Ad HominemDefinition:

• Marked by or being an attack on an opponent's character rather than by an answer to the argument made.• Attacks the person

arguing, rather than their actual argument.

• Examples

• You failed 3rd grade, so your argument is invalid.• You can’t go to law

school, your dad is a criminal.•

Tristin Gilmore

Appeal to IgnoranceDefinition:

• The fallacy that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proved false or that it is simply false because it has not been proved true.

• Forms: There is no evidence against p. Therefore, p. There is no evidence for p. Therefore, not-p.

Examples:• "In 1950, when Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (Republican, Wisconsin), was asked about the fortieth name on a list of 81

names of people he claimed were communists working for the United States Department of State, he responded that 'I do not have much information on this except the general statement of the agency that there is nothing in the files to disprove his communist connections.’”• Many of McCarthy’s followers took this absence of evidence as proof that the person in question was indeed a communist.

• Since scientists cannot prove global warming will occur, it probably will not.

• Since the class has no questions concerning the topics discussed in class, the class is ready for a test.

Victoria Norfleet

Appeal to Pity(appeal to sympathy, the Galileo argument)

• Definition: the attempt to distract from the truth of the conclusion by the use of pity.• Person 1 is accused of Y, but Person 1 is pathetic. Therefore, Person 1 is innocent.• X is true because Person 1 worked really hard at making X true.

• Examples:1. I really deserve an “A” on this paper, professor. Not only did I study during my

grandmother’s funeral, I also passed up the heart transplant surgery, even though that was the first matching donor in 3 years.• Explanation: The student deserves an “A” for effort and dedication but, unfortunately, papers are not graded

that way. The fact that we should pity her has nothing to do with the quality of the paper written, and if we were to adjust the grade because of the sob stories, we would have fallen victim to the appeal to pity.

2. Ginger: Your dog just ran into our house and ransacked our kitchen! Mary: He would never do that, look at how adorable he is with those puppy eyes!

• Explanation: Being pathetic does not absolve one from his or her crimes, even when it is a puppy.

3. How can you say that’s out? It was so close, and besides, I’m down ten games to two.• Explanation: Person 2 is asked to agree to the objection of Person 1 because of the pitiful state he is in which is

losing.

• Avoid Pity in argumentation. It is a clear sign of a weak evidence for your argument.

Brock Davis

What is Attacking the Motive?

•Definition:•Criticizing a person's motivation for offering a particular argument or claim, rather than examining the worth of the argument or claim itself

Examples:

• “What John said should not be believed because he was a Nazi sympathizer.”• "My opponent argues on and on in favor of allowing that mall to be built in the center of town. What he won't tell you is that his daughter and her friends plan to shop there once it's open.“• "The referee comes from the same place as (a sports team), so his refereeing was obviously biased towards them."

BANDWAGON

The bandwagon is the fallacy which appeals to popularity. It can also be labeled peer pressure. It calls its audience to join whatever cause, or “climb aboard the bandwagon” because the majority of people believe it is correct

Examples of the bandwagon appeal:

1. Everyone is selfish; everyone is doing what he believes will make himself happier. The recognition of that can take most of the sting out of accusations that you're being "selfish." Why should you feel guilty for seeking your own happiness when that's what everyone else is doing, too?

Source: Harry Browne, "The Unselfishness Trap", from How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World(1973).

www.fallacyfiles/bandwagn.html

2. The “billions and billions” served by McDonald’s implies that because so many others have enjoyed the restaurant, it is a decent establishment that others will also enjoy

3. Eastern religions draw attention to becoming in touch with one’s inner peace, therefore these religions (Buddhism, Hunduism, etc.) help one find their true inner being

http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/bandwagon/

Julia Crothers

Begging the Question!● Premises in which the truth of the conclusion is claimed or

the truth of the conclusion is assumed (either directly or indirectly).o "X is true. The evidence for this claim is that X is true."

