Chapter 3.4 Notes PDF

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Chapter 3.4 Notes

In this chapter, we get into some of the most subtle and tricky fallacies that people commonly use. Some of them are used on purpose, some of them are used on accident, and most of them look like good arguments when you first approach them. Here's an overview of each type.

Fallacies of Presumption These fallacies make up the bulk of this chapter. These arguments often look like really good arguments -- but they all presume exactly what they are trying to prove. That means, in one way or another, the premises already contain the conclusion, either explicitly or implicity. Notice, if you were making a deductive argument, then you expect the premises to contain the conclusion, because the role of deductive reasoning is to process information we already have. However, if you're making an inductive argument, we expect your premises to give evidence for something that goes beyond the scope of the premises themselves. So building the conclusion into the premises themselves is, well, cheating! You'll get the hang of these after reading the lecture on them, and seeing several examples. But in general, a big hint (in the homework and in real life) that an argument is committing one of the fallacies of presumption, is that the premises will only be accepted by someone who already agrees with the conclusion! Here's one example to give you a feel for these. Consider the following two arguments: Abortion is murder. Therefore, abortion should be illegal.

A woman has the right to choose what to d Therefore, abortion should be legal.

If you've ever been in a debate with someone about abortion, you probably noticed that no one changed their mind during it. One reason is because these are the two most common arguments heard in such debates. Notice, if you are anti-abortion, you will have no trouble accepting the premise that abortion is murder -- but you won't agree with the premise that a woman has a right to choose what to do with her own body in all cases. If, on the other hand, you believe abortion should be legal, you probably do not agree with the premise that abortion is murder -- but you will probably agree that a woman has a right to choose. Premises should always be good, neutral, middle ground, that everyone can accept. Both of these arguments commit fallacies of presumption -- in particular, begging the question. The fallacies you'll see in this section are:   

Begging the Question Complex Question False Dichotomy



Suppressed evidence.

We'll dedicate one lecture to Begging the Question, as it's the most complicated. The other three will go in a separate lecture.

Fallacies of Ambiguity Both fallacies of ambiguity leap from the premise(s) to the conclusion through some ambiguity of meaning. An ambiguity is when there are multiple meanings to a word or phrase, and you can't tell which one is correct. So with both of these fallacies, even though they often use the same words, the premises and the conclusion are actually talking about different things! It's almost the opposite of an argument by definition. The two fallacies of ambiguity are:  

Equivocation Amphiboly

Fallacies of Illicit Transfer "Illicit" means "wrong" (and in some cases illegal). "Transfer" means to pass something on from one thing to another. What we're transferring here is a property, and we're transferring it from a group as a whole to the parts of the group -- or from the parts to the whole. You can sometimes do this without a problem. If there is no problem, then you've got a licit transfer, a good transfer, and thus a good argument. If it doesn't work, you've committed one of the fallacies of illicit transfer. The reason this transfer sometimes fails is because often, a group and a member of that group have very different properties. For example, what it means to be a good basketball player is very different from what it means to be a good basketball team. So, a good team does not necessarily have all good players; and a team where all players are good is not necessarily a good team. There are two fallacies here:  

Composition Division

Which one you're committing depends on whether you're trying to go from the parts to the whole, or from the whole to the parts. Begging the question fallacies are where you simply assume the conclusion as one of the premises -- and try to hide the fact that you're doing this. So, begging the question fallacies are always circular in some sense. There are roughly three ways you can do this:

1. Restate the premises in the conclusion -- essentially saying the same thing in both the premises and the conclusion, only making it look like you're doing more than this. 2. Leave out a key premise, that is either questionable or just plain false. 3. Circular reasoning -- one or more of the premises depend on the truth of the conclusion. Again, remember that the best way to spot a begging the question fallacy (and any of the fallacies of presumption) is that while it looks like a good argument, only those who already believe the conclusion will accept the premises and the argument. So, let's look at all of these in turn.

1. Restating the premises in the conclusion Remember that the purpose of an argument is to give evidence to support your conclusion. Sometimes it feels as though we're doing this, but if you read closely, you can see that the conclusion is simply saying exactly the same thing as the premises, only using different words. Here are some examples: (A) Same-sex marriage should be illegal, because marriage should be between one man and one woman. (B) Same-sex marriage should be legal, because people of all orientations should have all the rights that marriage brings. Putting these in context, because we're talking about legality, we're talking about government marriages -- the legal contract that two people draw up when they get married. Neither has anything to do with religious marriages, as the government cannot tell churches who to marry or how to marry them. So, with that in mind, look at (A). The premise is that legal marriage should be between one man and one woman. Which means the same thing as "same-sex marriage should be illegal." Similarly with (B). "People of all orientations should have all the rights that marriage brings" is just another way of saying "same-sex marriage should be illegal." Neither argument gives any proof of their conclusion -- they've just restated the conclusion in a different way in the premise. Here are a couple more examples: (C) Abortion should be legal, because a woman has the right to choose whether or not she continues with her pregnancy.

