Informal Fallacies

This chapter could have been titled “Unwarranted Inferences.” The following are certain infamous reasons given to support arguments—infamous because they mimic real support. There are two basic replies to these inferences: “So what?” or “What else?”

Abusing arguments may be among the world’s older professions. Proper names for many types of abuse are in Latin. I’ll deal only with the seven deadliest: inconsistency, ad hominem attacks, appeal to pity, begging the questions, post hoc ergo propter hoc, appeal (only) to the many, and straw man.

INCONSISTENCY

Two main ways of being inconsistent come to mind:

• 1. Offering reasons that are contradictory. For example, arguing that most people who strive for success do so out of hunger for love and admiration they didn’t get when growing up; and in the same book arguing that most people strive for success because they can afford to take the risk of failure, having been given a lot of encouragement and attention as children. Since encouragement and attention are tantamount to love and admiration, this argument is foundering on inconsistency unless the arguer makes a careful distinction between the pairs of terms love-admiration and encouragement-attention to explain this disparity.
• 2. Offering reasons that contradict the conclusion. For example, we should conserve on fuel because many of the elderly poor are dying from lack of heat in the winter. Given that reason, the conclusion would appear to be the opposite: that we should expend more fuel, at least on the elderly poor (unless some fiend is advocating killing off the elderly poor).

Enjoy Being on the Lookout

You can enjoy ferreting out inconsistencies (rather like the children’s game “What’s wrong with this picture?” in which the flag and the wind sock are flying in opposite directions, with the rabbit upside down under the hedge). Discoveries can be fascinating. For instance, employers frequently advertise themselves as an “equal opportunity affirmative action employer.” But the only case in which an employer could be both is when the minority candidate or woman applying is more qualified than any white male applicant. In cases of a tie, or when a white male is better qualified, something has to give. Think about whether these two often-connected terms, “equal opportunity” and “affirmative action,” can be reconciled.

Reconciling Differences

Anyone who is at cross-purposes with his or her own ideas has just shot him- or herself in the foot, argumentatively speaking. The hearer’s appropriate response to inconsistent arguments is “So what?”

One can let the argument drown in its own juices. But, depending on how interested one is in the subject, a lot of fun can be had trying to reconcile these differences (“What else would reconcile these inconsistencies? Is that something else true?”).

Carefully check your work to make sure you’re not involved in major inconsistencies. Students sometimes say, “I know my major reasons look inconsistent on paper. But I had such-and-such other idea in mind when I wrote this, so the reasons really do fit.” For heaven’s sake! Don’t expect your reader to be a mind reader as well. It’s only fun to ferret out inconsistencies when they’re subtle. Those that glare are painful. *

AD HOMINEM ATTACK

Ad hominem argument is the formal name for name-calling. Ad hominem literally means “against the man.”

• The author was guilty of an ad hominem argument when he impugned Ms. Manners’s reputation instead of discussing her ideas.It’s a shame that the discussion sank to the level of ad hominem argumentation. Dislike of a person’s affiliations is not relevant to the issue.

An ad hominem attack is the discounting of another person’s ideas by discounting the person instead of showing why the idea is not good. The name-caller is off the issue.

Varieties of this logical sin can be blatant. For example: “Don’t listen to Betty; she’s a real dope.” The answer should be something like “So what if you think she’s a dope? What is her argument?” Other times ad hominem attack can be subtle: “Politicians are busy at this time advocating reduced taxes as a way to improve their image with the public.” So what is their argument to reduce taxes?

*For a discussion of consistency, its relationship to warranted inference, and language with which to point to inconsistencies, review chapter 5 .)

The salient points should have been what Betty’s and the politicians’ arguments are and why these arguments should be discounted or accepted. So what if the counterarguer thinks that Betty is a dope and politicians are image-polishers?

The assumptions beneath the conclusion that name-calling is a pitfall are, as always, that everyone is a member of the community of thinkers and no one should be excluded. Of course, the people we want to exclude are the people whom we dislike. With so many juicy things we can say against our neighbor, it’s often easier to backbite than to bother with the argument at hand.

In defense of name-calling, one might argue that life is short, the tasks are many, and name-calling is a kind of a shorthand (“consider the source”) that helps us make quick decisions and eliminate silly notions. Even granting that, every time we use this shorthand we’ve robbed ourselves of the reward of some intellectual discovery, perhaps why a Communist’s advocacy of state ownership of the means of production is not a good idea. Although dealing with the unpleasant ideas of unpleasant people involves facing the fear that they may end up convincing us that they’re right, we can only act as fair-minded critical thinkers in the hope that they (who doubtless also find us unpleasant) will be similarly moved by our alternative arguments and that the best approximation of the truth will out.