1. "British troops should stay in Afghanistan as long as they are needed."2. "You got your mushrooms and your toadstools. The mushrooms are

harmless, the toadstools will kill you. You'll know it's a toadstool if it kills you."

3. “Your powers of trickery and deception are bewildering, child.”

Sami Jefferies

• Ad Hominem means “against the man.” This fallacy is the attack on the arguers or the point’s character

in order negate a claim.

• Ex1: “I don’t support Obama’s plan because he is a traitor”

• Ex2:Adolf Hitler: This is an irresponsible fiscal policy because the budget deficit is too great.

• Politician: I won't listen to you! You're Hitler!

• Ex3:Movie Goer: “Tom Cruise’s movies are great”

• Bystander: “His movies are terrible because he is a scientologist”

• Devin Townsend 1st Period

Ad Hominem

Begging the question

• Definition: a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proved is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.• Examples:• Paul B. 'Red' Fay, Jr. said, “The reason there's

such a big demand is because everyone wants to get in them.”• The death penalty is wrong because killing

people is immoral.• Freedom of speech is important because

people should be able to speak freely.Taryn Watkins

False Alternative (Either-or)

• Definition- When only two relevant choices are proposed when there are actually more than two choices.

• "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." - President George W. Bush

• "If you ain't first, you're last." - Ricky Bobby

• "Love it or leave it."

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Hasty Generalization • A fallacy in which a conclusion is not logically justified by

sufficient, or unbiased evidence.

Three congressional representatives have had affairs. Therefore, members of Congress are adulterers.

The saying “Be a Man!” means: be stupid, be unfeeling, obedient, soldiery, and stop thinking.

Bush Doesn’t Care About Black People.

Carol Hudak

InCoNsIsTeNcYOccurs when: Two or more propositions are asserted that cannot

both possibly be true (the propositions may be contradictions or contraries)

One holds two or more views/beliefs that cannot be all be true together

Examples:"Nobody goes there anymore.  It's too crowded." -

Yogi BerraAll general claims have exceptions.“Almost everything is true. Almost nothing is

true.” Tim O’Brien The Things They Carried Page 77

Mykaela Watt 1st Period

Inconsistency• Inconsistency is when a speaker will contradict

his/her own claim. More than one proposition is stated, making the argument invalid.

• Ex:• I'm a strong believer in freedom of speech and think

artists should never be censored. However, when musicians like Marilyn Manson influence the youth, you have to draw a line and say no more.

• There is no evil in this world. Though evil exists in some parts of the world, we will overcome it sooner or later.

• I'm all for equal rights for women. I just think a woman's place is in the home.

Sam Seamon

Appeal to Force

• When force, coercion, or even a threat of force is used in place of a reason in an attempt to justify a conclusion.

• EX: • “you’ll take piano lessons and you’ll like them!” • Major Payne: What if this was a life or death situation?

Cadet Alex Stone: Well it's not a life or death situation.Major Payne: [pulls the pin from his hand grenade] It is now. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi…Cadet Alex Stone: Come on, guys. What are you crazy? It's just a dummy grenade.[Major Payne tosses the grenade and it explodes. Stone ducks as a tree falls over]Major Payne: Who's the dummy now?

• "No, now go away or I shall taunt you a second time.” (Monty Python)

Katie Fagan

Loaded Question

• “Have you stopped beating your wife?”• “When is your team going to stop cheating?”• “Why do you always want to hurt me?”

• “Why do those stupid referees always rob us of our wins?”• “Why does their sales staff always lie?”

• “Have you quit smoking?”

A loaded question is a question which contains a controversial assumption such as a presumption of guilt.

Suzanne Shugart

Name and Definition

• The red herring fallacy is named after a strong smelling fish used to throw hounds off their trail during pursuit. • Similarly, the red herring fallacy brings up

an irrelevant issue in order to distract an audience from the real issue.

