1.3 Argumentative Fallacies
Now that we have discussed the two forms of arguments, it’s time to look at ways in which they are misused. This chapter identifies nine argumentative fallacies and provides examples of how they are misused. This chapter also suggests how you can effectively rebut these fallacies. If your opponent uses one against you, identify the fallacy and briefly explain the erroneous reasoning.
The Fallacy of Limited Alternatives
This fallacy arises in arguments by residue, more commonly known as process of elimination arguments. If there are only a limited number of possible answers to a question, and you can prove that all but one are wrong, then the answer must be the one that remains. Sounds simple, but this is only true if (1) you can identify all the possible solutions and (2) you know that one of them is correct. If both of these conditions are true then an argument by residue is valid.
If the argument claims that there are only two possibilities, and neither is correct, this argument becomes a false dichotomy. For example, some people assume that a person who is not a male must be a female and vice versa. However, there are some people born with both sets of sex organs who are androgynous and cannot accurately be classified as either.
When presented with an argument by residue, try to think of a third alternative (or whatever number is one higher than the number of alleged alternatives) and show that it is also a possible outcome. Often there are multiple alternatives that are ignored or slighted, and this is the most effective way to rebut such an argument. This might require quick, creative thinking, but if you cannot think of an alternative at least you can allege the possibility of an alternative that is unaccounted for. This is sometimes referred to as a Tertium Quid, the name given to Democratic-Republicans in the early 1800s who maintained that there was a third alternative to the Federalist and Republican parties.
The Fallacy of the Sorites
This fallacy is the argument that the addition of one item to a group of similar items does not affect substantial change. The original paradox, identified by Eubulides in the 4th century B.C., goes as follows: since one grain of sand is not a heap, one more grain does not make it a heap, so two grains are not a heap. Since one more grain does not make it a heap, three grains do not make a heap, etc., ad infinitum. When does the heap come into existence? By this argument, never.
The paradox arises because there is no agreed-upon definition for heap, so it is impossible to specify exactly how many grains of sand comprise a heap. This means that no single additional grain ever creates a heap–even though at some point a heap must have been created. This argument is commonly made when people want to argue that a small incremental change will not cause harm, so there is no reason to object. For example, one more drink won’t impair me, one more chocolate won’t make me fat, one more extravagance on my parents’ credit card won’t get it taken away. At some point all these littles do add up to something big, as Aristotle pointed out in his Politics when he refuted the claim that repeated minor legal violations would never lead to widespread disrespect for law.
Chief Justice John Roberts used this argument in his dissent in Caperton v. Massey,[1] a Supreme Court decision in which the majority of justices found that a litigant’s $3 million contribution to a state judicial campaign disqualified the judge he had contributed to from voting on his case. Roberts pointed out that contributions to judicial campaigns were illegal, so there was no point when an additional contribution dollar became excessive. The majority’s argument was that while that may be true, it does not invalidate the fact that $3 million (more than the expenditures of both candidates in the election) was too much. The fact that the law did not specify a limit did not necessarily mean that there was no appearance of impropriety if someone spent more on the election than both candidates combined. This suggests that a good way to defeat a sorities is to argue that the focusing on marginal increments distracts from the focus on the whole.
The sorites is the basis for slippery-slope fallacy, which is that there is no principled way to draw a line if one exception is made. This also appears in Supreme Court opinions. For example, in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis,[2] the Supreme Court faced the question of whether Colorado’s anti-discrimination law required a website designer to create a website for a same-sex wedding even though she was morally opposed to such weddings. The Court held that she could not be required to do so because this would constitute compelled speech, which is unconstitutional. Justice Sonia Sotomayor invoked the slippery slope in her dissent: “The decision threatens to balkanize the market and to allow the exclusion of other groups from many services. A website designer could equally refuse to create a wedding website for an interracial couple. . . . A stationer could refuse to sell a birth announcement for a disabled couple because she opposes their having a child. A large retail store could reserve its family portrait services for ‘traditional’ families.” The problem with this argument is that just because an exception is made for one service does not mean all customized services must be similarly exempt, as the expressive element in a website is far different than a birth announcement or a family portrait.
Here, the problem is that the line between two categories is unclear so that there are effectively only two categories (no exceptions or everything is an exception). This is really an invalid argument by residue. Identify a third category and you can show that there are sound places to stop on the slippery slope.
The Fallacy that Coincidence Implies Causation
This is the basis of many superstitions, such as “never let a black cat cross your path” or “breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck.” Black cats do not cause bad things (at least mine hasn’t!), and as long as you clean up the glass from the broken mirror the effects shouldn’t last seven years. But people still mistake correlation for causality, and assume when two events regularly follow each other that the first must have caused the second. This fallacy has given black cats a black name.
Today crimes caused by unauthorized immigrants are cited as evidence that they are responsible for increases in crime. While there is no denying that some people who lack legal residence commit crimes, there is little evidence that they commit more crimes than legal residents. Many people seem to believe that illegal immigration is a cause of increased crime simply because they are simultaneously aware that (1) illegal border crossings have increased and (2) crime has gone up. All claims of causality must be closely scrutinized to see if the causal relationship is true. Among the possible alternative explanations are (1) the result had another cause (2) both alleged cause and result were caused by something else and (3) randomness. Just because a person got a fever the last time it rained does not mean the rain caused the fever.
