MORE FALLACIES

Ayesha Masood
SECTION 4

Chart Title
15
13 14
10 12 11

5 7

0 2
<30 30-35 35-40 40-45 45-50 >50
 Premise is relevant to the conclusion
FALLACIES (so not a fallacy of relevance)
OF However:
INSUFFICIE The evidence provided is so weak
T EVIDENCE that we cannot believe the
conclusion.
 • A variety of argument
from authority
• Occurs when the
cited authority or
witness lacks
credibility.

APPEAL TO UNQUALIFIED
AUTHORITY
 Dr. Faisal, our family physician and a genius by
the way, told me that creating deuterium and
tritium are the key to sustained fusion reaction
at room temperature. He must be right!
APPEAL TO
UNQUALIFI Dick’s wife has filed a domestic abuse claim
against him. I am his best friend. I know he is
ED not capable of violence. She must be lying.

AUTHORIT
Y I always leave my hair long in the front. My
mother told me that having hair on my
forehead will stop hair fall and male pattern
baldness. She is my mother so I believe her.
APPEAL TO UNQUALIFIED AUTHORITY
• The sale of Shezan Juice should be banned at all canteens in the courts of Punjab,
because Shezan is a company owned by qadyanis – a resolution passed by Katm-
e-Nabuwaat Lawyers’ Movement in 2012 (true story)
• A husband is allowed to ‘lightly’ beat his wife ‘if needed’. Women will not be
permitted to receive foreign officials and state guests’, ban on co-education past
the primary level’, ‘ban on women working in ‘vulgar’ advertisements’, barring
female nurses from attending to male patients, making it compulsory for mothers
to breastfeed for two years and ‘ban on advertisements baby formula/substitutes
for breast milk’. Suggestions of Maulana Sherani, Chairman Council of Islamic
Ideology to Women protection bill.
 • A 60 year old, nearly blind witness: I was
standing the dark alley in the evening when I
saw this man kill the other person with a knife,
about a 100 yards from me.

APPEAL TO • Einstein dropped out of school at age 15, and

despite that went on to be a Nobel laureate in
UNQUALIFI Physics. It is said that school and his teachers
were unable to understand him. Goes on to
ED show that schooling is no guarantee for success.

AUTHORITY • The death penalty legitimizes an irreversible act

of violence by the state and will inevitably claim
innocent victims. As long as human justice
remains fallible, the risk of executing the
innocent can never be eliminated. Amnesty
International
 Is the person qualified in the area of their opinion?

Is the person biased?

Do the person has the ability to perceive what they

TO JUDGE are testifying about?
QUALIFICATI
ON Are they incorrectly cited?

Are they known to be generally unreliable?

Is the issue so disputed that claims of authority are

unlikely to settle it?
 • An arguer asserts that a claim must
be true because no one has proven
it false or, conversely, that a claim
must be false because no one has
APPEAL TO proven it true.
• Lack of evidence should lead to
IGNORANCE suspension of judgment!
Example:
• There is no life in universe. If there
was, we must have found it by now.
 Futile When a thorough search fails to turn up
Search: evidence, it is fair to form a likely
conclusion.

Remember falsification! Deductively invalid,

but inductively strong.

EXCEPTION
S EXAMPLE: After 5 years of research, this drug has
shown no side effects. It is safe to assume
that it is safe to use.

No one has ever seen Mr. Dick ever drink

wine or beer or any glass of alcoholic
beverage. It may be that he is a nondrinker.
EXCEPTIONS

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

• Under certain laws (USA, for example) the
burden of proof lies with the
plaintiff/prosecutor, who must prove beyond
the reasonable doubt that a person is guilty.
HASTY GENERALIZATION
• Generalization is drawing a conclusion about population from a
sample.
• Fallacy of hasty generalization occurs when sample is too small or
biased.
Example:
• Today’s money managers are all thieves, every single one of them.
Look at Bernie Madoff and Robert Stanford. They profited to the tune
of millions from their questionable business practices
 • When the
relationship of
premise to
conclusion depends
on an imaged cause,
and that cause likely
does not exist.