Examples

• Jay Heinrichs exemplifies this fallacy in Thank You for Arguing in citing a South Park episode. • In this clip, South Park depicts O.J. Simpson’s

lawyer as using a red herring (Chewbacca defense) to distract the jury from the case at hand.• Heinrichs also argues this fallacy was used by

O.J Simspon’s lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, during the real O.J case.

In the Da Vinci Code

• The character of “Bishop Aringarosa” in Dan Brown’s novel Da Vinci Code serves as an example of a red herring throughout the novel. The character is presented in such a way that the readers suspect him to be the mastermind of the whole conspiracy in the church. Later it was revealed that he was innocent.• “Aringarosa” translates in English as “red

herring!”

In Sherlock Holmes

• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes: Hound of the Baskervilles… Readers are thrown off the real murderer and start suspecting the escaped “convict” and “Barrymore,” though in the end, the mystery is resolved by the unexpected confession of “Beryl” that her husband “Stapleton” was the real culprit and was behind the whole mystery of the killer “Hound”.

• Summarized, the dude’s who are portrayed as guilty distract readers from realizing who’s really guilty.

Scare Tactics• Definition: When fear, not based on evidence or reason, is being

used as the primary motivator to get others to accept an idea, proposition, or conclusion.• Example #1: “You must believe that God exists. After all, if you do

not accept the existence of God, then you will face the horrors of hell.“• Example #2: "You know, Professor Smith, I really need to get an A

in this class. I'd like to stop by during your office hours later to discuss my grade. I'll be in your building anyways, visiting my father. He's your dean, by the way. I'll see you later."• Example #3:

Nattie Andrews1st period

Slippery slope

• A fallacy in which a course of action is objected to on the grounds that once taken it will lead to additional actions until some undesirable consequence results.

"We have to stop the tuition increase! The next thing you know, they'll be charging $40,000 a semester!“

"The US shouldn't get involved militarily in other countries. Once the government sends in a few troops, it will then send in thousands to die.“

"You can never give anyone a break. If you do, they'll walk all over you."

Tatum Connell

• A made-up version of an opponent's argument that can easily be defeated – The American Heritage Dictionary

• "Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that.“• The opponent disregards the Senator Jones’s argument. He

instead fabricates the argument into not supporting defense. Then the opponent attacks the straw man, opposing leaving “us defenseless.”

STRAW MAN

“By ‘Cutting Spending,’ Republicans mean they want to destroy our schools, kill the elderly, and starve the poor! And their discourse is uncivil.” –President Obama on the Sequester

The Republicans do not intend to do such things; their argument is about cutting spending. Obama, however, distorts the Republican argument in order to win the argument. He distorts their argument to portray the Republicans as “uncivil,” when there is no focus on what the argument actually is. If he really wanted to debate the argument, he would need to argue a specific point in their argument.

Here the Grandmother ignores the question and argument presented: Fox News viewers are less informed, how will you be convinced to change sources? She dodges the question by calling the “studies…stupid.”

John O'Driscoll

TWO wrongs make a Right

• Definition- when a person attempts to justify their action by claiming that another person would or did do the same action against him or her

• Example• You cannot criticize Obama for running huge budget deficits because Bush did the same thing.• Jim Crow Laws were okay because if blacks were given the chance they would discriminate against

whites too.• Daisy could cheat on Tom with Gatsby because Tom was cheating on her with Myrtle.

Donald Ho 1st Period

Card Stacking

• A fallacy in which any evidence that supports an opposing argument is rejected, omitted, or ignored• Examples

• Military enlistment poster• Politician propaganda• Unfair comparison: PC and Mac

Kristen Grooms

Equivocation

Equivocation occurs when a key term or phrase in an argument is used in an ambiguous way, with one meaning in one portion of the argument and then another meaning in another portion of the argument.

Examples: A feather is light.

What is light cannot be dark. Therefore, a feather cannot be dark.

Hot dogs are better than nothing Nothing is better than steak. Therefore, hot dogs are better than steak.

