Business - Felix

W hat is the most common (and most seductive) error in reasoning on the planet? You are about to fi nd out. In this chapter, we examine the infamous argu- mentum ad hominem, as well as other common fallacies.

To remind you of the overall picture, in Chapter 5 we explored ways the rhetorical content of words and phrases can be used to affect belief and attitude. In Chapter 6, we considered emotional appeals and related fallacies. The fallacies we turn to now, like the devices in the preceding chapters, can tempt us to believe something without giving us a legitimate reason for doing so.

THE AD HOMINEM FALLACY The ad hominem fallacy ( argumentum ad hominem ) is the most common of all mistakes in reasoning. The fallacy rests on a confusion between the qualities of the person making a claim and the qualities of the claim itself. (“Claim” is to be understood broadly here, as including beliefs, opinions, positions, arguments, proposals and so forth.)

Parker is an ingenious fellow. It follows that Parker’s opinion on some subject, whatever it is, is the opinion of an ingenious person. But it does not follow that Parker’s opinion itself is ingenious. To think that it is would be to

Students will learn to . . . 1. Recognize several types of fallacies

that confuse the qualities of a person making a claim with the qualities of the claim

2. Recognize the fallacy involved in thinking that a claim is refuted because of its origin

3. Recognize fallacies that misrepre- sent an opponent’s position

4. Recognize fallacies that errone- ously limit considerations to only two options

5. Recognize fallacious claims that one action or event will inevitabil- ity lead to another

6. Recognize arguments that place the burden of proof on the wrong party

7. Recognize the problem in argu- ments that rely on a claim that is itself at issue

7 More Fallacies

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THE AD HOMINEM FALLACY 211

confuse the content of Parker’s claim with Parker himself. Or let’s suppose you are listening to somebody, your teacher perhaps, whom you regard as a bit strange or maybe even weird. Would it follow that the car your teacher drives is strange or weird? Obviously not. Likewise, it would not follow that some specifi c proposal that the teacher has put forth is strange or weird. A proposal made by an oddball is an oddball’s proposal, but it does not follow that it is an oddball proposal. We must not confuse the qualities of the person making a claim with the qualities of the claim itself.

We commit the ad hominem fallacy when we think that considerations about a person “refute” his or her assertions. Ad hominem is Latin for “to the man,” indicating that it is not really the subject matter that’s being addressed, but the person. The most common varieties of the ad hominem fallacy are as follows.

The Personal Attack Ad Hominem “Johnson has such-and-such a negative feature; therefore, his claim (belief, opinion, theory, proposal, etc.) stands refuted.” This is the formula for the personal attack ad hominem fallacy. The name “personal attack” is self- explanatory, because attributing a negative feature to Johnson is attacking him personally.

Now, there are many negative features that we might attribute to a per- son: Perhaps Johnson is said to be ignorant or stupid. Maybe he is charged with being self-serving or feathering his own nest. Perhaps he is accused of being a racist or a sexist or a fascist or a cheat or of being cruel or uncaring or soft on communism or taking pleasure in strangling songbirds. The point to remem- ber is that shortcomings in a person are not equivalent to shortcomings in that person’s ideas, proposals, theories, opinions, claims, or arguments. This is not inconsistent with what was said about credibility. Indeed, facts about the source of a claim can correctly make us skeptical about the claim. But we should not ordinarily conclude that it is false on this account.

Now, it is true that there are exceptional circumstances we can imagine in which some feature of a person might logically imply that what that person says is false; but these circumstances tend to be far-fetched. “Johnson’s claim is false because he has been paid to lie about the matter” might qualify as an example. “Johnson’s claim is false because he has been given a drug that makes him say only false things” would qualify, too. But such situations are rare. True, when we have doubts about the credibility of a source, we must be careful before we accept a claim from that source. But the doubts are rarely sufficient grounds for outright rejection of the claim. No matter what claim Johnson might make and no matter what his faults might be, we are rarely jus- tifi ed in rejecting the claim as false simply because he has those faults.

The Inconsistency Ad Hominem “Moore’s claim is inconsistent with something else Moore has said or done; therefore, his claim (belief, opinion, theory, proposal, etc.) stands refuted.” This is the formula for the inconsistency ad hominem, and you encounter versions of this fallacy all the time. An example: In 2008 Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were both vying for the Democratic nomination for the presi- dency. After Obama was quoted as saying he had “no intention of taking away

They believe the Boy Scouts’ position on homosexuality was objectionable, but they gave no heed to people’s objections about using state money to fund displays about sodomy in the people’s Capitol.

—California assemblyman BILL LEONARD (R-San Bernardino), criticizing the legislature for funding a gay pride display in the state’s Capitol

Man! As if sodomy in the people’s Capitol isn’t bad enough, they have to go and fund displays about it! Leonard’s remark is an example of an inconsistency ad hominem. (It also contains a wild syntactical ambiguity, as noted above.)

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212 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

folks’ guns,” the Clinton campaign pointed out that on a 1996 questionnaire Obama had said he “supported banning the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns,” and that this showed that his new claim about not intending to “take away folks’ guns” was not really true. Again, the fact that one opinion was expressed in 1996 and a different one in 2008 is not grounds for rejecting the latter as false. Although accusations of doing a “fl ip-fl op” are standard in political campaigns, it’s important to look beneath the surface to see how dif- ferent the two positions really are and whether there might be a good reason for changing one’s mind. The fact that people change their minds has no bear- ing on the truth of what they say either before or after.

In Depth

Ad Hominem

The idea behind the ad hominem fallacy is to point to the person making a claim and accuse him or her of some flaw, evil deed, or other negative feature. By indicting the person behind the claim, the accuser hopes to refute the claim. But while some fact about the author of a claim may affect his or her credibility, it cannot by itself demonstrate that the claim is false.

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THE AD HOMINEM FALLACY 213

Sometimes a person’s claim seems inconsistent, not with previous state- ments but with that person’s behavior. For example, Johnson might tell us to be more generous, when we know Johnson himself is as stingy as can be. Well, Johnson may well be a hypocrite, but we would be guilty of the incon- sistency ad hominem fallacy if we regarded Johnson’s stinginess or hypocrisy as grounds for rejecting what he says. This type of reasoning, where we reject what somebody says because what he or she says seems inconsistent with what he or she does, even has a Latin name: tu quoque, meaning “you, too.” This version of the inconsistency ad hominem often boils down to nothing more than saying “You, too” or “You do it, too!” If a smoker urges another smoker to give up the habit, the second smoker commits the inconsistency ad hominem if she says, “Well, you do it, too!”

The Circumstantial Ad Hominem “Parker’s circumstances are such and such; therefore, his claim (belief, opin- ion, theory, proposal, etc.) stands refuted.” This is the formula for the circum- stantial ad hominem. An example would be “Well, you can forget about what Father Hennesy says about the dangers of abortion, because Father Hennesy’s a priest, and priests are required to hold such views.” The speaker in this exam- ple is citing Father Hennesy’s circumstances (being a priest) to “refute” Father Hennesy’s opinion. This example isn’t a personal attack ad hominem because the speaker may think very highly of priests in general and of Father Hennesy in particular. Clearly, though, a person could intend to issue a personal attack by mentioning circumstances that (in the opinion of the speaker) constituted a defect on the part of the person attacked. For example, consider “You can forget about what Father Hennesy says about the dangers of abortion because he is a priest and priests all have sexual hang-ups.” That would qualify as both a circumstantial ad hominem (he’s a priest) and a personal attack ad hominem (priests have sexual hang-ups).

Poisoning the Well Poisoning the well can be thought of as an ad hominem in advance. If someone dumps poison down your well, you don’t drink from it. Similarly, when A poi- sons your mind about B by relating unfavorable information about B, you may be inclined to reject what B says to you.

Well-poisoning is easier to arrange than you might think. You might sup- pose that to poison someone’s thinking about Mrs. Jones, you would have to say or at least insinuate something deprecatory or derogatory about her. In fact, recent psycholinguistic research suggests you can poison someone’s thinking about Mrs. Jones by doing just the opposite! If we don’t know Mrs. Jones, even a sentence that expresses an outright denial of a connection between her and something unsavory is apt to make us form an unfavorable impression of her. Psychological studies indicate that people are more apt to form an unfavorable impression of Mrs. Jones from a sentence like “Mrs. Jones is not an ax mur- derer” than from a sentence like “Mrs. Jones has a sister.”

Moral: Because it might be easy for others to arrange for us to have a negative impression of someone, we must be extra careful not to reject what a person says just because we have an unfavorable impression of the individual.

I get calls from nutso environ- mentalists who are filled with compassion for every snail darter that is threatened by some dam somewhere. Yet, they have no interest in the 1.5 million fetuses that are aborted every year in the United States. I love to argue with them and challenge their double standard.

—RUSH LIMBAUGH

Often an inconsistency ad hominem will accuse someone of having a double standard. Notice how this example is combined with ridicule (See Chapter 5).

Hey, maybe you have no better sense, but I personally would not accept anything as news coming from that fat drug- addicted loudmouth.

-—Comment on a media blog

An ad hominem used against Limbaugh.

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214 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

“Positive Ad Hominem Fallacies” An ad hominem fallacy, then, is committed if we rebut a person on the basis of considerations that, logically, apply to the person rather than to his or her claims. Strictly speaking, if we automatically transfer the positive or favorable attributes of a person to what he or she says, that’s a mistake in reasoning, as well. The fact that you think Moore is clever does not logically entitle you to conclude that any specifi c opinion of Moore’s is clever. The fact that, in your view, the NRA represents all that is good and proper does not enable you to infer that any specifi c proposal from the NRA is good and proper. Logicians did not always limit the ad hominem fallacy to cases of rebuttal, but that seems to be the usage now, and we shall follow that policy in this book. You should just remember that a parallel mistake in reasoning happens if you confuse the favorable qualities of a person with the qualities of his or her assertion.

THE GENETIC FALLACY The genetic fallacy occurs when we try to “refute” a claim (or urge others to do so) on the basis of its origin or its history. If this sounds like what we’ve been talking about in the ad hominem section, it’s no surprise. The genetic fal- lacy is often considered to be a blanket category for all fallacies that mistake an attack on a source for an attack on the claim in question. Taken this way, all versions of ad hominem, poisoning the well, and so forth, are also examples of the genetic fallacy.

In our treatment, we reserve the use of the term “genetic fallacy” for cases where it isn’t a person that is disparaged as the source of a claim but some other kind of entity—a club, a political party, an industrial group, or even an entire epoch. An example of the latter would be attempting to refute a belief in God because that belief fi rst rose in superstitious times when we had few natural explanations for events like storms, earthquakes, and so on. We have heard people declare the U.S. Constitution “invalid” because it was (allegedly) drafted to protect the interests of property owners. This is another example of the genetic fallacy.

If we “refute” a proposal (or urge someone else to reject it) on the grounds that it was part of the Republican (or Democratic) party platform, we commit the genetic fallacy. If we “refute” a policy (or try to get others to reject it) on the grounds that a slave-holding state in the nineteenth century originated the policy, that qualifi es. If we “rebut” (or urge others to reject) a ballot initiative on the grounds that the insurance industry or the association of trial law- yers or the American Civil Liberties Union or “Big Tobacco” or “Big Oil” or multinational corporations or the National Education Association or the National Rifl e Association or the National Organization for Women proposed it or back it, we commit the fallacy. Knowing that the NRA or the NEA or NOW proposed or backs or endorses a piece of legislation may give one reason (depending on one’s politics) to be suspicious of it or to have a careful look at it; but a perceived lack of merit on the part of the organization that proposed or backs or endorses a proposal is not equivalent to a lack of merit in the pro- posal itself. Knowing the NRA is behind a particular ballot initiative is not the same as knowing about a specifi c defect in the initiative itself, even if you detest the NRA.