FALSE CAUSE
FALSE CAUSE
• Three times I saw that black cat outside, and each time
something bad happened. I tripped and fell, I got really bad
grade in my exam, and then my wallet was stolen. My, that
cat is bad luck.
• Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, so because of this)
FALSE CAUSE
• Successful businesses pay more than 10000 Rs. salary to
their executives. So to ensure that this company succeeds,
we must raise the pay of its executives.
• Non causa pro causa (not the cause for the cause)
FALSE CAUSE
• The quality of education in our primary and secondary schools has
been falling consistently in recent times. Clearly, our teachers are not
doing their job.
• Today, we expect to live much longer and healthier lives than our
ancestors. Clearly, we owe a great deal to the advances of medical
science.
• Oversimplified Cause.
SLIPPERY SLOPE
• A type of false cause fallacy
• Conclusion of argument depends on
the occurrence of an assumed chain
reaction
• There is little evidence that the said
chain reaction is likely to take place.
• Occur because the premise
presumes what the
conclusion is trying to
prove.

FALLACIES OF
PRESUMPTION
 • When the hidden
premise is false, and is
usually stated as a
conclusion.
Example:
• The world we live in
displays an amazing
amount of organization.
This means that this
world was created by an
intelligent design

BEGGING THE QUESTION

BEGGING THE QUESTION
• TYPE 1: LEAVE OUT A CRUCIAL PREMISE
It is morally impermissible to have abortion because killing innocent
human beings is always impermissible.
BEGGING THE QUESTION
• TYPE 2: PRESENT A PREMISE THAT MORE OR LESS HAS THE SAME
MEANING AS THE CONCLUSION.
• Murderers should receive capital punishment, because it is the most
just punishment for murder.
BEGGING THE
QUESTION
• TYPE 2: RESTATE THE
CONCLUSION AS A PREMISE IN A
LONG CHAIN OF INFERENCE.
CIRCULAR REASONING
 • A dichotomy is a pair of alternatives that are
both mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive.
• A pair {X, Y} is mutually exclusive if X and Y
FALSE cannot both be true.
• A pair {X, Y} is jointly exhaustive if either X or Y
DICHOTOM is true.
Y
• A false dichotomy is committed when the
arguer presents a pair of alternatives as if they
are a pair of dichotomy.
 • From a disjunctive premise, the
arguer can deny one of the
NOT alternative and conclude the other.
But in fact the alternatives are not
JOINTLY jointly exhaustive.
EXHAUSTIV Example
E • Either you are clever or you are
stupid. Yet you are not clever. So
you must be stupid.
 • One of the alternatives is affirmed and the
denial of the other is concluded. But in fact the
NOT alternatives are not mutually exclusive
MUTUALLY • EXAMPLE
• Either you are lying or I am lying. Since you are
EXCLUSIVE lying, I am not lying.
 • A loaded question is a question
that contains an unfair or
COMPLEX questionable assumption.
QUESTIONS Example:
• Do you still steal from your
boss?
 • When the conclusion of
argument depends on the
meaning of a word, which is,
either explicitly or implicitly,
used ambiguously.
Example:
• We have a duty to do what is
right. We have a right to
speak for the defense of
innocence. Therefore, we
have a duty to speak in the
defense of innocent.

EQUIVOCATION
FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY
• Amphiboly: Structure of the sentence makes it ambiguous
• The announcement of the marriage between Mr. Jason Wilson and
Ms. Anna Smith that appeared in this newspaper was a mistake and
we wish to correct it.
FALLACY OF WEAK ANALOGY
• When arguer compares two cases with little evidence that the two
cases are comparable or similar.
• EXAMPLE
• Nobody would buy a car without first taking it for a test drive. Why
then shouldn’t two mature high school juniors live together before
they decide whether to get married?
FALLACY OF INCONSISTENCY
• The arguer asserts inconsistent claims throughout the argument
• EXAMPLE
• Park visitors need to know how important it is to keep this wilderness
area completely pristine and undisturbed. So why not put up a few
signs to remind people of this fact?