Schieffer of CBS News asked David Axelrod, an advisor to President Obama, about the story: Do you have any evidence that it s anything other than peanuts? Axelrod responded Well, do you have any evidence that it s not, Bob? 12. The only reason humanities professors like Rawls so much is that he offered them a pretense that their socialist dream world could be justified by liberal principles. 13. I have a simple solution to the problem of poverty. The government should just give every person in the country one million dollars, even if they have to print it. 14. I can t believe you threw your wife on the ground and kicked her! You re nothing but a violent beast. You can t control yourself and are so insecure that you have to use other people as punching bags to feel good about yourself. 15. I think we can agree that people have inconsistent views. Since you believe that the Earth orbits the Sun, you must also believe that the Sun orbits the Earth. Or do you claim that Appeal to Ignorance. One could argue for begging the question. The arguer is assuming without argument that the defense of socialism through liberal principles is a pretense. Perhaps also some ad hominem. Certainly oversimplification. This person sounds like a fadophiliac. I don t see any fallacy here. It seems like good reasoning. It is not ad hominem, since it is not criticizing a person in order to undermine his argument, but is criticizing someone for his actions. Division. It is true that our belief systems as wholes are generally inconsistent, but that does not imply that every belief we have must be inconsistent with another belief that we have.

3 you are better than everyone else? 16. If the color red is in the object which is viewed, then there must be some mode of transport which contains the color red and moves it from the object to the eye, but if it is not in the object, then the world really has no color. So, either the world as it truly is has no color, or else light picks up tiny pieces of redness from the object seen and transports them to the eye. 17. If I enjoy drinking one beer a small amount, then it must follow that I would enjoy drinking the entire case a whole lot more! 18. Professor Stickler said that the time in the classroom is not where learning is supposed to occur; it is supposed to occur outside the classroom. I guess he intends for us to just sit around in class and do nothing. 19. Nothing good can be found in Reggae music. It s created by nothing but potheads and stoners. 20. The Twin Towers could not have been taken down by an airplane. I saw on the internet that it would have been impossible to melt steel like that. It would have had to have been some kind of explosion. I don t see any fallacy here. Notice that the argument is a constructive dilemma. It is an argument which ultimately is intended to reject a naïve realist account of color. None of us thinks that light picks up tiny pieces of color and delivers those pieces to our eyes, but that seems to indicate that the objects we see do not actually have any color. It may be a challenging concept, but it isn t fallacious, as far as I can tell. Composition. This was an easy one to follow a couple challenging ones. Missing the Point Ad Hominem Abusive. Would you also say Poisoning the Well or Genetic Fallacy? False Dilemma. It seems to assume that there was either an airplane crash or an explosion, in an exclusive way, so it couldn t be both. Couldn t the airplane crashing have been the cause of the explosion? Challenging exercises 21. The G.I. Bill is just another way for academics to have government subsidize their employment. Our soldiers, airmen, seamen, and marines should be able to take their G.I. Bill money and invest it in a business of their own choosing. 22. When the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus whether they should stone a woman accused of adultery, Jesus said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. John 8:7 23. Abraham Lincoln didn t really care about the slaves. He even said My paramount object in The first line seems to include a subtle ad hominem circumstantial. Maybe the G.I. Bill should be amended, but the fact that academics stand to profit from the G.I. Bill as it stands is not a good reason to do so. Putting aside the fact that stoning is a horrific form of punishment, and that stoning a woman for adultery but not a man may be a morally impermissible form of gender inequality, could we say that there is a Tu Quoque fallacy here? If in general no one could effect a punishment unless he or she had never committed any crime (or even traffic infraction), then we might not have a criminal justice system. If the punishment is just, then it shouldn t matter who delivers the punishment. Perhaps Jesus wanted us to use this conditional in a Modus Tollens argument? False Dilemma. Lincoln said that his highest concern was the unity of the country, but that doesn t mean