Whom are they kidding? Where are NOW’s constitutional objec- tions to the billions of dollars (including about $1 million to NOW itself) that women’s groups receive under the Vio- lence Against Women Act?

—ARMIN BROTT, issuing an ad hominem response to opposi- tion by the National Organiza- tion for Women to a proposal to provide poor fathers with parenting and marital-skills training and classes on money management

Gender - based inconsistency ad hominem

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THE GENETIC FALLACY 215

Classify each of the following cases of ad hominem as personal attack ad homi- nem, circumstantial ad hominem, inconsistency ad hominem, poisoning the well, or genetic fallacy. Identify the cases, if any, in which it might be difficult or futile to assign the item to any single one of these categories, as well as those cases, if any, where the item doesn’t fi t comfortably into any of these categories at all.

1. The proponents of this spend-now–pay-later boondoggle would like you to believe that this measure will cost you only one billion dollars. That’s NOT TRUE. In the last general election, some of these very same people argued against unneeded rail projects because they would cost taxpayers millions more in interest payments. Now they have changed their minds and are willing to encourage irresponsible borrowing. Connecticut is already awash in red ink. Vote NO.

2. Rush Limbaugh argues that the establishment clause of the First Amend- ment should not be stretched beyond its intended dimensions by pre- cluding voluntary prayer in public schools. This is a peculiar argument, when you consider that Limbaugh is quite willing to stretch the Second Amendment to include the right to own assault rifl es and Saturday night specials.

3. I think you can safely assume that Justice Scalia’s opinions on the cases before the Supreme Court this term will be every bit as fl aky as his past opinions.

4. Harvard now takes the position that its investment in urban redevel- opment projects will be limited to projects that are environmentally friendly. Before you conclude that that is such a swell idea, stop and think. For a long time, Harvard was one of the biggest slumlords in the country.

5. Capital punishment was invented during barbaric times. No civilized society ought to tolerate it.

6. Dear Editor— I read with amusement the letter by Leslie Burr titled “It’s time to get

tough.” Did anyone else notice a little problem in her views? It seems a little odd that somebody who claims that she “loathes violence” could also say that “criminals should pay with their life.” I guess consistency isn’t Ms. Burr’s greatest concern.

7. you: Look at this. It says here that white males still earn a lot more than minorities and women for doing the same job.

your friend: Yeah, right. Written by some woman, no doubt. 8. “Steve Thompson of the California Medical Association said document-

checking might even take place in emergency rooms. That’s because, while undocumented immigrants would be given emergency care, not all cases that come into emergency rooms fall under the federal defi nition of an emergency.

“To all those arguments initiative proponents say hogwash. They say the education and health groups opposing the initiative are

Exercise 7-1

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216 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

interested in protecting funding they receive for providing services to the undocumented.”

—Article in Sacramento Bee

9. Ugh. Fred Smith. FedEx Founder and CEO. Presented as an “American Leader.” Hard for me to get past what an ineffective father he is. [Smith is the father of Richard Wallace Smith, who pled guilty to assault and bat- tery charges after he and two accomplices beat up a freshman student on the University of Virginia campus.]

— Jason Linkins, The Huffington Post, December 2, 2007

10. Are Moore and Parker guilty of the ad hominem fallacy or poisoning the well in their discussion of Rush Limbaugh on page 180?

11. “Creationism cannot possibly be true. People who believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible just never outgrew the need to believe in Santa Claus.”

—Melinda Zerkle

12. “Americans spend between $28 billion and $61 billion a year in medical costs for treatment of hypertension, heart disease, cancer and other ill- nesses attributed to consumption of meat, says a report out today from a pro-vegetarian doctor’s group.

“Dr. Neal D. Barnard, lead author of the report in the Journal of Pre- ventive Medicine, and colleagues looked at studies comparing the health of vegetarians and meat eaters, then fi gured the cost of treating illnesses suffered by meat eaters in excess of those suffered by vegetarians. Only studies that controlled for the health effects of smoking, exercise and alco- hol consumption were considered.

“The American Medical Association, in a statement from Dr. M. Roy Schwarz, charged that Barnard’s group is an ‘animal rights front organiza- tion’ whose agenda ‘defi nitely taints whatever unsubstantiated fi ndings it may claim.’ ”

—USA Today

STRAW MAN A man made of straw is easier to knock over than a real one. And that’s the reason this fallacy has its name. We get a straw man fallacy when a speaker or writer distorts, exaggerates, or otherwise misrepresents an opponent’s position. In such a case, the position attributed to the opponent isn’t a real one; it’s a position made of straw and thus more easily criticized and rejected. Here’s a simple example: Imagine that our editor’s wife says to him, “Mark, it’s time you got busy and cleaned out the garage.” He protests, “What? Again? Do I have to clean out the garage every blasted day?” In saying this, he is attribut- ing to his wife a much less defensible position than her real one, since nobody would agree that he should have to clean out the garage every day.

Here’s a real-life example from a newspaper column by George Will:

[Senator Lindsey] Graham believes that some borrowing is appro- priate to make stakeholders of future generations, which will be the

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STRAW MAN 217

biggest benefi ciaries of personal accounts. But substantially reducing the borrowing would deny Democrats the ability to disguise as fi s- cal responsibility their opposition to personal accounts, which really is rooted in reluctance to enable people to become less dependent on government.

It’s the fi nal portion, which we’ve put in italics, that’s the straw man, and a won- derful example it is. Will describes the Democrats’ position as being reluctant to enable people to become less dependent on government. We’re pretty sure you could question every Democrat in Washington, D.C., and maybe every Democrat in the United States, and you could not fi nd even one who is reluc- tant “to enable people to become less dependent on government.” To be in favor of government programs to help people who need them is a far cry from being in favor of keeping people on those programs as long as possible.

A second point regarding this example, and one that is often a part of a straw man fallacy, is that the writer is presuming to read the minds of an entire group of people—how could he possibly know the “real” reason Democrats

In the Media

Sieg Heil? . . . or Shut Up? In November 2006, Andrés Manuel López Obrador was a candidate for the presidency of Mexico after a bitterly contested national election. He is shown here before a speech in Mexico City. It certainly appears that López Obrador is giving a facist salute in this photo (it may be that his party makes use of such a gesture; we are not sufficiently informed to say), but we’ve also been told that he was just trying to quiet the crowd at the moment the shot was taken. In any case, it’s another example of a photo that can be used to mislead, whichever interpretation you choose.

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218 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

oppose personal accounts if they’re claiming something entirely different? (This is sometimes called “reliance on an unknown fact.”)

The straw man fallacy is so common that it ranks next to the top on our list of the top ten fallacies of all time (see inside front cover). One person will say he wants to eliminate the words “under God” from the Pledge of Alle- giance, and his opponent will act as if he wants to eliminate the entire pledge. A conservative will oppose tightening emission standards for sulfur dioxide, and a liberal will accuse him of wanting to relax the standards. A Democratic congresswoman will say she opposes cutting taxes, and her Republican oppo- nent will accuse her of wanting to raise taxes.

The ad hominem fallacy attempts to “refute” a claim on the basis of con- siderations that logically apply to its source. The straw man fallacy attempts to “refute” a claim by altering it so that it seems patently false or even ridiculous.

FALSE DILEMMA Suppose our editor’s wife, in the example earlier, says to him, “Look, Mark, either we clean out the garage, or all this junk will run us out of house and home. Would you prefer that?” Now she is offering him a “choice”: either clean out the garage or let the junk run them out of house and home. But the choice she offers is limited to just two alternatives, and there are alternatives that deserve consideration, such as doing it later or not acquiring additional junk.

The false dilemma fallacy occurs when you limit considerations to only two alternatives although other alternatives may be available. Like the straw man fallacy, it is encountered all the time. You say you don’t want to drill for oil in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve? Would you prefer letting the Ira- nians dictate the price of oil?

Or take a look at this example:

congressman Guess we’re going to have to cut back expenditures claghorn: on social programs again this year.

you: Why’s that?

claghorn: Well, we either do that or live with this high defi cit, and that’s something we can’t allow.

I’m a very controversial figure to the animal rights move- ment. They no doubt view me with some measure of hostility because I am constantly chal- lenging their fundamental premise that animals are supe- rior to human beings.

—RUSH LIMBAUGH, setting up a straw man for the kill

In the Media

Straw Man in the Elder Competition In 2005, the political group USA NEXT ran an ad attacking the AARP, a nationwide organiza- tion of retired persons. The ad made it appear that the AARP stood for gay marriage when in fact the organization had never taken a stand on the subject. Charlie Jarvis, chairman of USA Next, defended the ad by saying that an AARP affiliate in Ohio had come out against a same- sex marriage ban in that state. To claim that this is the same as saying the AARP endorses gay marriage is a good example of a straw man fallacy.

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FALSE DILEMMA 219

Here, Claghorn maintains that either we live with the high defi cit, or we cut social programs, and that therefore, because we can’t live with the high defi - cit, we have to cut social programs. But this reasoning works only if cutting social programs is the only alternative to a high defi cit. Of course, that is not the case (taxes might be raised or military spending cut, for example). Another example:

daniel: Theresa and I both endorse this idea of allowing prayer in public schools, don’t we, Theresa?

theresa: I never said any such thing!

daniel: Hey, I didn’t know you were an atheist!

Here, Daniel’s “argument” amounts to this: Either you endorse prayer in pub- lic schools, or you are an atheist; therefore, because you do not endorse school prayer, you must be an atheist. But a person does not have to be an atheist in order to feel unfavorable toward prayer in public schools. The alternatives Daniel presents, in other words, could both be false. Theresa might not be an atheist and still might not endorse school prayer.

The example Daniel provides shows how this type of fallacy and the pre- ceding one can work together: A straw man is often used as part of a false dilemma. A person who wants us to accept X may not only ignore other alter- natives besides Y but also exaggerate or distort Y. In other words, this person leaves only one “reasonable” alternative because the only other one provided is really a straw man. You can also think of a false dilemma as a false dichotomy.

Here’s an example of a false dilemma by President Obama from an inter- view on March 17, 2010, with Bret Baier of Fox News:

obama: “What I can tell you is that the vote that’s taken in the House will be a vote for health care reform. And if people vote yes, whatever form that takes, that is going to be a vote for health care reform.”

[Baier breaks in for a moment.]

obama: Bret, let me fi nish. If they don’t, if they vote against, then they’re going to be voting against health care reform and they’re going to be voting in favor of the status quo.

Reduced to bare bones, Obama is saying that either the House will vote for the health care bill before it or they’ll be voting for the status quo. In fact, many members of the House were unsatisfi ed with the status quo but did not like the bill in question either; those members would rather have been voting against the status quo but for a different health care bill.

One might defend the president’s remark by saying that, in fact, no other health care bill was going to be available to vote on; therefore, members of the House really had only two alternatives: this health care bill or no health care bill. However, without this being made clear, the remark is a false dilemma as it stands.

