Paper 3. Logical fallacies and their influence in politics PDF

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Political Fallacies: The influence and consequences of logical fallacies in politics

J Robert MacAneney BU ID: U39618698 WR120 December 8th, 2021

Logical fallacies, or the use of invalid or otherwise faulty reasoning, are more common than one might think. They are a plague to discussion, and can be hard to counter. Everyone has heard the famous expression given by concerned parents, “If your friends jump off of a bridge then you would too?” This is a classic example of a strawman fallacy, where the substance of an argument was not actually refuted, but something else entirely. Logical fallacies, while they are a seemingly harmless, or insignificant issue, are truly anything but. Politicians love them. They are used to discredit arguments made toward them and to justify their actions. This can lead to harmful laws being passed or prolonging issues that can be easily fixed. A major problem with logical fallacies is that they do not seem flawed at first, and people are susceptible to falling victim to the argument being made. This is especially true when the politician in question has a cult-like following. People will push all logic aside just to align their beliefs with the politician who they revere as a profit. In this paper, we will discuss the types of fallacies that have influenced politics and their consequences.

Sunk-cost Fallacy A prominent fallacy that politicians tend to misuse is the fallacy of sunk-costs. The fallacy of sunk-costs is something that most of us are guilty of. We have a tendency to feel as though we are obligated to follow through with some sort of endeavour if we have already invested time or money into it. Even if the endeavour is harmful or otherwise useless, it feels like a waste not following through. We can observe this historically and through current events. The most prominent misuse of the sunk-cost fallacy is to keep us in wars that we do not need to be a part of. Consider the Vietnam war for

example. We spent nearly 20 years in a war we did not belong in partly due to politicians not wanting to admit their failures in allowing the war to endure. The American people would be outraged at the amount of time and resources wasted attacking a nation for there to be no result. This is also true with the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Regardless of whether you believe we should have stayed there or left, the idea that because we've already spent time and money, we may as well continue and follow through with it is plain and simply flawed reasoning. By continuing, we fall deeper into the sunk-costs, spend more time and money and reinforce the idea that we are “in too deep.” The Sunk-Cost fallacy will continue to haunt us, and prevent us from fixing mistakes we make unless we address it and try to avoid this fallacy from influencing us in our decision making as a nation.

Ad hominem In the past, political debates tended to be more politically focused. It was rare that a presidential candidate would attack the character of their opponent. It was a nice thing to see, when politicians of opposing views, competing for the vote would show mutual respect for eachother. This of course is not true in all cases, but for all intents and purposes consider the words of John McCain during his presidential campaign of 2008. Upon being told by one of his supporters, “We’re scared, we’re scared of an Obama presidency,” Senator McCain, while actively competing against Obama for the presidency replied, “He is a decent person and a person that you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States.” Furthermore, he refuted intolerant and ignorant claims made by his own supporters. A woman in the audience stated to Senator McCain, “I do not believe in, I- I can’t trust Obama. I have read about him, and he’s not, he’s not — he’s an Arab” McCain responded with the following. “No ma’am,” McCain

said. “He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what this campaign is all about.” This is especially powerful given the setting of these statements. A rally for McCain, filled with only his supporters and members of the media- during the heat of the presidential election. Making comments like this to an opponent should have set a precedent for future presidential candidates. It did anything but that. The Ad Hominem fallacy, translating to “To the person” is the process of attacking one's character as opposed to the substance of their argument. In recent years, this fallacy has overwhelmingly emerged in presidential debates. So much so, that it has become the main tactic of presidential candidates on the campaign trail. Political campaigns have begun to be run solely on the character-defamation of opponents. Donald trump, (who, for obvious reasons, is likely to be a recurring theme as we carry on) is a prime example of this. In the 2016 election, he many times stated that Hillary Clinton deserved to be put in jail. In a series of tweets meant to defame political opponent, Jeb Bush, stated the following: “The last thing our country needs is another BUSH! Dumb as a rock!” These character attacks do not serve any argumentative purposes, and distract the public from what should actually be discussed in a presidential election.

Slippery slope Slippery slope is a very prevalent logical fallacy in politics. The name speaks for itself: One thing will lead to another thing and that will lead to something else. Sometimes it holds some merit, but most of the time it's ridiculous to assume you can predict every step of a chain reaction, especially in such an unpredictable world. In the world of politics we can see this everywhere. It is usually used as a justification for some sort of action a politician wants to take. An example of this is the Domino Theory. The Domino Theory was cited by politicians such as

Dwight D Eisenhower as a means to justify an increasing presence in Vietnam and Cambodia. The theory was that Communism being allowed to exist in one country would enable it to spread to other countries, until eventually spreading throughout all of east asia and from there the world. This is clearly a stretch, and an example of the slippery slope fallacy. The only way to prevent this spread would be to increase our presence in the war and escalate the tensions to prevent the spread of Communism. In the end, we gave up and left Vietnam and Communism did not spread throughout the world. The theory was incorrect, as are most slippery slopes. Another great example comes from the former president Donald Trump. Trump, in explaining what happens when you support the democrats, said the following: "Following the radical-left agenda: take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment, no religion, no anything, hurt the Bible, hurt God." By following a leftist agenda, you are hurting God through these steps. It’s a ridiculous statement, as are all statements made using logical fallacies. Logical fallacies make for some humorously outrageous statements when closely examined. By supporting arguments with logical fallacies you are not only doing a disservice to the person you are in a disagreement with, but to constructive conversation as a whole. With presidential elections and debates being trivialized down to just mere immature arguments many of the times, it is especially clear the results of the normalization of logical fallacies. While sometimes it is easy to just brush off this flawed logic, it is important to consider the importance they can have in a political setting. They are used to start or otherwise prolong unnecessary wars, win presidential elections and much more. Perhaps we should remember this next time we are arguing a point, to avoid the conversational cancer that is logical fallacies.

References

Cathey, Libby. “Weaponizing Religion: Trump's Attacks on Biden's Faith, Calling Him 'against God'.” ABC News. ABC News Network, August 12, 2020. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/weaponizing-religion-trumps-attacks-bidens-faith-calling-god/story?id=7224 0325.

“Five Logical Fallacies Often Used in Political and Policy Debate.” Public leadership Institute, August 3, 2018. https://publicleadershipinstitute.org/2018/08/15/five-logical-fallacies-often-used-political-policy-debate/.

Manier, Jeremy. “The Sunk-Cost Fallacy and Iraq.” Chicago Tribune, August 21, 2021. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2006-10-29-0610290029-story.html.

Redinger, Claire. “Opinion: It's Not Debatable, Ad Hominem Attacks Destroy Constructive Conversation.” Gateway, October 7, 2020. https://unothegateway.com/opinion-its-not-debatable-ad-hominem-attacks-destroy-constructive-conversation/ .

Segarra, Lisa Marie. “John McCain Defends Barack Obama in Video from 2008 Election.” Time. Time, April 29, 2021. https://time.com/4866404/john-mccain-barack-obama-arab-cancer/....