Ch. 5: Informal Fallacies Flashcards
FALLACIES OF AMIGUITY
-Arguments that have ambiguous words or phrases sloppy grammatical structure or confusion between two closely related concepts
- Equivocation
- Amphiboly
- Fallacy of Accent
- Fallacy of Division
- Fallacy of Composition
FALLACIES OF RELEVANCE
-one or more of the premises is logically irrelevant or unrelated to the conclusion but psychologically the premise and conclusion seem to be relevant
- Personal Attack (Ad Hominem)
- Appeal to Force (Scare Tactics)
- Appeal to Pity
- Popular Appeal
- Appeal to Ignorance
- Hasty Generalization
- Straw Man
- Red Herring
FALLACIES OF UNWARRANTED ASSUMPTIONS
-Occurs when an argument includes an assumption that is not supported by evidence.
- Begging the Question
- Inappropriate Appeal to Authority
- Loaded Question
- False Dilemma
- Questionable Cause
- Slippery Slope
- Naturalistic Fallacy
Equivocation
- key term in an argument is ambiguous or has more than one meaning and the meaning of the term changes during the argument.
- Ex: “Only man is rational. No woman is a man. Therefore, no woman is rational.”
Amphiboly
- grammatical mistake in an argument which allows more than one conclusion to be drawn.
- Example: “Terry’s mother and her husband are in opposite sides of the battle over her life.”
Fallacy of Accent
-meaning of an argument changes according to which word or phrase is emphasized.
-Example: “didn’t I say don’t play with matches.”
“ But I wasn’t playing with the matches I was using them to burn down Mr.Murphy’sshed.”
Fallacy of Composition
-Occurs when a characteristic of a member of a group is assumed to be the characteristic of the whole group
-Person X has a characteristic C.
Person X is a member of group G .
Therefore G has characteristic C .
Fallacy of Division
-Occurs when a characteristic of an entire group is assumed to be the characteristic of each member of the group.
-Group G has characteristics C.
X is a member of group G.
Therefore X has characteristic C.
Personal Attack (Ad Hominem)
- disagree with somebody’s conclusion but instead of designing a counter argument we attack the person who made the argument.
- Ex:“Don’t listen to Eddie’s arguments on education, he didn’t even graduate college.”
Appeal to Pity
-Example: “Please don’t give me a speeding ticket officer, my boyfriend just cheated on me and I’m having a bad day.”
Popular Appeal
-Ex:ots of people bought this album, so it must be good.
Hasty Generalization
- Occurs when we generalize from a sample that is too small or biased.
- Example: “My father abused me and so did my ex-boyfriend. Therefore, all men are mean.”
Straw Man
-distorts or misinterprets the opponents argument thus making it easier to knock down or refute.
-Ex:“Men and women should have equal rights.”
“Why would any woman want the right to be shot at in times of war, the right to have to pay alimony, or the right to have to use the same restrooms as men?”
Red Herring
-sidetrack an argument by bringing up a different issue.
-now directed towards a different conclusion.
-Ex:“I really didn’t appreciate you being so rude to me at dinner.”
“Nothing I do ever pleases you. I spent all last week repainting the bathroom, and then you said you didn’t like the color.”
Begging the Question
- Makes the conclusion the same as a premise so we assume that the conclusion is true rather than looking at real evidence to know that it is true.
- Example: “Capital punishment is wrong because it is immoral to inflict death as a punishment for crime.”