It might help in understanding false dilemmas to look quickly at a real dilemma. Consider: You know that the Smiths must heat their house in the

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220 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

winter. You also know that the only heating options available in their loca- tion are gas and electricity. Under these circumstances, if you fi nd out that they do not have electric heat, it must indeed be true that they must use gas heat because that’s the only alternative remaining. False dilemma occurs only when reasonable alternatives are ignored. In such cases, both X and Y may be false, and some other alternative may be true.

Therefore, before you accept X because some alternative, Y, is false, make certain that X and Y cannot both be false. Look especially for some third alter- native, some way of rejecting Y without having to accept X. Example:

moore: Look, Parker, you’ve been worrying about whether you could afford that bigger house on the corner for over a year. You need to grit your teeth and buy it or just get used to staying where you are and doing without the extra space.

Parker could reject both of Moore’s alternatives (buying the house on the corner or staying where he is) because of some obvious but unmentioned alter- natives. Parker might fi nd another house to buy, bigger than his present one but less expensive than the one on the corner; or he might remodel his current house, making it bigger at less expense than buying the corner house.

Before moving on, we should point out that there is more than one way to present a pair of alternatives. Aside from the obvious “either X or Y” version we’ve described so far, we can use the form “if not X, then Y.”

Real Life

Which Is It Going to Be, Springfield?

This was the message on a flyer urging a “no” vote on a proposed zoning law change in a west- ern city. Since the photos depict only two (fairly extreme) alternatives, and given that there are surely many other reasonable ones, the flyer presents an excellent example of a false dilemma.

This or THIS!

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FALSE DILEMMA 221

For instance, in the example at the beginning of the section, Congressman Claghorn can say, “Either we cut back on expenditures, or we’ll have a big defi cit,” but he can accomplish the same thing by saying, “If we don’t cut back on expenditures, then we’ll have a big defi cit.” These two ways of stat- ing the dilemma are equivalent. Claghorn gets the same result: After denying that we can tolerate the high defi cit, he concludes that we’ll have to cut back expenditures. Again, it’s the artifi cial narrowness of the alternatives—the fal- sity of the claim that says “if not one, then surely the other”—that makes this a fallacy.

The Perfectionist Fallacy A particular subspecies of false dilemma and common rhetorical ploy is some- thing we call the perfectionist fallacy. It comes up when a plan or policy is under consideration, and it goes like this:

If policy X will not meet our goals as well as we’d like them met (i.e., “perfectly”), then policy X should be rejected.

This principle downgrades policy X simply because it isn’t perfection. It’s a version of false dilemma because it says, in effect, “Either the policy is perfect, or else we must reject it.”

An excellent example of the perfectionist fallacy comes from the Nat- ional Football League’s experience with the instant replay rule, which allows an off-fi eld official to review video recordings of a play to determine whether the on-fi eld official’s ruling was correct. To help the replay official, recordings from several angles can be viewed, and the play runs in slow motion.

When it was fi rst proposed, the argument most frequently heard against the replay policy went like this: “It’s a mistake to use replays to make calls because no matter how many cameras you have following the action on the fi eld, you’re still going to miss some calls. There’s no way to see everything that’s going on.”

According to this type of reasoning, we should not have police unless they can prevent every crime or apprehend every criminal. You can probably think of other examples that show perfectionist reasoning to be very unreli- able indeed.

The Line-Drawing Fallacy Another version of the false dilemma is called the line-drawing fallacy. An example comes from the much-publicized Rodney King case, in which four Los Angeles police officers were acquitted of charges of using excessive force when they beat King during his arrest. After the trial, one of the jurors indi- cated that an argument like the following fi nally convinced her and at least one other juror to vote “not guilty”:

Everybody agrees that the fi rst time one of the officers struck King with a nightstick it did not constitute excessive force. Therefore, if we are to conclude that excessive force was indeed used, then sometime during the course of the beating (during which King was hit about fi fty times) there must have been a moment—a particular blow—at which the force became excessive. Since there is no point at which we can determine that the use of force changed from warranted to excessive, we are forced

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222 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

to conclude that it did not become excessive at any time during the beating; and so the officers did not use excessive force.

These jurors accepted the line-drawing fallacy, the fallacy of insisting that a line must be drawn at some precise point when in fact it is not necessary that such a precise line be drawn.

To see how this works, consider another example: Clearly, it is impos- sible for a person who is not rich to become rich by our giving her one dollar. But, equally clearly, if we give our lucky person fi fty million dollars, one at a time (very quickly, obviously—maybe we have a machine to deal them out), she will be rich. According to the line-drawing argument, however, if we can- not point to the precise dollar that makes her rich, then she can never get rich, no matter how much money she is given.

The problem, of course, is that the concepts referred to by “rich” and “excessive force” (and many others) are vague concepts. (Remember our dis- cussion in Chapter 3.) We can fi nd cases where the concepts clearly apply and cases where they clearly do not apply. But it is not at all clear exactly where the borderlines are.

Many logicians interpret line drawing as a variety of slippery slope (dis- cussed next). The King case might be seen this way: If the fi rst blow struck against King did not amount to excessive violence, then there’s nothing in the series of blows to change that fact. So there’s no excessive violence at the end of the series, either.

Our own preference is to see the line-drawing fallacy as a version of false dilemma. It presents the following alternatives: Either there is a precise place where we draw the line, or else there is no line to be drawn (no difference) between one end of the scale and the other. Either there is a certain blow at which the force used against King became excessive, or else the force never became excessive.

Again, remember that our categories of fallacy sometimes overlap. When that happens, it doesn’t matter as much which way we classify a case as that we see that an error is being made.

SLIPPERY SLOPE We’ve all heard people make claims of this sort: “If we let X happen, the fi rst thing you know, Y will be happening.” This is one form of the slippery slope. Such claims are fallacious when in fact there is no reason to think that X will lead to Y. Sometimes X and Y can be the same kind of thing or can bear some kind of similarity to one another, but that doesn’t mean that one will inevita- bly lead to the other.

Opponents of handgun control sometimes use a slippery slope argument, saying that if laws to register handguns are passed, this will eventually lead to making ownership of any kind of gun illegal. This is fallacious if there is no reason to think that the fi rst kind of law will lead eventually to the second kind. It’s up to the person who offers the slippery slope claim to show why the fi rst action will lead to the second.

It is also argued that one should not experiment with certain drugs because experimentation is apt to lead to serious addiction or dependence. In the case of drugs that are known to be addictive, there is no fallacy present— the likelihood of the progression is clear.

[People] who are voyeurs, if they are not irredeemably sick, . . . feel ashamed at what they are witnessing.

—IRVING KRISTOL, “Pornography, Obscenity, and the Case for Censorship”

False dilemma

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MISPLACING THE BURDEN OF PROOF 223

The other version of slippery slope occurs when someone claims we must continue a certain course of action simply because we have already begun that course. It was said during the Vietnam War that, because the United States had already sent troops to Vietnam, it was necessary to send more troops to sup- port the fi rst ones. Unless there is some reason supplied to show that the fi rst step must lead to the others, this is a fallacy. (Notice that it’s easy to make a false dilemma out of this case as well; do you see how to do it?) Although there are other factors that make the Iraq War somewhat different, many believe the fallacy applies there as well.

Sometimes we take the fi rst step in a series, and then we realize that it was a mistake. To insist on taking the remainder when we could admit our mistake and retreat is to fall prey to the slippery slope fallacy. This is illus- trated by the example from Senator Murkowski in the box above. (If you’re the sort who insists on following one bad move with another one, we’d like to tell you about our friendly Thursday night poker game.)

The slippery slope fallacy has considerable force because psychologically one item does often lead to another, even though logically it does no such thing. When we think of X, say, we may be led immediately to think of Y. But this certainly does not mean that X itself is necessarily followed by Y. Once again, to think that Y has to follow X is to engage in slippery slope thinking; to do so when there is no particular reason to think Y must follow X is to commit a slippery slope fallacy.

We should note in conclusion that the slope is sometimes a longer one: If we do X, it will lead to Y, and Y will lead to Z, and Z will lead to . . . eventually to some disaster. To avoid the fallacy, it must be shown that each step is likely to follow from the preceding step.

MISPLACING THE BURDEN OF PROOF Moore asks Parker, “Say, did you know that, if you rub red wine on your head, your gray hair will turn dark again?”

Parker, of course, will say, “Baloney.” Let’s suppose Moore then says, “Baloney? Hey, how do you know it won’t

work?”

Real Life

$8 Billion Down the Tube! Eight billion dollars in utility ratepayers’ money and 20 years of effort will be squandered if this resolution is defeated.

—SENATOR FRANK MURKOWSKI, R-Alaska, using a slippery slope fallacy to argue for going forward with government plans to bury

radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain, Nevada

The fact that we’ve spent money on it already doesn’t make it a good idea.

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224 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

Moore’s question is odd, because the burden of proof rests on him, not on Parker. Moore has misplaced the burden of proof on Parker, and this is a mistake, a fallacy.

Misplacing the burden of proof occurs when the burden of proof is placed on the wrong side of an issue. This is a common rhetorical technique, and sometimes you have to be on your toes to spot it. People are frequently tricked into thinking that they have to prove their opponent’s claim wrong, when in fact the opponent should be proving that the claim is right. For example, back in 2003 you often heard people trying their darnedest to prove that we shouldn’t go to war with Iraq, in a context in which the burden of proof rests on those who think we should go to war.

What reasonable grounds would make us place the burden of proof more on one side of an issue than the other? There are a variety of such grounds, but they fall mainly into three categories. We can express them as a set of general rules:

1. Initial plausibility. In Chapter 4, we said that the more a claim coin- cides with our background information, the greater its initial plausibility. The general rule that most often governs the placement of the burden of proof is simply this: The less initial plausibility a claim has, the greater the burden of proof we place on someone who asserts that claim. This is just good sense, of course. We are quite naturally less skeptical about the claim that Charlie’s now-famous eighty-seven-year-old grandmother drove a boat across Lake Michigan than we are about the claim that she swam across Lake Michigan. Unfortunately, this rule is a general rule, not a rule that can be applied pre- cisely. We are unable to assess the specifi c degree of a claim’s plausibility and then determine with precision just exactly how much evidence its advocates

In the Media

A Double Slippery Slope Next time it will be easier. It always is. The tolerance of early-term abortion made it pos- sible to tolerate partial-birth abortion, and to give advanced thinkers a hearing when they advocate outright infanticide. Letting the courts decide such life-and-death issues made it possible for us to let them decide others, made it seem somehow wrong for anyone to stand in their way. Now they are helping to snuff out the minimally conscious. Who’s next?

—Editorial, National Review Online, March 31, 2005

There are actually two slippery slope arguments built into this passage. One says that one type of abortion (early - term) led to another (partial-birth); the second says that letting the courts decide some issues led to allowing them to decide more issues. Both cases are fallacious because in neither is there any evidence advanced for the slipperiness of the slope. Was it tolerance of early - term abortion that led to partial-birth abortion? In fact, the slope seems not to have been slippery, since a ban on partial-birth abortion became federal law in 2003. And many issues, including many life-and-death issues, are properly within the purview of the courts from the outset; there is no reason to think that some became matters for the judiciary simply because others were.

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MISPLACING THE BURDEN OF PROOF 225

need to produce to make us willing to accept the claim. But, as a general rule, the initial-plausibility rule can keep us from setting the requirements unrea- sonably high for some claims and allowing others to slide by unchallenged when they don’t deserve to.