A plane is a carpenter's tool. The Boeing 737 is a plane. Hence the Boeing 737 is a carpenter's tool. Rachel Liedl

Fallacy: Attacking the MotiveVariation of the ethical fallacy: Ad Hominem

- an attempt to refute or disprove an argument by attacking the opposing person’s reputation or personal character

Definition: establishing that a standpoint or argument is invalid because of potential negative, corrupt or undefined motives of the claim

Simpler terms: confronting a thesis or claim by questioning the motives of the opposing person For example:

Riley Cooper, owner of the Cooper Construction Company, argues that the University of Alabama needs new dorms because the old ones are warn down.

-argue that Mr. Cooper is arguing this point because he obviously wants to be picked to build the new dorms and gain profits from the construction project

The referee from Miami didn’t call any fouls on the Miami Heat during the game against the Chicago Bulls. -statement argues that because the referee is from Miami, Florida, he is lenient or biased towards the

Miami Heat Suzie, a very sociable girl, never studies for any of her classes, but she wants to go study with a group of

friends at their house. -suggesting or questioning if she is really going to go study with her friends or socialize instead of

studying Elena Grove1st Period

False Alternative (Either-Or)

• Definition: A fallacy of oversimplication that offers a limited number of options (usually two) when in reality, more options are available. • Also known as the false dilemma. (p.156)

• Logical Form: Either [X] or [Y] is true.• Examples:• “You’re either with us or against us”• “You weren’t at church today, so you must not be a good person”• DirecTV “Rob Lowe” commercials

Gavin Baugh 1st Period

Faulty Causal GeneralizationDefinition(s)

● An assumption that just because one event follows another, it was caused by the previous event.

● Mistakenly claims that one thing causes another to happen, if they happen in sequence.

● The events are paired so that it seems that the first event is relative to the second

Examples1. Ice cream sales increase in May. Shark

attacks increase in June. Ice cream consumption causes shark attacks.

2. Beyoncé is in Prattville today. Prattville schools are cancelled today. Prattville schools are cancelled today because Beyoncé is in town.

3. My family eats cereal excessively. My family is out of milk. My family is out of milk because they excessively eat cereal.

Ashlyn Jackson

Inappropriate Appeal to Authority• Definition

• Using an authority as evidence in your argument when the authority is not really an authority on the facts relevant to the argument.

• Examples• 1) My 5th grade teacher once told me that girls will go crazy for boys if they learn

how to dance. Therefore, if you want to make the ladies go crazy for you, learn to dance.

• 2) “Well, Isaac Newton believed in Alchemy, do you think you know more than Isaac Newton?”

• 3) Jane: "Dr. Johan Skarn says that abortion is always morally wrong, regardless of the situation. He has to be right, after all, he is a respected expert in his field."

• Bill: "I've never heard of Dr. Skarn. Who is he?" • Jane: "He's the guy that won the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on cold fusion." • Bill: "I see. Does he have any expertise in morality or ethics?" • Jane: "I don't know. But he's a world famous expert, so I believe him."

Michael Fennell

False Analogy

• A logical fallacy in which the argument is undermined because the argument is not properly addressed. It involves comparing two things that are similar in some regards, but are actually completely different.

• "Bill Clinton has no experience of serving in the military. To have Bill Clinton become president, and thus commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the United States, was like electing some passer-by are on the street to fly the space shuttle.“

• Our invasion of Iraq was like Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland.

• Military domination in space is the same as in the air. Caleb Russell

Tu Quoque Fallacy (you too)

An informal logical fallacy that intends to discredit the opponent’s position by asserting the opponent’s failure to act consistently in accordance with that position

Examples: “You shouldn’t smoke; its terrible for your health.”

“but you smoke.” “I think the bill is a waste of time and money.”

“You supported the bill last week, didn’t you?” "I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about 'family values' when they have affairs, and I

know of many who are and have.“ –Rep. Patricia Todd

Kristen Hayden1st Period