Having the (legal) right to choose whether to continue with pregnancy or to stop it, is exactly what it means to make abortion legal. THe premise and the conclusion say the same thing in different ways. (D) Abortion is murder. Therefore, abortion should be illegal. This is one of the examples we saw in the overview for this chapter. It's a little trickier than the previous three, but it sill essentially says the same thing in different ways, once you think about exactly what we mean by "murder". If you were to define "murder" your first try might be "killing a person." Except there are cases where killing a person is NOT considered murder. Killing someone in self-defense, or killing an enemy soldier in a time of war, is NOT considered murder, even though you've purposefully killed someone. So, what we really mean by "murder" is "the sort of killing that is unacceptable." Or, to put it another way, "the sort of killing that is or should be illegal." Ok, now substitute that for the word "murder." (D) Abortion is the sort of killing that should be illegal. Therefore, abortion should be illegal. Yep. Definite begging the question fallacy there.

2. Leaving out a false or questionable premise This type of begging the question fallacy does not directly restate the conclusion in one of the premises, but rather, the premise needed to make the whole argument work is, well, missing. Once we find out what that missing premise is and state it explicitly, we see that it is either outright false, or it's acceptable only to people who already believe the conclusion. For example: (A) Murder is immoral, therefore abortion is immoral. The premise and the conclusion here are not simple restatements of each other. But, to make the conclusion follow, you need another premise -- specifically the premise that "abortion is murder." And, only people who already agree with the conclusion will accept this premise! So this one also begs the question. (B) Same-sex marriage should be illegal because such unions do not produce children. Here, the missing premise is "the purpose of marriage is to produce children." Yet, when you think about it, that's not how our society treats marriage. We let people get married even if they can't have kids or don't want to have kids. We let people stay married even after they raised their kids. If the purpose was to produce children, then we would only marry people who wanted to have kids and were able to -- and then after they'd satisfied this purpose, there would be no reason to stay married. So in this case, the missing premise is just plain false.

(C) Executions are moral because we must have a death penalty to discourage violent crime. The missing premise here is that executions are the most effective way to discourage violent crime -- or even the only effective way to discourage violent crime. Once we see that missing premise, we can easily research it. Study after study has shown this premise to be false. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent. (D) Abortion should be legal, because a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body. Here's the second example you saw in the "overview" lecture. Let's take a close look at the premise. Does a woman really have the legal right to do whatever she wants with her own body? Can she, for example, use her body to punch out random strangers who annoy her? Does she have the legal right to do heroin? No, we restrict some of the things people get to do with their own bodies. So this one is missing part of a premise. Let's fill it out: "A woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body when it comes to making reproductive choices." Now the conclusion follows from the premise -- but now, the only people who will accept the premise are people who already accept the conclusion. It does not give independent evidence for the conclusion.

3. Circular reasoning Some arguments simply go around in a circle. So it looks like they're traveling -- but one of the premises ultimately depends on the conclusion. Here's an example: God must exist. We know this, because the Bible says so. We can trust the Bible, because it's the word of God. Notice, if God did not exist, then that last premise -- that the Bible is the word of God -- would be false. The Bible being the word of God depends on the existence of God. But that's exactly what we're trying to prove. Ok, in the next lecture we'll tackle the rest of our fallacies of presumption. We've got three more ways to essentially assume your conclusion as part of your premises:   

Complex question False dichotomy Suppressed Evidence

Complex Question This happens when you present your audience with a question that has no right answer. The way it does so is essentially by combining two or more questions into one. For example: "Have you stopped doing drugs yet?" If you answer "no," you're admitting to doing drugs, currently. If you answer "yes," you're admitting to having done drugs in the past. There is no right answer. It's a fallacy of presumption because you're presuming that the person is guilty of doing drugs, and you're trying to force them to admit it. In reality, this is a combination of two questions: "Have you ever done drugs?" and "If so, have you stopped?" The way to tackle complex questions is by breaking them down into the two questions they combine, and then answering them separately. So in this case, another possible answer would be "I have never done drugs." Here's an example I found on the internet that combines a complex question with an abusive ad hominem: "Were you born stupid?" "Yes" means you were always stupid, "no" means you were not born stupid, but became that way later in life. Whether you answer yes or no, you're admitting to currently being stupid. So this question is essentially trying to force you to commit an abusive ad hominem against yourself...

False Dichotomy A false dichotomy happens when you present someone with an "either ... or" choice -- when there are more than two options. In this case, you're presuming that there are only two options when there are more than that. And, in reality, the arguer usually assumes there is only one correct option, and the false dichotomy is a way to try to force someone to accept it, by presenting the only other option as something that is very undesirable. Imagine a teenager who wants to go to a party, and her mother has already said "no." The kid might respond "Either you let me go to the party or I'll be miserable forever!" Well, obviously the mother does not want her child to be miserable forever. But these are not the only two options available. The reality is that if she misses this party, she'll be miserable for a night, and perhaps a full day afterward -- and then she'll move on to other things.