2. Affirmative/negative. Other things being equal, the burden of proof falls automatically on those supporting the affirmative side of an issue rather than on those supporting the negative side. In other words, we generally want to hear reasons why something is the case before we require reasons why it is not the case. Consider this conversation:

moore: The car won’t start.

parker: Yeah, I know. It’s a problem with the ignition.

moore: What makes you think that?

parker: What makes you think it isn’t?

Parker’s last remark seems strange because we generally require the affirma- tive side to assume the burden of proof; it is Parker’s job to give reasons for thinking that the problem is in the ignition.

This rule applies to cases of existence versus nonexistence, too. Most often, the burden of proof should fall on those who claim something exists rather than on those who claim it doesn’t. There are people who believe in ghosts, not because of any evidence that there are ghosts, but because nobody has shown there are no such things. (When someone claims that we should believe in such-and-such because nobody has proved that it isn’t so, we have a version of burden of proof known as appeal to ignorance. ) This is a burden-of-proof fallacy because it mistakenly places the requirement of prov- ing their position on those who do not believe in ghosts. (Of course, the fi rst rule applies here, too, because ghosts are not part of background knowledge for most of us.)

■ Paleological misplacement of the burden of proof! (© Dan Piraro. Reprinted with special permission of King Features Syndicate.)

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226 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

In Depth

Innocent Until Proved Guilty We must point out that sometimes there are specific reasons why the burden of proof is placed entirely on one side. The obvious case in point is in criminal court, where it is the prosecution’s job to prove guilt. The defense is not required to prove innocence; it must only try to keep the prosecution from succeeding in its attempt to prove guilt. We are, as we say, “innocent until proved guilty.” As a matter of fact, it’s possible that more trials might come to a correct conclusion (i.e., the guilty get convicted and the innocent acquitted) if the burden of proof were equally shared between prosecution and defense. But we have wisely decided that if we are to make a mistake, we would rather it be one of letting a guilty per- son go free than one of convicting an innocent person. Rather than being a fallacy, then, this lopsided placement of the burden of proof is how we guarantee a fundamental right: the presumption of innocence.

In general, the affirmative side gets the burden of proof because it tends to be much more difficult—or at least much more inconvenient—to prove the negative side of an issue. Imagine a student who walks up to the ticket win- dow at a football game and asks for a discounted student ticket. “Can you prove you’re a student?” he is asked. “No,” the student replies, “Can you prove I’m not?” Well, it may be possible to prove he’s not a student, but it’s no easy chore, and it would be unreasonable to require it.

Incidentally, some people say it’s impossible to “prove a negative.” But difficult is not the same as impossible. And some “negatives” are even easy to prove. For example, “There are no elephants in this classroom.”

3. Special circumstances. Sometimes getting at the truth is not the only thing we want to accomplish, and on such occasions we may purposely place the burden of proof on a particular side. Courts of law provide us with the most obvious example. (See the box “Innocent Until Proved Guilty.”) Specifi c agreements can also move the burden of proof from where it would ordinarily fall. A contract might specify, “It will be presumed that you receive the infor- mation by the tenth of each month unless you show otherwise.” In such cases, the rule governing the special circumstances should be clear and acceptable to all parties involved.

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BEGGING THE QUESTION 227

One important variety of special circumstances occurs when the stakes are especially high. For example, if you’re thinking of investing your life sav- ings in a company, you’ll want to put a heavy burden of proof on the person who advocates making the investment. However, if the investment is small, one you can afford to lose, you might be willing to lay out the money even though it has not been thoroughly proved that the investment is safe. In short, it is reasonable to place a higher burden of proof on someone who advocates a policy that could be dangerous or costly if he or she is mistaken.

These three rules cover most of the ground in placing the burden of proof properly. Be careful about situations where people put the burden of proof on the side other than where our rules indicate it should fall. Take this example:

parker: I think we should invest more money in expanding the interstate highway system.

moore: I think that would be a big mistake.

parker: How could anybody object to more highways?

With his last remark, Parker has attempted to put the burden of proof on Moore. Such tactics can put one’s opponent in a defensive position; if he takes the bait, Moore now has to show why we should not spend more on roads rather than Parker having to show why we should spend more. This is an inappropri- ate burden of proof.

You should always be suspicious when someone tells you that your inability to disprove his claim shows that his claim is true. Take note of where the burden of proof falls in such situations; your speaker may be trying to erro- neously place that burden on you. We should also point out that if repeated attempts to prove something end in failure, that may be a reason for doubting it. Psychics’ repeated failure to prove that ESP exists is a reason to be skeptical of ESP.

BEGGING THE QUESTION Here’s a version of a simple example of begging the question, a fairly silly one but one that makes the point clearly (we’ll return to it later):

Two gold miners roll a boulder away from its resting place and fi nd three huge gold nuggets underneath. One says to the other, “Great!

In the Media

So Much for Presumed Innocence . . . I would rather have an innocent man executed than a guilty murderer go free.

—Caller on Talk Back Live (CNN)

This not uncommon thought is a bizarre false dilemma, since if the innocent man is executed, the guilty murderer does go free.

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228 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

That’s one nugget for you and two for me,” handing one nugget to his associate.

“Wait a minute!” says the second miner. “Why do you get two and I get just one?”

“Because I’m the leader of this operation,” says the fi rst. “What makes you the leader?” asks miner number two. “I’ve got twice the gold you do,” answers miner number one.

This next example is as famous as the fi rst one was silly: Some people say they can prove God exists. When asked how, they reply, “Well, the Scrip- tures say very clearly that God must exist.” Then, when asked why we should believe the Scriptures, they answer, “The Scriptures are divinely inspired by God himself, so they must be true.”

The problem with such reasoning is that the claim at issue—whether God exists—turns out to be one of the very assumptions the argument is based on. If we can’t trust the Scriptures, then the argument isn’t any good, but the reason given for trusting the Scriptures requires the existence of God, the very thing we were questioning in the fi rst place! Examples like this are sometimes called circular reasoning or arguing in a circle because they start from much the same place as they end up.

Gay marriages should not be legal because if there wasn’t anything wrong with them they would already be legal, which they aren’t.

—From a student essay

If you examine this “reason- ing” closely, it says that gay marriages shouldn’t be legal because they aren’t legal. This is not quite “X is true just because X is true,” but it’s close. The issue is whether the law should be changed. So, giving the existence of the law as a “reason” for its not being changed can carry no weight, logically.

Real Life

Getting Really Worked Up over Ideas Not long ago, the editor of Freethought Today magazine won a court case upholding the con- stitutional separation of church and state. Following are a few samples of the mail she received as a result (there was much more), as they were printed in the magazine. We pre sent them to remind you of how worked up people can get over ideas.

Satan worshipping scum . . .

If you don’t like this country and what it was founded on & for get the f— out of it and go straight to hell.

F— you, you communist wh–.

If you think that mathematical precision that governs the universe was established by random events then you truly are that class of IDIOT that cannot be aptly defined.

These remarks illustrate extreme versions of more than one rhetorical device mentioned in this part of the book. They serve as a reminder that some people become defensive and emotional when it comes to their religion. (As Richard Dawkins, professor of Public Understanding of Sci- ence at Oxford University, was prompted to remark, “A philosophical opinion about the nature of the universe, which is held by the great majority of America’s top scientists and probably the elite intelligentsia generally, is so abhorrent to the American electorate that no candidate for popular election dare affirm it in public.”)

Adapted from Free Inquiry, Summer 2002.

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BEGGING THE QUESTION 229

Rhetorical defi nitions can beg questions. Consider an example from an earlier chapter: If we defi ne abortion as “the murder of innocent children,” then it’s obvious that abortion is morally wrong. But, of course, anyone who doubts that abortion is morally wrong is certainly not going to accept this defi - nition. That person will most likely refuse to recognize an embryo or early- stage fetus as a “child” at all and will certainly not accept the word “murder” in the defi nition.

And this brings us to the real problem in cases of question begging: a mis- understanding of what premises (and defi nitions) it is reasonable for one’s audi- ence to accept. We are guilty of begging the question when we ask our audience to accept premises that are as controversial as the conclusion we’re arguing for and that are controversial on the same grounds. The sort of grounds on which people would disagree about the morality of abortion are much the same as those on which they would disagree about the defi nition of abortion above. The person making the argument has not “gone back far enough,” as it were, to fi nd common ground with the audience whom he or she wishes to convince.

Let’s return to our feuding gold miners to illustrate what we’re talking about. Clearly, the two disagree about who gets the gold, and, given what being the leader of the operation means, they’re going to disagree just as much about that. But what if the fi rst miner says, “Look, I picked this spot, didn’t I? And we wouldn’t have found anything if we’d worked where you wanted to work.” If the second miner agrees, they’ll have found a bit of common ground. Maybe— maybe —the fi rst miner can then convince the second that this point, on which they agree, is worth considering when it comes to splitting the gold. At least there’s a chance of moving the discussion forward when they proceed this way.

In fact, if you are ever to hope for any measure of success in trying to convince somebody of a claim, you should always try to argue for it based on whatever common ground you can fi nd between the two of you. Indeed, the attempt to fi nd common ground from which to start is what underlies the entire enterprise of rational debate.

On Language

Begging . . . or Begging For? We should point out that the phrase “beg the question” is frequently used incorrectly these days, presumably by people who do not know its actual meaning (after reading this book and taking your class, this does not include you). Here’s an example:

Brett Favre has now started in 250 consecutive games. That begs the question, “Can any other quarterback ever hope to approach that record?”

No, it doesn’t beg the question; it begs for the question, or it calls for the question, or it brings up the question about other quarterbacks approaching Favre’s record.

One of your authors first saw this misuse of the phrase in a television ad for Volvo auto- mobiles in about 2001. Since then, it has begun to turn up everywhere. It may be that common usage will eventually sanction this new usage; in the meantime, we recommend that you not use it. You can also feel a bit smug about knowing better when you hear it or see it in print.

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230 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

The fallacies in this chapter, like those in Chapter 6, may resemble legitimate arguments, but none gives a reason for accepting (or rejecting) a claim. The discussions in this part of the book should help make you sensitive to the dif- ference between relevant considerations and emotional appeals, factual irrel- evancies, and other dubious argumentative tactics.

In this chapter, we examined:

■ Personal attack ad hominem—thinking a person’s defects refute his or her beliefs

■ Inconsistency ad hominem—thinking a person’s inconsistencies refute his or her beliefs

■ Circumstantial ad hominem—thinking a person’s circumstances refute his or her beliefs

■ Poisoning the well—encouraging others to dismiss what someone will say, by citing the speaker’s defects, inconsistencies, circumstances, or other personal attributes

■ Genetic fallacy—thinking that the origin or history of a belief refutes it

■ Straw man—”rebutting” a position held or presumed to be held by others by offering a distorted or exaggerated version of that position

■ False dilemma—an erroneous narrowing down of the range of alternatives; saying we have to accept X or Y (and omitting that we might accept Z)

■ Perfectionist fallacy—arguing that if a solution does not solve a problem completely and perfectly, it should not be adopted at all

■ Line-drawing fallacy—requiring that a precise line be drawn someplace on a scale or continuum when no such precise line can be drawn; usually occurs when a vague concept is treated like a precise one

■ Slippery slope—refusing to take the fi rst step in a progression on unwar- ranted grounds that doing so will make taking the remaining steps inevi- table, or insisting erroneously on taking the remainder of the steps simply because the fi rst one was taken

■ Misplacing the burden of proof—requiring the wrong side of an issue to make its case

■ Begging the question—assuming as true the claim that is at issue and doing this as if you were giving an argument

Exercise 7-2 Working in groups, invent a simple, original, and clear example of each fallacy covered in this chapter. Then, in the class as a whole, select the illustrations that are clearest and most straightforward. Go over these illustrations before doing the remaining exercises in this chapter, and review them before you take a test on this material.