4 this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it. 24. Brothers and sisters have way more of a right to get married than homosexuals do. After all, a brother and sister can still produce offspring, even if there is a higher chance of birth defects. Homosexual unions cannot produce children, whether deformed or not. 25. Most slaves were treated very well. Each slave was an investment, and you only made money off your slaves if you kept them well-fed, healthy, and as much as possible, happy. 26. Every mile driven by car is more dangerous than every mile flown in a plane. So, plane travel is safer than travel by automobile. 27. I read your article, and I conclude that it is too biased. You have twelve criticisms of liberal arguments, but only four criticisms of conservative ones. that he cannot also care about slaves. They could be his next concern. Here he is emphasizing the rank of his concerns, but the fact that he puts national unity above freeing the slaves, that does not mean that he wasn t deeply concerned for slaves. We was dedicated to freeing the slaves, but he didn t want to do it by ripping apart the nation. I could also see a case for definitional sulk as well as perfectionist fallacy. Perhaps Begging the Question. The argument certainly assumes that the right to marry is based upon the ability to produce offspring. Is that true? One might argue that the right to marry is based on love, but wouldn t that also imply that brothers and sisters have the right to marry? It is true that slave owners fed most of their slaves well and provided medical care they might not otherwise have had, but I m not sure that most of us would call that decent treatment, considering the fact that they could also be cruelly punished for any disobedience. We should note that slave owners were not generally interested in the happiness of their slaves, but in their productivity, which often was achieved through fear and not happiness. Perhaps non-sequitur. Composition? No fallacy? This argument seems to beg the question that an unbiased article will always have equal amounts of criticism for both liberals and conservatives. This is a ridiculous claim, and is based on the further assumption that liberals and conservatives always present equally good or faulty arguments. It is certainly possible that liberals present more faulty arguments than conservatives, or vice verse, and to recognize it does not automatically make one unbiased. Of course it might, but we cannot be sure based solely on the numbers of criticisms. A biased person will criticize one side more than another. Therefore, if you criticize one side more than the other, then you are biased. (Fallacy of illicit conversion) 28. I heard former Congressman Tom Tancredo say that all illegal immigrants should be deported. He is such a disgustingly ignorant racist. He seems to be completely unaware that our country is founded on immigration and built on the backs of immigrants. Ad Hominem Abusive, for sure. Perhaps also False Dilemma at the end. One can certainly be in favor of and welcome immigrants, and still want to deport all illegal immigrants, or immigrants who do not fulfill the legal requirements to immigrate.

5 29. Holier-than-thou: Would you say that facts and opinions are completely different, or that they can sometimes be the same? Oblivious: No, they re completely different. Holier-than-thou: And opinions are the same as beliefs? Oblivious: Of course. Holier-than-thou: Okay, so do you believe that the moon orbits the Earth? Oblivious: Duh? Obviously it does. Holier-than-thou: So, you believe it does? Oblivious: Yes. Holier-than-thou: So, you believe it is true, and beliefs are just opinions, and opinions and facts are completely separate, so it is not a fact that the moon orbits the Earth. Oblivious: Exactly, it is not a fact that the Moon orbits the Earth. 30. It is absurd to claim, as a few have done, that the New Deal, the basis of what we now know as liberalism, was identical to either German Nazism or Italian fascism. But it is equally absurd to ignore, as all our textbooks do, the fact that the New Deal and European fascism grew from the same ideological roots, produced strikingly similar policies, and fostered national cultures that, if not identical, bore the resemblance of siblings. Though we think of Hitler s and Mussolini s regimes as pathological, even psychotic, and entirely alien to our political tradition, in fact, they were organically connected to the most influential American political movement of the twentieth century. Thaddeus Russell, A Renegade s History of the United States, p. 240 This might have been an opportunity to see some shifting ground, but Oblivious doesn t do so. He instead he bites the bullet and rejects the claim that It is a fact that the Moon orbits the Earth. Instead there is probably a False Dilemma here. If we understand opinion to just mean belief then it can be the case that an opinion is a fact, and there is no dilemma. We could also interpret this as equivocation, as there may be a shift in meaning on the word opinion. Is this a Genetic Fallacy? It seems to tie together American liberalism with Nazism and Fascism, which rightly have very bad reputations. Should we reject American liberalism because it grew from the same roots, produced similar policies, and fostered similar national cultures as Nazism? We may want more evidence to be convinced, but if we are convinced that the premises are true, would we be able to resist rejecting American liberalism? If you conclude that there is no fallacy, one can still ask whether the argument is cogent, or whether the premises are true. Are they?

Christ-Centered Critical Thinking. Lesson 7: Logical Fallacies

Christ-Centered Critical Thinking Lesson 7: Logical Fallacies 1 Learning Outcomes In this lesson we will: 1.Define logical fallacy using the SEE-I. 2.Understand and apply the concept of relevance. 3.Define,