False causation also results from anthropomorphism: “Alcohol causes people to die on the road.” “Guns cause murders.” “Cannabis causes accidents.” These lines are often uttered by people who would abolish or limit the possession of certain things. But none of these things cause harm by themselves, it is the way people use them: Responsible use of alcohol enlivens parties, guns help protect against criminal behavior, responsible use of drugs is not inherently harmful. When people attribute the harm to inanimate objects, they are missing the real reasons for social problems–lack of personal responsibility, poverty, thrill-seeking, even laziness. Here is where you can use common objects that were involved in tragedies to illustrate the problem of mistaking human for inanimate causes: “Shall we ban kitchen knives because they are often used in stabbings?” “Shall we ban autos because they kill thousands a year?” “Shall we ban fertilizer because it can be used to build improvised explosive devices?”
The Fallacy of Appealing to Ignorance
There are two types of fallacies that use the lack of knowledge as an argument against a proposal. The first is lack of conclusive proof. This is often raised in response to claims that studies show a reform will not have negative consequences, such as cannabis legalization or phasing out gas-burning automobiles. Opponents of such reforms contend that studies are not sufficiently comprehensive or have not been replicated enough to be reliable. Whether or not this may be true, the absence of conclusive evidence to support a proposition does not prove the falsehood of that proposition. One good response is to insist that the opponent produce contrary evidence or concede the point. Usually there is no such evidence, or your opponent doesn’t have it available, since if it was there would be no reason to resort to this fallacy.
The other fallacy that appeals to ignorance is the lack of precedent. The failure of others to appreciate a reform does not mean there is a good reason why it should not be adopted. There are many possible explanations why a policy is not adopted, so again this is an invalid argument by residue. Essentially, this fallacy is a false dichotomy that claimes there are only two ways of viewing a potential policy: either (1) it is good enough to have already been adopted or (2) it is bad. If your opponent makes this argument, explain that there is no reason to regret the past as long as the proposed reform can be adopted now. This will refocus the debate on the present and avoid the irrelevance of past non-occurrence.
The “Straw Man” Fallacy
Sometimes opponents misinterpret an argument and then argue against the misinterpretation. This may be accidental (they misheard or didn’t understand the other side’s argument) or intentional (they don’t have a good response but they can defeat a different argument). For example, in a debate on mandating basic health care for all, the affirmative called for requiring all persons to obtain health insurance, with government subsidies for poor people. The negative claimed that this was essentially like a single-payer health plan and argued that single-payer health systems were overly expensive and provided poor medical care. This straw-man argument can be refuted by pointing out that the affirmative plan never called for what the negative claims and thus all the arguments against it are irrelevant.
The Fallacy of Ad Hominem Argument
This Latin phrase means directing an argument against a person instead of a proposition. It is often used to discredit arguments: “You sound just like Donald Trump.” “Communists have made the same argument for years.” “Hitler said that too.” The fallacy is that just because a debater uses the same argument that a discredited person used does not prove the debater’s argument is false or invalid. It merely distracts listeners from the actual argument, which might very well be sound. You should point this out and address the argument at issue, not who its supporters were.
The Fallacy of Begging the Question
This has nothing to do with begging and everything to do with assuming the truth of the conclusion in the major premise. It is otherwise known as a circular argument. Consider the statement “We should punish people who insult the police because insulting the police deserves punishment.” Formally, this is: P is good. P. Therefore, P is good. There is no argument here, just a restatement of the initial premise. Another example is “we should punish criminals harshly because anyone who breaks the law deserves a harsh punishment.” This argument assumes what it is trying to prove, that criminals should be punished harshly. Therefore, it is invalid and thus unsound.
The Fallacy of Appealing to Force
Sometimes people try to win arguments by suggesting that if their side loses, there will be an outbreak of chaos and even violence. Supreme Court Justices are not immune from resorting to such fallacies. In Miranda v. Arizona, the Court overturned the rape conviction of Ernesto Miranda because his confession was coerced by police investigators. The Court never found that Miranda was innocent, and the facts suggest that he did rape the victim. Justice Byron White made the following argument against barring the use of confessions made by defendants who weren’t read their rights: “In some unknown number of cases, the Court’s rule will return a killer, a rapist or other criminal to the streets . . . The real concern is . . . the impact on those who rely on the public authority for protection, and who, without it, can only engage in violent self-help with guns, knives and the help of their neighbors similarly inclined.”[3] In other words, the Miranda Rules are a bad idea because they may spur vigilante violence against those who go free because the police failed to read them their rights.
Such doomsday scenarios are rarely based in reality. There was no increase in vigilante violence after Miranda, and 34 years later when the decision was challenged in the Supreme Court most state attorneys general supported the decision.[4] If a negative debater makes a similar claim that chaos will follow the adoption of the resolution, ask them if they have any evidence that the sky is going to fall.
The Fallacy of Subjectivism
Almost everyone overestimates the extent of their knowledge. This is understandable since if we weren’t sure of anything we would be paralyzed by doubt. But it does not mean that this is a valid argument: I am smart. I believe X. Therefore X is true. Yet this type of argument often occurs in debate when people reference their knowledge or experience as a source for facts. “I know that most people are kind-hearted.” “I’ve learned that cheaters do better than those who play by the rules.” “I’d confess if I were tortured, so we should use torture to find the truth in extreme emergencies.”
Most debaters usually know enough about their topic to get through their first speech without having to rely on personal knowledge. But when confronted with a rebuttal they hadn’t anticipated, or a factual claim they need to refute to win the debate, they often resort to personal “knowledge,” which is often a mix of supposition, fact, and fiction. Be wary of attempts to introduce this “knowledge” as fact and ask for sources or evidence. Subjectivism is often the last resort of debaters who don’t want to lose and think that claiming that what they believe is true will help them to win the debate.