Recap

Additional Exercises

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EXERCISES 231

Exercise 7-3 Identify any examples of fallacies in the following passages. Tell why you think they are present, and identify which category they belong in, if they fi t any category we’ve described.

1. Of course, Chinese green tea is good for your health. If it weren’t, how could it be so benefi cial to drink it?

2. Overheard: “No, I’m against this health plan business. None of the pro- posals are gonna fi x everything, you can bet on that.”

3. You have a choice: Either you let ’em out to murder and rape again and again, or you put up with a little prison overcrowding. I know what I’d choose.

4. “The legalization of drugs will not promote their use. The notion of a widespread hysteria sweeping across the nation as every man, woman, and child instantaneously becomes addicted to drugs upon their legaliza- tion is, in short, ridiculous.”

—From a student essay

5. Way I fi gure is, giving up smoking isn’t gonna make me live forever, so why bother?

6. “I tell you, Mitt Romney would have to favor the Mormons if he were to become president. After all Mormons are supposed to believe that theirs is the one true religion.”

—From a newspaper call-in column

7. Aid to Russia? Gimme a break! Why should we care more about the Russians than about our own people?

8. Well, most of the recent Treasury secretaries have been officers of Gold- man Sachs at one time or another. It’s no wonder their claims about the economy always favor the company.

9. I believe Tim is telling the truth about his brother, because he just would not lie about that sort of thing.

10. I think I was treated unfairly. I got a ticket out on McCrae Road. I was doing about sixty miles an hour, and the cop charged me with “traveling at an unsafe speed.” I asked him just exactly what would have been a safe speed on that particular occasion—fi fty? forty-fi ve?—and he couldn’t tell me. Neither could the judge. I tell you, if you don’t know what speeds are unsafe, you shouldn’t give tickets for “unsafe speeds.”

Exercise 7-4 Identify any fallacies in the following passages. Tell why you think they are pres- ent, and identify which category they belong in, if they fi t any of those we’ve described. Instances of fallacies are all from the types found in Chapter 7.

1. Suspicious: “I would forget about whatever Moore and Parker have to say about pay for college teachers. After all, they’re both professors them- selves; what would you expect them to say?”

2. It’s obvious to me that abortion is wrong—after all, everybody deserves a chance to be born.

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232 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

3. Overheard: Well, I think that’s too much to tip her. It’s more than 15 per- cent. Next time it will be 20 percent, then 25 percent—where will it stop?

4. carlos: Four a.m.? Do we really have to start that early? Couldn’t we leave a little later and get more sleep?

jeanne: C’mon, don’t hand me that! I know you! If you want to stay in bed until noon and then drag in there in the middle of the night, then go by yourself! If we want to get there at a reasonable hour, then we have to get going early and not spend the whole day sleeping.

5. I know a lot of people don’t fi nd anything wrong with voluntary eutha- nasia, where a patient is allowed to make a decision to die and that wish is carried out by a doctor or someone else. What will happen, though, is that if we allow voluntary euthanasia, before you know it we’ll have the patient’s relatives or the doctors making the decision that the patient should be “put out of his misery.”

6. “Rudy Giuliani’s position on terrorism has to be the best [of the candi- dates in 2008]. After all, when 9/11 happened, he was there. ”

7. Whenever legislators have the power to raise taxes, they will always fi nd problems that seem to require for their solution doing exactly that. This is an axiom, the proof of which is that the power to tax always generates the perception on the part of those who have that power that there exist various ills the remedy for which can only lie in increased governmental spending and hence higher taxes.

8. Don’t tell me I should wear my seat belt, for heaven’s sake. I’ve seen you ride a motorcycle without a helmet!

9. I’ll tell you what the Congress passed. They call it health care reform, but what it really is is communism, pure and simple. It’s designed to tax everybody who works so people who don’t work can still have an easy life.

10. When it comes to the issue of race relations, either you’re part of the solution, or you’re part of the problem.

11. What! So now you’re telling me we should get a new car? I don’t buy that at all. Didn’t you claim just last month that there was nothing wrong with the Plymouth?

12. Letter to the editor: “The Supreme Court decision outlawing a moment of silence for prayer in public schools is scandalous. Evidently the American Civil Liberties Union and the other radical groups will not be satisfi ed until every last man, woman and child in the country is an atheist. I’m fed up.”

—Tri-County Observer

13. We should impeach the attorney general. Despite the fact that there have been many allegations of unethical conduct on his part, he has not done anything to demonstrate his innocence.

14. Amnesty International only defends criminals. This is obvious because the people they help are already in jail, and that shows they’re guilty of something.

15. Overheard: “Hunting immoral? Why should I believe that, coming from you? You fi sh, don’t you?”

16. “Will we have an expanding government, or will we balance the budget, cut government waste and eliminate unneeded programs?”

—Newt Gingrich, in a Republican National Committee solicitation

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EXERCISES 233

17. When Bill O’Reilly appeared on The David Letterman Show, the conver- sation was spirited and widely reported. At one point, O’Reilly presented Letterman with the following question: “Do you want the United States to win in Iraq?” This is a fairly clever example of one of our fallacies and a standard debating ploy. Identify the fallacy and describe the problem it presents for Letterman.

Exercise 7-5 Identify any fallacies in the following passages. Tell why you think they are present, and identify which category they belong in, if they fi t in any of those we’ve described.

1. Despite all the studies and the public outcry, it’s still true that nobody has ever actually seen cigarette smoking cause a cancer. All the anti- smoking people can do is talk about statistics; as long as there isn’t real proof, I’m not believing it.

2. “Clinton should have been thrown in jail for immoral behavior. Just look at all the women he has had affairs with since he left the presidency.”

“Hey, wait a minute. How do you know he has had affairs since he was president?”

“Because if he didn’t, then why would he be trying to cover up the fact that he did?”

3. On The Colbert Report, Steven Colbert regularly asked his guests: “George W. Bush: a great president? or the greatest president?”

4. In 1996, a University of Chicago study gave evidence that letting people carry concealed guns appears to sharply reduce murders, rapes, and other violent crimes. Gun-control backer Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center commented: “Anyone who argues that these laws reduce crime either doesn’t understand the nature of crime or has a preset agenda.”

5. Letter to the editor: “I strongly object to the proposed sale of alcoholic beverages at County Golf Course. The idea of allowing people to drink wherever and whenever they please is positively disgraceful and can only lead to more alcoholism and all the problems it produces—drunk driving, perverted parties, and who knows what else. I’m sure General Stuart, if he were alive today to see what has become of the land he deeded to the county, would disapprove strenuously.”

—Tehama County Tribune

6. Letter to the editor: “I’m not against immigrants or immigration, but something has to be done soon. We’ve got more people already than we can provide necessary services for, and, at the current rate, we’ll have people standing on top of one another by the end of the century. Either we control these immigration policies or there won’t be room for any of us to sit down.”

—Lake County Recorder

7. Letter to the editor: “So now we fi nd our local crusader-for-all-that-is- right, and I am referring to Councilman Benjamin Bostell, taking up arms against the local adult bookstore. Is this the same Mr. Bostell who owns the biggest liquor store in Chilton County? Well, maybe booze isn’t the

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234 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

same as pornography, but they’re the same sort of thing. C’mon, Mr. Bostell, aren’t you a little like the pot calling the kettle black?”

—Chilton County Register

8. Letter to the editor: “Once again the Courier displays its taste for slanted journalism. Why do your editors present only one point of view?

“I am referring specifi cally to the editorial of May 27, regarding the death penalty. So capital punishment makes you squirm a little. What else is new? Would you prefer to have murderers and assassins wandering around scot-free? How about quoting someone who has a different point of view from your own, for a change?”

—Athens Courier

9. There is only one way to save this country from the domination by the illegal drug establishment to which Colombia has been subjected, and that’s to increase tenfold the funds we spend on drug enforcement and interdiction.

10. It’s practically a certainty that the government is violating the law in the arms deals with Saudi Arabians. When a reporter asked officials to describe how they were complying with the law, he was told that details about the arms sales were classifi ed.

Exercise 7-6 Identify any examples of fallacies in the following passages. Tell why you think these are fallacies, and identify which category they belong in, if they fi t any category we’ve described.

1. Letter to the editor: “I would like to express my feelings on the recent confl ict between county supervisor Blanche Wilder and Murdock County Sheriff Al Peters over the county budget.

“I have listened to sheriffs’ radio broadcasts. Many times there have been dangerous and life-threatening situations when the sheriff’s depu- ties’ quickest possible arrival time is 20 to 30 minutes. This is to me very frightening.

“Now supervisor Wilder wants to cut two officers from the Sheriff’s Department. This proposal I fi nd ridiculous. Does she really think that Sheriff Peters can run his department with no officers? How anyone can think that a county as large as Murdock can get by with no police is beyond me. I feel this proposal would be very detrimental to the safety and protection of this county’s residents.”

2. Letter to the editor: “Andrea Keene’s selective morality is once again showing through in her July 15 letter. This time she expresses her abhor- rence of abortion. But how we see only what we choose to see! I won- der if any of the anti-abortionists have considered the widespread use of fertility drugs as the moral equivalent of abortion, and, if they have, why they haven’t come out against them, too. The use of these drugs fre- quently results in multiple births, which leads to the death of one of the infants, often after an agonizing struggle for survival. According to the rules of the pro-lifers, isn’t this murder?”

—North-State Record

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EXERCISES 235

3. In one of her columns, Abigail Van Buren printed the letter of “I’d rather be a widow.” The letter writer, a divorcée, complained about widows who said they had a hard time coping. Far better, she wrote, to be a widow than to be a divorcée, who are all “rejects” who have been “pub- licly dumped” and are avoided “like they have leprosy.” Abby recognized the fallacy for what it was, though she did not call it by our name. What is our name for it?

4. Overheard: “Should school kids say the Pledge of Allegiance before class? Certainly. Why shouldn’t they?”

5. Letter to the editor: “Once again the Park Commission is considering closing North Park Drive for the sake of a few joggers and bicyclists. These so-called fi tness enthusiasts would evidently have us give up to them for their own private use every last square inch of Walnut Grove. Then anytime anyone wanted a picnic, he would have to park at the edge of the park and carry everything in—ice chests, chairs, maybe even grandma. I certainly hope the Commission keeps the entire park open for everyone to use.”

6. “Some Christian—and other—groups are protesting against the placing, on federal property near the White House, of a set of plastic fi gurines rep- resenting a devout Jewish family in ancient Judaea. The protestors would of course deny that they are driven by any anti-Semitic motivation. Still, we wonder: Would they raise the same objections (of unconstitutionality, etc.) if the scene depicted a modern, secularized Gentile family?”

—National Review

7. “It’s stupid to keep on talking about rich people not paying their fair share of taxes while the budget is so far out of balance. Why, if we raised the tax rates on the wealthy all the way back to where they were in 1980, it would not balance the federal budget.”

—Radio commentary by Howard Miller

8. From a letter to the editor: “The counties of Michigan clearly need the ability to raise additional sources of revenue, not only to meet the demands of growth but also to maintain existing levels of service. For without these sources those demands will not be met, and it will be impossible to maintain services even at present levels.”

