Appeal To Force.: Major (Logical) Fallacies

Major (Logical) Fallacies
(From: “Art, Argument and Advocacy: Mastering Parliamentary Debate” by John Meany and Kate Shuster, International Debate Education Association, 2002, pp.64 - 68)
A logical fallacy is a simple failure of logic. Arguments that are said to be fallacious have gaping holes or misleading leaps in their structure or
reasoning. The ability to point out holes in your opponents’ reasoning is a very powerful tool in debates.
APPEAL TO FORCE. This fallacy occurs when you tell someone that some kind of misfortune will happen to them if they don’t agree with you, e.g.,
“If you don’t believe that our utopia is ideal, then I guess we’ll have to release the hounds.”
APPEAL TO THE CROWD. Sometimes called the “bandwagon” or “ad populum,” this fallacy occurs when the arguer contends you will be left out of
the crows if you don’t agree: “All of the cool kids smoke cigarettes these days.”
APPEAL TO IGNORANCE. When an argument has not been disproven, it does not therefore follow that it is true. Yet the appeal to ignorance works a
surprisingly large amount of the time, particularly in conspiracy theories and their ilk: “No one has yet proven that aliens have not landed on Earth;
therefore, our theory about ongoing colonization should be taken seriously.”
APPEAL TO EMOTIONS. This fallacy is what it sounds like. Speakers routinely try to play on the emotions of the crowd in lieu of making real
arguments. “I know this national missile defense plan has its detractors, but won’t someone please think of the children?”
APPEAL TO TRADITION. Often a substitute for actual argument, the appeal to tradition happens when a speaker tries to justify her arguments by
reference to aggregated habits, e.g. “We should continue to discriminate against the poor because that’s what we’ve always done.”
APPEAL TO AUTHORITY. While it is often appropriate and even necessary to cite credible sources to prove a point, the appeal to authority becomes
fallacious when it is a substitute for reasoning or when the cited authorities’ credibility is dubious.
AD HOMINEM. Sometimes, arguers will attack the person making the argument rather than the argument itself. This is an ad hominem (Latin for “to the
man”) attack, e.g. “I don’t know how my opponent found the time to research this issue, since plainly he does not even have time to bathe.”
BEGGING THE QUESTION. Begging the question occurs when the conclusion assumes what it tries to prove: “Of course he tried to fix the boxing
match, since he was one of the people who stood to gain by fixing the boxing match.”
RED HERRING. An old favorite, the red herring happens when the arguer diverts attention to another issue and draws a conclusion based on that
diversion. “The candidate has a weak stand on education. Just look at what she says about foreign policy.”
HASTY GENERALIZATION. This fallacy occurs when a conclusion is drawn based on a non-representative sample, e.g. “Most Americans oppose the
war. Just ask these three peace demonstrators.”
EQUIVOCATION. In this fallacy, the meaning of a critical term is changed through the course of an argument.
FALSE CAUSE, or “POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER HOC.” This fallacy is just what it sounds like. In the English, at least. Sometimes, speakers
will draw a faulty link between premises and a conclusion such that the link depends upon a causal connection that probably does not exist: “The sun rises
every time I get out of bed. Therefore, by getting out of bed, I make the sun rise.” It is important to remember that correlation does not imply causality, and
neither does chronology imply causality.
SLIPPERY SLOPE. One of the more popular logical fallacies, particularly in political circles, the slippery slope argument contends that an event will set
off an uncontrollable chain reaction when there is no real reason to expect that reaction to occur. “If we start regulating carbon dioxide, the next thing you
know the proposition team will be telling you what to eat for breakfast.”
WEAK ANALOGY. Whilst argument by analogy is a very strong, common form of argumentation, the weak analogy fallacy occurs when an arguments’
conclusion rests on a non-existent similarity between two examples, e.g. “Well, if it worked in a college term paper, it’ll work in American foreign policy.”
FALSE DICHOTOMY. This fallacy occurs when the premise of an argument is a disjunctive statement that presents two alternatives as if they were
mutually exclusive, e.g. “It’s either free school lunches or nuclear war; Either you let me go to the concert or my life is ruined.”
FALLACY OF COMPOSITION. This fallacy happens when the conclusion of an argument depends on the erroneous transference of a characteristic
from the parts to the whole: “Jake likes fish. He also likes chocolate. Therefore, he would like chocolate covered fish.”
FALLACY OF DIVISION. The opposite of the fallacy of composition, the fallacy of division occurs when the conclusion of an argument depends on
the faulty attribution of a characteristic from the whole to its parts: “The average American family has 2.3 children. The Jones family is an average
American family. Therefore, the Jones family has 2.3 children.”
COMPLEX QUESTION. Used in questioning periods, this fallacy occurs when a single question is really two or more questions: “Do you still cheat on
your tests?;” “How long have you been smoking banana leaves?”
SCARECROW. Formerly called the “straw man” fallacy, this kind of argument is a diversionary tactic whereby an arguer exaggerates or
mischaracterizes his or her opponent’s position and then proceeds to represent this caricatured. This is a common tactic used in advertising campaigns:
“Worried about your family getting critically ill? Better use our disinfectant.”
SCAPEGOATING. This fallacy is similar to the scarecrow fallacy. We say someone is scapegoating when he or she attributes a current situation to a
group of people who may or may not be responsible for the problem. Politicians are notorious for scapegoating minority groups for broad social problems.
NON SEQUITURS. This is not so much a fallacy, per se, as a failure of reasoning. The Latin phrase non sequitur means “does not follow.” Thus,
reasoning that is non sequitur is composed of arguments that are irrelevant to the topic. As a debater, you should insist that your opponents’ reasoning stick
strictly to the topic(s) at hand.

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