The most common false dichotomy in politics is the old "you're either with us, or you're against us!" Here are two examples of this, from real life. Both occurred in the week after September 11th. "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." -- George W. Bush, September 20, 2001. "Every nation either has to be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay the price." -- Hilary Clinton, September 13, 2001 Disapproving of U.S. foreign policy at this time was not the same thing as supporting terrorists. It was very possible to be against terrorism, but also to not agree with every decision the U.S. made at that time. There are far more than two choices here.

Suppressed Evidence Thinking back to chapter 1.4 for a minute, remember the definition of "cogent"? A "cogent" argument must be strong, it must have all true premises, and it must meet the "total evidence requirement." That is, you have to present all evidence you actually have. If you purposefully hide evidence that goes against your conclusion, you're committing the fallacy of suppressed evidence. In real life, this is very hard to see, and often takes independent research. Remember the example, where the drug companies gave the Federal Drug Administration all of the positive trials for the effectiveness of their medicine -- but did not turn over the negative trials for the same medicines? This is the fallacy of suppressed evidence, and took investigations to discover that this was happening. In the homework and on tests, just like with begging the question fallacies, look for missing evidence -- a premise that should be there, but isn't stated. If that premise goes against the conclusion, then it's the fallacy of suppressed evidence. Example: "The U.S. military has fewer battleships, M1 rifles, and horse-drawn howitzers today than it did in 1940. Therefore, the military has a less effective fighting force today than it did in 1940." It is true that we have fewer of these sorts of weapons now. But it is NOT true that we have fewer weapons than we did in 1940! We didn't disarm. Rather, we replaced these weapons with more modern, more effective weapons. So here, the suppressed evidence is the evidence of exactly what kinds of weapons we currently have.

Sometimes media uses the fallacy of suppressed evidence to appeal to a particular segment of the population. Here are two headlines for the same news story, published by different newspapers.

(A)

(B)

Headline (A) is clearly meant to appeal to those who are outraged by police brutality. Headline (B) is clearly meant to appeal to those who are upset by the danger that cops face on a daily basis. But wait -- who was shot? The homeowner and the dog, or the police officer? Both of these headlines are creating drama in different ways by purposefully suppressing part of the story. Here's a headline that gives you the full story: It turns out that this is not simply a story of police brutality, and it's not at all a story of the police being put in danger by civilians. It is actually a story of two cops who were pretty new to the job, and made some very tragic mistakes. All right, that's it for fallacies of presumption. Fallacies of ambiguity are next, and then we'll wrap up with fallacies of illicit transfer. am·bi·gu·i·ty noun

1. the quality of being open to more than one interpretation; inexactness. "we can detect no ambiguity in this section of the Act" synonyms vagueness, obscurity, abstruseness, doubtfulness, uncertainty :

am·big·u·ous adjective

1. (of language) open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning. "the question is rather ambiguous"

o o unclear or inexact because a choice between alternatives has not been made. "this whole society is morally ambiguous"

synonyms equivocal, ambivalent, open to debate/argument, arguable, debatable : The fallacies of ambiguity are where the premises and the conclusion are using words or phrases in a different way in the premises and the conclusion, so the premises are not talking about the same thing as the conclusion. So, there is something about the premises that is ambiguous. If the argument shifts meaning, or relies on the wrong meaning of the possible ones, then the argument commits a fallacy of ambiguity. The essential difference between the two is whether the ambiguity comes from a word with multiple meanings or a grammatical confusion.

The Fallacy of Equivocation When the argument shifts in meaning, from premises to the conclusion, or from one premise to another. A single word or phrase is used in different ways in the premise and the conclusion, so the two are not talking about the same thing -- even though it may look as though they are. Here are some examples: 1. Any law can be repealed by a legislative authority. Therefore, Congress can repeal the law of gravity. 2. Nothing is better than steak. Hot dogs are better than nothing. Therefore, hot dogs are better than steak. 3. Marcus is a good basketball player. All basketball players are human, however, so Marcus must be a good human being. In (1), the premise is talking about a prescriptive law -- a law that humans make, in order to tell other humans what to do. The conclusion, however, is talking about a descriptive law -- a law that describes how the universe functions. We can't change gravity, because we didn't create gravity. We just try our best to explain it. In (2), the word "nothing" changes from the first premise to the second premise. The first premise, "nothing is better than steak," means "for all foods, none of them are as good as steak is." The second premise, on the other hand, means that having a hot dog is better than going hungry. Because of this shift in meaning, the conclusion does not follow.

In (3), it's the word "good" that is being used in two different senses. When we say someone is a good basketball player, we mean they have skill and talent at the game. When we say they are a good human being, we usually mean they are moral. Obviously, one does not have to be moral if you're good at basketball!

The Fallacy of Amphiboly Sometimes, due to the grammatical structure of a sentence, it can have more than one meaning. Usually, we can figure out which meaning the speaker meant. If we understand it the wrong way and draw conclusions from this misunderstanding, we have committed the fallacy of amphiboly. Also, if we purposefully use the wrong meaning of a sentence, we've committed this fallacy as well....