9. In February 1992, a representative of the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico gave a radio interview (broadcast on National Public Radio) in which he said that the Church was against the use of condoms. Even though the rate of AIDS infection in Puerto Rico is much higher than on the U.S. mainland, the spokesman said that the Church could not support the use of condoms because they are not absolutely reliable in preventing the spread of the disease. “If you could prove that condoms were abso- lutely dependable in preventing a person from contracting AIDS, then the Church could support their use.”

10. [California] Assemblyman Doug La Malfa said AB 45 [which bans hand- held cell phone use while driving] is one more example of a “nanny gov- ernment.” “I’m sick and tired of being told what to do on these trivial things,” he said. “Helmet laws, seat-belt laws—what’s next?”

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236 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

Exercise 7-7 Identify any examples of fallacies in the following passages. Tell why you think they are present, and identify which category they belong in, if they fi t any category we’ve described.

1. The U.S. Congress considered a resolution criticizing the treatment of eth- nic minorities in a Near Eastern country. When the minister of the interior was asked for his opinion of the resolution, he replied, “This is purely an internal affair in my country, and politicians in the U.S. should stay out of such affairs. If the truth be known, they should be more concerned with the plight of minority peoples in their own country. Thousands of black and Latino youngsters suffer from malnutrition in the United States. They can criticize us after they’ve got their own house in order.”

2. It doesn’t make any sense to speak of tracing an individual human life back past the moment of conception. After all, that’s the beginning, and you can’t go back past the beginning.

3. moe: The death penalty is an excellent deterrent for murder. joe: What makes you think so? moe: Well, for one thing, there’s no evidence that it’s not a deterrent. joe: Well, states with capital punishment have murder rates just as high

as states that don’t have it. moe: Yes, but that’s only because there are so many legal technicalities

standing in the way of executions that convicted people hardly ever get executed. Remove those technicalities, and the rate would be lower in those states.

4. Overheard: “The new sculpture in front of the municipal building by John Murrah is atrocious and unseemly, which is clear to anyone who hasn’t forgotten Murrah’s mouth in Vietnam right there along with Hayden and Fonda calling for the defeat of America. I say: Drill holes in it so it’ll sink and throw it in Walnut Pond.”

5. Overheard: “Once we let these uptight guardians of morality have their way and start censoring Playboy and Penthouse, the next thing you know they’ll be dictating everything we can read. We’ll be in fi ne shape when they decide that Webster’s should be pulled from the shelves.”

6. It seems the biggest problem the nuclear industry has to deal with is not a poor safety record but a lack of education of the public on nuclear power. Thousands of people die each year from pollution generated by coal-fi red plants. Yet, to date there has been no death directly caused by radiation at a commercial nuclear power plant in the United States. We have a clear choice: an old, death-dealing source of energy or a safe, clean one. Proven through the test of time, nuclear power is clearly the safest form of energy and the least detrimental to the environment. Yet it is perceived as unsafe and an environmental hazard.

7. A high school teacher once told my class that, if a police state ever arose in America, it would happen because we freely handed away our civil rights in exchange for what we perceived would be security from the government. We are looking at just that in connection with the current drug crisis.

For almost thirty years, we’ve seen increasing tolerance, legally and socially, of drug use. Now we are faced with the very end of America as

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EXERCISES 237

we know it, if not from the drug problem, then from the proposed solu- tions to it.

First, it was urine tests. Officials said that the innocent have nothing to fear. Using that logic, why not allow unannounced police searches of our homes for stolen goods? After all, the innocent would have nothing to fear.

Now we’re looking at the seizure of boats and other property when even traces of drugs are found. You’d better hope some drug-using guest doesn’t drop the wrong thing in your home, car, or boat.

The only alternative to declaring real war on the real enemies—the Asian and South American drug families—is to wait for that knock on the door in the middle of the night.

8. The mayor’s argument is that, because 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.

9. Letter to the editor: “Next week the philosopher Tom Regan will be in town again, peddling his animal rights theory. In case you’ve forgotten, Regan was here about three years ago arguing against using animals in scientifi c experimentation. As far as I could see then and can see now, neither Regan nor anyone else has managed to come up with a good rea- son why animals should not be experimented on. Emotional appeals and horror stories no doubt infl uence many, but they shouldn’t. I’ve always wondered what Regan would say if his children needed medical treat- ment that was based on animal experiments.”

10. Not long before Ronald and Nancy Reagan moved out of the White House, former chief of staff Don Regan wrote a book in which he depicted a number of revealing inside stories about First Family goings-on. Among them was the disclosure that Nancy Reagan regularly sought the advice of a San Francisco astrologer. In response to the story, the White House spokesman at the time, Marlin Fitzwater, said, “Vindictiveness and revenge are not admirable qualities and are not worthy of comment.”

Exercise 7-8

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Elegant Country Estate ■ Stunning Federal-style brick home with

exquisite appointments throughout

■ 20 picturesque acres with lake, pasture, and woodland

■ 5 bedrooms, 4.5 baths

■ 5,800 sq. ft. living space, 2,400 sq. ft. basement

■ Formal living room; banquet dining with butler’s pantry; luxurious foyer, gourmet kitchen, morning room

■ 3 fi replaces, 12 chandeliers

moo38286_ch07_210-252.indd 237 12/9/10 2:59 PM

238 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

Maude and Clyde are discussing whether to buy this nice little cottage. Iden- tify as many fallacies and rhetorical devices as you can in their conversation. Many are from this chapter, but you may see something from Chapters 5 and 6 as well.

clyde: Maude, look at this place! This is the house for us! Let’s make an offer right now. We can afford it!

maude: Oh, Clyde, be serious. That house is way beyond our means. clyde: Well, I think we can afford it. maude: Honey, if we can afford it, pigs can fl y. clyde: Look, do you want to live in a shack? Besides, I called the

real estate agent. She says it’s a real steal. maude: Well, what do you expect her to say? She’s looking for a

commission. clyde: Sometimes I don’t understand you. Last week you were

pushing for a really upscale place. maude: Clyde, we can’t make the payments on a place like that.

We couldn’t even afford to heat it! And what on earth are we going to do with a lake?

clyde: Honey, the payments would only be around $5,000 a month. How much do you think we could spend?

maude: I’d say $1,800. clyde: Okay, how about $2,050? maude: Oh, for heaven’s sake! Yes, we could do $2,050! clyde: Well, how about $3,100? maude: Oh, Clyde, what is your point? clyde: So $3,100 is okay? How about $3,200? Stop me when I get

to exactly where we can’t afford it. maude: Clyde, I can’t say exactly where it gets to be too expensive,

but $5,000 a month is too much. clyde: Well, I think we can afford it. maude: Why? clyde: Because it’s within our means! maude: Clyde, you’re the one who’s always saying we have to cut

back on our spending! clyde: Yes, but this’ll be a great investment! maude: And what makes you say that? clyde: Because we’re bound to make money on it. maude: Clyde, honey, you are going around in circles. clyde: Well, can you prove we can’t afford it? maude: Once we start spending money like drunken sailors, where

will it end? Next we’ll have to get a riding mower, then a boat for that lake, a butler for the butler’s pantry—we’ll owe everybody in the state!

clyde: Well, we don’t have to make up our minds right now. I’ll call the agent and tell her we’re sleeping on it.

maude: Asleep and dreaming.

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EXERCISES 239

Exercise 7-9 In groups, vote on which option best depicts the fallacy found in each pas- sage; then compare results with other groups in the class. Note: The fallacies include those found in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.

1. The health editor for USA Today certainly seems to know what she is talking about when she recommends we take vitamins, but I happen to know she works for Tishcon, Inc., a large manufacturer of vitamin supplements. a. smoke screen/red herring b. subjectivism c. appeal to popularity d. circumstantial ad hominem e. no fallacy

2. The president is right. People who are against fi ghting in Afghanistan are unwilling to face up to the threat of terrorism. a. common practice b. peer pressure c. false dilemma d. straw man e. begging the question

3. Well, I, for one, think the position taken by our union is correct, and I’d like to remind you before you make up your mind on the matter that around here we employees have a big say in who gets rehired. a. wishful thinking b. circumstantial ad hominem c. scare tactics (argument from force) d. apple polishing e. begging the question

4. On the whole, I think global warming is a farce. After all, most people think winters are getting colder, if anything. How could that many peo- ple be wrong? a. argument from outrage b. appeal to popularity c. straw man d. no fallacy

5. marco: I think global warming is a farce. claudia: Oh, gad. How can you say such a thing, when there is so much

evidence behind the theory? marco: Because. Look. If it isn’t a farce, then how come the world is

colder now than it used to be? a. begging the question b. appeal to popularity c. red herring d. circumstantial ad hominem e. no fallacy

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240 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

6. Of course you should buy a life insurance policy! Why shouldn’t you? a. smoke screen/red herring b. wishful thinking c. scare tactics d. peer pressure argument e. misplacing the burden of proof

7. My opponent, Mr. London, has charged me with having cheated on my income tax. My response is, When are we going to get this campaign out of the gutter? Isn’t it time we stood up and made it clear that vilifi cation has no place in politics? a. smoke screen/red herring b. wishful thinking c. appeal to common practice d. appeal to popularity e. circumstantial ad hominem

8. Look, even if Bush did lie about the WMD threat, what’s the surprise? Clinton lied about having sex with that intern, and Bush’s own father lied about raising taxes. a. smoke screen/red herring b. straw man c. false dilemma d. inconsistency ad hominem e. common practice

9. If cigarettes aren’t bad for you, then how come it’s so hard on your health to smoke? a. circumstantial ad hominem b. genetic fallacy c. slippery slope d. begging the question

10. Garry: I think the people who lost their livelihood because of the Gulf oil spill ought to be paid their losses in full.

Harry: But there are disasters all over the place. You can’t compensate everybody. a. perfectionist fallacy b. straw man c. appeal to tradition d. appeal to common practice

Exercise 7-10 In groups, vote on which option best depicts the fallacy found in each passage, and compare results with other groups. (It is all right with us if you ask anyone who is not participating in the discussions in your group to leave.) Note: The fallacies include those found in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.

1. So what if the senator accepted a little kickback money—most politi- cians are corrupt, after all. a. argument from envy b. argument from tradition

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EXERCISES 241

c. common practice d. subjectivism e. no fallacy

2. Me? I’m going to vote with the company on this one. After all, I’ve been with them for fi fteen years. a. genetic fallacy b. groupthink fallacy c. slippery slope d. no fallacy

3. Public opinion polls? They’re rigged. Just ask anyone. a. appeal to common practice b. guilt trip c. begging the question d. appeal to popularity e. no fallacy

4. Hey! It can’t be time for the bars to close. I’m having too much fun. a. false dilemma b. misplacing the burden of proof c. wishful thinking d. appeal to tradition e. no fallacy

5. A mural for the municipal building? Excuse me, but why should public money, our tax dollars, be used for a totally unnecessary thing like art? There are potholes that need fi xing. Traffic signals that need to be put up. There are a million things that are more important. It is an outrage, spending taxpayers’ money on unnecessary frills like art. Give me a break! a. inconsistency ad hominem b. argument from outrage c. slippery slope d. perfectionist fallacy e. no fallacy

6. Mathematics is more difficult than sociology, and I really need an easier term this fall. So I’m going to take a sociology class instead of a math class. a. circumstantial ad hominem b. argument from pity c. false dilemma d. begging the question e. no fallacy

7. Parker says Macs are better than PCs, but what would you expect him to say? He’s owned Macs for years. a. personal attack ad hominem b. circumstantial ad hominem c. inconsistency ad hominem d. perfectionist fallacy e. no fallacy

8. The congressman thought the president’s behavior was an impeachable offense. But that’s nonsense, coming from the congressman. He had an adulterous affair himself, after all.

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242 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

a. inconsistency ad hominem b. poisoning the well c. personal attack ad hominem d. genetic fallacy e. no fallacy

9. Your professor wants you to read Moore and Parker? Forget it. Their book is so far to the right it’s falling off the shelf. a. poisoning the well b. inconsistency ad hominem c. misplacing the burden of proof d. appeal to tradition e. no fallacy

10. How do I know God exists? Hey, how do you know he doesn’t? a. perfectionist fallacy b. inconsistency ad hominem c. misplacing the burden of proof d. slippery slope e. begging the question

Exercise 7-11 In groups, vote on which option best depicts the fallacy found in each pas- sage, and compare results with other groups. Note: The fallacies include those found in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7.

1. Laws against teenagers drinking?—They are a total waste of time, frankly. No matter how many laws we pass, there are always going to be some teens who drink. a. misplacing the burden of proof b. perfectionist fallacy c. line-drawing fallacy d. no fallacy

2. Even though Sidney was old enough to buy a drink at the bar, he had no identifi cation with him, and the bartender would not serve him. a. perfectionist fallacy b. inconsistency ad hominem c. misplacing the burden of proof d. slippery slope e. no fallacy

3. Just how much sex has to be in a movie before you call it pornographic? Seems to me the whole concept makes no sense. a. perfectionist fallacy b. line-drawing fallacy c. straw man d. slippery slope e. no fallacy

4. Studies confi rm what everyone already knows: Smaller classes make students better learners.

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moo38286_ch07_210-252.indd 242 12/9/10 2:59 PM

EXERCISES 243

a. appeal to common practice b. begging the question c. misplacing the burden of proof d. appeal to popularity e. no fallacy

5. The trouble with impeaching the president is this: Going after every per- son who occupies the presidency will take up everyone’s time, and the government will never get anything else done.

a. inconsistency ad hominem b. straw man c. groupthink d. argument from envy e. red herring

6. The trouble with impeaching the president is this. If we start going after him, next we’ll be going after senators, representatives, governors. Pretty soon, no elected official will be safe from partisan attack.

a. inconsistency ad hominem b. slippery slope c. straw man d. false dilemma e. misplacing the burden of proof

7. mr. imhoff: That does it. I’m cutting down on your peanut butter cook- ies. Those things blimp me up.

mrs. imhoff: Oh, Imhoff, get real. What about all the ice cream you eat?

a. circumstantial ad hominem b. subjectivism c. straw man d. slippery slope e. inconsistency ad hominem

8. ken: I think I’ll vote for Andrews. She’s the best candidate. robert: Why do you say she’s best? ken: Because she’s my sister-in-law. Didn’t you know that?

a. apple polishing b. argument from pity c. scare tactics d. peer pressure argument e. none of the above

9. moe: You going to class tomorrow? joe: I s’pose. Why? moe: Say, don’t you get tired of being a Goody Two-shoes? You must

have the most perfect attendance record of anyone who ever went to this school—certainly better than the rest of us; right, guys?

a. poisoning the well b. argument from pity c. scare tactics d. no fallacy e. none of the above

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244 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

10. Morgan, you’re down-to-earth and I trust your judgment. That’s why I know I can count on you to back me up at the meeting this afternoon. a. apple polishing b. argument from pity c. scare tactics d. guilt trip e. no fallacy

11. “Do you want to sign this petition to the governor?” “What’s it about?” “We want him to veto that handgun registration bill that’s come out

of the legislature.” “Oh. No, I don’t think I want to sign that.” “Oh, really? So are you telling me you want to get rid of the Second

Amendment?” a. false dilemma b. personal attack ad hominem c. genetic fallacy d. misplacing the burden of proof e. no fallacy

12. Outlaw gambling? Man, that’s a strange idea coming from you. Aren’t you the one who plays the lottery all the time? a. inconsistency ad hominem b. circumstantial ad hominem c. genetic fallacy d. scare tactics e. no fallacy

Exercise 7-12 Most of the following passages contain fallacies from Chapter 6 or Chapter 7. Identify them where they occur and try to place them in one of the categories we have described.

1. “People in Hegins, Pennsylvania, hold an annual pigeon shoot in order to control the pigeon population and to raise money for the town. This year, the pigeon shoot was disrupted by animal rights activists who tried to release the pigeons from their cages. I can’t help but think these animal rights activists are the same people who believe in controlling the human population through the use of abortion. Yet, they recoil at a similar means of controlling pigeons. What rank hypocrisy.”

—Rush Limbaugh

2. Dear Mr. Swanson: I realize I’m not up for a salary increase yet, but I thought it might make my review a bit more timely if I pointed out to you that I have a copy of all the recent e-mail messages between you and Ms. Flood in the purchasing department.

3. I don’t care if Nike has signed up Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and even Santa Claus to endorse their shoes. They’re a crummy company that makes a crummy product. The proof is the fact that they pay poor

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moo38286_ch07_210-252.indd 244 12/9/10 2:59 PM

EXERCISES 245

women a dollar sixty for a long day’s work in their Vietnamese shoe fac- tories. That’s not even enough to buy a day’s worth of decent meals!

4. I don’t care if Nike has signed up Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and even Santa Claus to endorse their shoes. They’re a crummy company, and I wouldn’t buy their shoes no matter what the circumstance. You don’t need any reason beyond the fact that they pay poor women a dollar sixty for a long day’s work in their Vietnamese shoe factories. That’s not even enough to buy a day’s worth of decent meals!

5. Nike is a crummy company that makes crummy shoes. Look: they still sponsor Tiger Woods even after all the bad stuff that came to light about him.

6. powell fan: Colin Powell says that diplomatic efforts to avoid war with Iraq were serious and genuine, and his word is good enough for me.

skeptic: And what makes you so sure he’s telling it like it is? fan: Because he’s the one guy in the administration you can trust.

7. I know the repair guy in the service center screwed up my computer; he’s the only one who’s touched it since it was working fi ne last Monday.

8. If you give the cat your leftover asparagus, next thing you know you’ll be feeding him your potatoes, maybe even your roast beef. Where will it all end? Pretty soon that wretched animal will be sitting up here on the table for dinner. He’ll be eating us out of house and home.

9. Look, either we refrain from feeding the cat table scraps, or he’ll be up here on the table with us. So don’t go giving him your asparagus.

10. We have a simple choice. Saving Social Security is sure as hell a lot more important than giving people a tax cut. So write your representative now, and let him or her know how you feel.

11. Let gays join the military? Give me a break. God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.

12. So my professor told me if he gave me an A for getting an 89.9 on the test, next he’d have to give people an A for getting an 89.8 on the test, and pretty soon he’d have to give everyone in the class an A. How could I argue with that?

13. Those blasted Democrats! They want to increase government spending on education again. This is the same outfi t that gave us $10,000 toilets and government regulations up the wazoo.

14. The way I see it, either the senator resigns, or he sends a message that no one should admit to his misdeeds.

15. Lauren did a better job than anyone else at the audition, so even though she has no experience, we’ve decided to give her the part in the play.

16. terry: I failed my test, but I gave my prof this nifty argument. I said, “Look, suppose somebody did 0.0001 percent better than I, would that be a big enough difference to give him a higher grade?” And he had to say “no,” so then I said, “And if someone did 0.0001 percent better than that second person, would that be a big enough difference?” And he had to say “no” to that, too, so I just kept it up, and he never could point to the place where the difference was big enough to give the other person a higher grade. He fi nally saw he couldn’t justify giving anyone a better grade.

harry: Well? What happened? terry: He had to fail the whole class.

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246 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

17. “Many, but not all, on the other side of the aisle lack the will to win,” said Representative Charlie Norwood of Georgia. “The American people need to know precisely who they are.” He said, “It is time to stand up and vote. Is it Al Qaeda, or is it America?”

— New York Times, June 15, 2006

18. Look, maybe you think it’s okay to legalize tribal casinos, but I don’t. Letting every last group of people in the country open a casino is a ridicu- lous idea, bound to cause trouble.

19. What, you of all people complaining about violence on TV? You, with all the pro football you watch?

20. You have three Fs and a D on your exams, and your quizzes are on the borderline between passing and failing. I’m afraid you don’t deserve to pass the course.

Exercise 7-13 Where we (Moore and Parker) teach, the city council recently debated relaxing the local noise ordinance. One student (who favored relaxation) appeared before the council and stated: “If 250 people are having fun, one person shouldn’t be able to stop them.”

We asked our students to state whether they agreed or disagreed with that student and to support their position with an argument. Here are some of the responses.

Divide into groups, and then identify any instances of fallacious reason- ing you fi nd in any answers, drawing from the materials in the last two chap- ters. Compare your results with those of other students, and see what your instructor thinks.

1. I support what the person is saying. If 250 people are having fun, one person shouldn’t be able to stop them. Having parties and having a good time are a way of life for Chico State students. The areas around campus have always been this way.

2. A lot of people attend Chico State because of the social aspects. If rules are too tight, the school could lose its appeal. Without the students, local businesses would go under. Students keep the town fl oating. It’s not just bars and liquor stores, but gas stations and grocery stores and apartment houses. This town would be like Orland.

3. If students aren’t allowed to party, the college will go out of business. 4. We work hard all week long studying and going to classes. We deserve to

let off steam after a hard week. 5. Noise is a fact of life around most college campuses. People should know

what they are getting into before they move there. If they don’t like it, they should just get earplugs or leave.

6. I agree with what the person is saying. If 250 people want to have fun, what gives one person the right to stop them?

7. I am sure many of the people who complain are the same people who used to be stumbling down Ivy Street twenty years ago doing the same thing that the current students are doing.

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EXERCISES 247

8. Two weeks ago, I was at a party, and it was only about 9:00 p.m. There were only a few people there, and it was quiet. And then the police came and told us we had to break it up because a neighbor complained. Well, that neighbor is an elderly lady who would complain if you fl ushed the toilet. I think it’s totally unreasonable.

9. Sometimes the noise level gets a little out of control, but there are other ways to go about addressing this problem. For example, if you are a neigh- bor, and you are having a problem with the noise level, why don’t you call the “party house” and let them know, instead of going way too far and calling the police?

10. I’m sure that these “narcs” have nothing else better to do than to harass the “party people.”

11. You can’t get rid of all the noise around a college campus no matter what you do.

12. The Chico noise ordinance was put there by the duly elected officials of the city and is the law. People do not have the right to break a law that was put in place under proper legal procedures.

13. The country runs according to majority rule. If the overwhelming major- ity want to party and make noise, under our form of government they should be given the freedom to do so.

14. Students make a contribution to the community, and in return they should be allowed to make noise if they want.

15. Your freedom ends at my property line.

Exercise 7-14 Go back to Exercise 4-16 and determine whether the author of the article com- mits a fallacy in his criticism of Anthony Watts. Compare your decision with those of your classmates.

Exercise 7-15 Listen to a talk-radio program (e.g., Air America, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, Michael Savage), and see how many minutes (or seconds) go by before you hear one of the following: ad hominem, straw man, ridicule, argument from outrage, or scare tactics. Report your fi ndings to the class, and describe the fi rst item from the above list that you heard.

Exercise 7-16 Watch one of the news/public affairs programs on television ( NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Nightline, Face the Nation, and so on), and make a note of any examples of fallacies that occur. Explain in writing why you think the exam- ples contain fallacious reasoning.

Alternatively, watch Real Time with Bill Maher. It usually doesn’t take long to fi nd a fallacy there, either.

Exercise 7-17 The following passages contain fallacies from both this chapter and the pre- ceding one. Identify the category in which each item belongs.

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248 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

1. “I can safely say that no law, no matter how stiff the consequence is, will completely stop illegal drug use. Outlawing drugs is a waste of time.”

—From a student essay

2. “If we expand the commuter bus program, where is it going to end? Will we want to have a trolley system? Then a light rail system? Then expand Metrolink to our area? A city this size hardly needs and certainly cannot afford all these amenities.”

—From a newspaper call-in column

3. y aeko: The character Dana Scully on The X-Files really provides a good role model for young women. She’s a medical doctor and an FBI agent, and she’s intelligent, professional, and devoted to her work.

michael: Those shows about paranormal activities are so unrealistic. Alien abductions, government conspiracies—it’s all ridiculous.

4. Overheard: “The reason I don’t accept evolution is that ever since Darwin, scientists have been trying to prove that we evolved from some apelike primate ancestor. Well, they still haven’t succeeded. Case closed.”

5. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I endorsed council member Morris- sey’s bid for reelection based on his outstanding record during his fi rst term. Because you are the movers and shakers in this community, other people place the same high value on your opinions that I do. Jim and I would feel privileged to have your support.

6. It’s totally ridiculous to suppose that creationism is true. If creationism were true, then half of what we know through science would be false, which is complete nonsense.

7. kirsti: I counted my CDs this weekend, and out of twenty-seven, ten of them were by U2. They are such a good band! I haven’t heard anything by Bono for a long time. He has such a terrifi c voice!

ben: Is he bisexual? 8. Was Gerhard a good committee chair? Well, I for one think you have to

say he was excellent, especially when you consider all the abuse he put up with. Right from the start, people went after him—they didn’t even give him a chance to show what he could do. It was really vicious— people making fun of him right to his face. Yes, under the circumstances he has been quite effective.

9. Medical research that involves animals is completely unnecessary and a waste of money. Just think of the poor creatures! We burn and blind and torture them, and then we kill them. They don’t know what is going to happen to them, but they know something is going to happen. They are scared to death. It’s really an outrage.

10. Dear Editor— If Christians do not participate in government, only sinners will.

—From a letter to the Chico Enterprise Record

11. The HMO people claim that the proposal will raise the cost of doing business in the state to such a degree that insurers will be forced to leave the state and do business elsewhere. What nonsense. Just look at what we get from these HMOs. I know people who were denied decent treat- ment for cancer because their HMO wouldn’t approve it. There are doc- tors who won’t recommend a procedure for their patients because they

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EXERCISES 249

are afraid the HMO will cancel their contract. And when an HMO does cancel some doctor’s contract, the patients have to fi nd a new doctor themselves— if they can. Everybody has a horror story. Enough is enough.

12. From an interview by Gwen Ifi ll (PBS News Hour ) with Senator Kit Bond, ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee:

ifill: Do you think that waterboarding, as I have described it, constitutes torture?

bond: There are different ways of doing it; it’s like swimming: freestyle, backstroke. Waterboarding could be used, almost, to defi ne some of the techniques that our trainees are put through. But that’s beside the point. It’s not being used. There are some who say that, in extreme circum- stances, if there is a threat of an imminent major attack on the United States, it might be used.

—From the video at < talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/060899.php>

13. The opposing party is going to give its reply to the president’s speech in just a few minutes. Prepare yourself for the usual misstatements of fact, exaggerated criticism, and attempts to distract from the real issues.

14. The proposal to reduce spending for the arts just doesn’t make any sense. We spend a paltry $620 million for the NEA [National Endowment for the Arts], while the defi cit is closing in on $200 billion. Cutting support for the arts isn’t going to eliminate the defi cit; that’s obvious.

15. Year-round schools? I’m opposed. Once we let them do that, the next thing you know they’ll be cutting into our vacation time and asking us to teach in the evenings and on the weekends, and who knows where it will end. We teachers have to stand up for our rights.

16. Romney was for abortion rights before he began running for president. Now he’s anti-abortion. I think he should be ignored completely on the subject since you can’t depend on what he says.

17. Even if we outlaw guns, we’re still going to have crime and murder. So I really don’t see much point in it.

—From a student essay

18. Do you think affirmative action programs are still necessary in the country? Answers: a. Yes, of course. I don’t see how you, a woman, can ask that question.

It’s obvious we have a very long way to go still. b. No. Because of affirmative action, my brother lost his job to a minor-

ity who had a lot less experience than he did. c. Yes. The people who want to end affirmative action are all white

males who just want to go back to the good-old-boy system. It’s always the same: Look out for number one.

d. No. The people who want it to continue know a good deal when they see one. You think I’d want to end it if I were a minority?

Exercise 7-18 Explain in a sentence or two how each of the following passages involves a type of fallacy mentioned in either this chapter or the preceding one. Many of these examples are difficult and should serve to illustrate how fallacies some- times conform only loosely to the standard patterns.

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250 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

1. I believe that the companies that produce passenger airliners should be more strictly supervised by the FAA. I mean, good grief, everybody knows that you can make more money by cutting corners here and there than by spending extra time and effort getting things just right, and you know there have got to be airlines that are doing exactly that.

2. From a letter to a college newspaper editor: “I really appreciated the fact that your editorial writer supports the hike in the student activity fee that has been proposed. Since the writer is a senior and won’t even be here next year, he will escape having to pay the fee himself, so of course there’s no downside to it as far as he’s concerned. I’m against the fee, and I’ll be one of those who pay it if it passes. Mine is an opinion that should count.”

3. “‘There’s a certain sameness to the news on the Big Three [ABC, NBC, and CBS] and CNN,’ says Moody, . . . who is in charge of Fox News’s day- to-day editorial decisions. That’s the message, Moody says, that ‘America is bad, corporations are bad, animal species should be protected, and every cop is a racist killer. That’s where “fair and balanced” [Fox’s slogan] comes in. We don’t think all corporations are bad, every forest should be saved, every government spending program is good. We’re going to be more inquisitive.’ ”

—From an interview with John Moody, vice president for news editorial at Fox News Network, in Brill’s Content magazine

4. During the Reagan and G. H. W. Bush administrations, Democratic members of Congress pointed to the two presidents’ economic policies as causing huge defi cits that could ultimately ruin the country’s economy. President Bush dismissed such charges as “the politics of doom and gloom.” “These people will fi nd a dark cloud everywhere,” he has said. Was this response fallacious reasoning?

5. “Louis Harris, one of the nation’s most infl uential pollsters, readily admits he is in the polling business to ‘have some impact with the mov- ers and shakers of the world.’ So poll questions are often worded to obtain answers that help legitimize the liberal Establishment’s viewpoints.”

—Conservative Digest

6. “At a White House meeting in February of 1983 with Washington, D.C., anchormen, Ronald Reagan was asked to comment on ‘an apparent continuing perception among a number of black leaders that the White House continues to be, if not hostile, at least not welcome to black view- points.’ President Reagan replied as follows: ‘I’m aware of all that, and it’s very disturbing to me, because anyone who knows my life story knows that long before there was a thing called the civil-rights movement, I was busy on that side. As a sports announcer, I didn’t have any Willie Mayses or Reggie Jacksons to talk about when I was broadcasting major league baseball. The opening line of the Spalding Baseball Guide said, “Baseball is a game for Caucasian gentlemen.” And as a sports announcer I was one of a very small fraternity that used that job to editorialize against that ridiculous blocking of so many fi ne athletes and so many fi ne Americans from participating in what was called the great American game.’ Reagan then went on to mention that his father refused to allow him to see Birth of a Nation because it was based on the Ku Klux Klan and once slept in a

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EXERCISES 251

car during a blizzard rather than stay at a hotel that barred Jews. Reagan’s ‘closest teammate and buddy’ was a black, he said.”

—James Nathan Miller, The Atlantic

7. From a letter to the editor of the Atlantic Monthly: “In all my reading and experience so far, I have found nothing presented by science and technology that precludes there being a spiritual element to the human being. . . . The bottom line is this: Maybe there are no angels, afterlife, UFOs, or even a God. Certainly their existence has not yet been scientifi - cally proved. But just as certainly, their nonexistence remains unproved. Any reasonable person would therefore have to reserve judgment.”

8. Stop blaming the developers for the fact that our town is growing! If you want someone to blame, blame the university. It brings the new people here, not the developers. Kids come here from God knows where, and lots of them like what they fi nd and stick around. All the developers do is put roofs over those former students’ heads.

9. Two favorite scientists of the Council for Tobacco Research were Carl Seltzer and Theodore Sterling. Seltzer, a biological anthropologist, believes smoking has no role in heart disease and has alleged in print that data in the huge 45-year, 10,000-person Framingham Heart Study—which found otherwise—have been distorted by anti-tobacco researchers. Fram- ingham Director William Castelli scoffs at Seltzer’s critique but says it “has had some impact in keeping the debate alive.”

Sterling, a statistician, disputes the validity of population studies linking smoking to illness, arguing that their narrow focus on smoking obscures the more likely cause—occupational exposure to toxic fumes.

For both men, defying conventional wisdom has been rewarding. Seltzer says he has received “well over $1 million” from the Council for research. Sterling got $1.1 million for his Special Projects work in 1977–82, court records show.

—From “How Tobacco Firms Keep Health Questions ‘Open’ Year After Year,” Alix Freedman and Laurie Cohen. The article originally appeared in the

Wall Street Journal and was reprinted in the Sacramento Bee.

10. We have had economic sanctions in effect against China ever since the Tienanmen Square massacre. Clearly, they haven’t turned the Chinese leadership in Beijing into a bunch of good guys. All they’ve done, in fact, is cost American business a lot of money. We should get rid of the sanctions and fi nd some other way to make them improve their human rights record.

Writing Exercises 1. Your instructor will assign one or more of the Essays for Analysis in

Appendix 1 for you to scan for fallacies and rhetorical devices. 2. In the spring of 2010, the Texas State Board of Education voted to “put

a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light.” The majority of the board, a 10-vote bloc (of 15 total), “question Darwin’s theory of evolution and believe the Founding Fathers were guided by

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252 CHAPTER 7: MORE FALLACIES

Christian principles.” On the other side are “a handful of Democrats and moderate Republicans who have fought to preserve the teaching of Dar- winism and the separation of church and state.”

Which side do you think has the better case? Should Texas schools teach Darwin’s theory of evolution? Should they teach that the United States was consciously founded on Christian principles? Write a two-page essay in which you describe and defend your position. When the class has fi nished, read the essays in groups, looking for fallacies and other rhetori- cal devices. (Your instructor may have further or alternative instructions.)

3. A Schedule I drug, as defi ned by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, is one that (a) has a high potential for abuse, (b) has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and (c) has a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision. Should mar- ijuana be classifi ed as a Schedule I drug? Defend a position on the issue following the same instructions as for Writing Exercise 2.

4. Choose two of the examples in Exercise 7-17 and diagram them according to the procedure described in Chapter 2.

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