Ashford University - Ed Tech | Informal_Fallacies_2

JUSTIN Hi, everybody. This is going to be a continuation of the informal logical HARRISON: discussion. The next one we're going to be talking about is the relativist fallacy.

This is a common one that you see. Even in intellectual circles, you see really smart people falling into this fallacy. Well, I guess you can be consistent, but it's very hard to be consistent.

The relativist fallacy occurs when you say that, for example, different cultures have different beliefs so what's right in one culture or what's right for one group is right and good. And then something that's opposite in another group is considered right and good. And those two things are right and good for both cultures or groups or whatever it might be.

Well, there are different types of , but cultural relativism would say things like, well, we can't judge other cultures because their actions are right based on their own definitions of what is right. And our definitions of what is right and wrong

are different. Therefore, what they believe is right is right and what we believe is right is right.

And hopefully you can see the problem with this is that-- let's say that we're confronting a culture that subjugates women. And in that culture, it is right or morally acceptable to gang rape a woman, which is actually-- this happens in the world--

when she's been accused of some crime-- often a crime that she didn't commit, but she's just been accused of it. And so a punishment is literally, a group of men will rape her.

Now, is it acceptable for us to say, well, in that culture, raping somebody as a punishment is right and good so we can't really judge that culture for what they do?

In our culture, it's not right. So if they were here, it would be bad. But because they are where they are, it's not bad.

No. Most of us would find that reprehensible. That's not a form of justice then we

1 would like to see in an absolutely just society.

And of course, there's the danger of being labeled as, oh, you always think you're right. You Americans always think you're right. But that, again, might be a hasty generalization on their part.

I think there's strong arguments to be made that it's not just to gang rape a woman for a crime-- for any crime, and especially for a crime that she didn't commit. And so I think it's OK for us to say, look, that is an unjust law and those practices need to change, just as they can critique our society. We have unjust laws. We have distorted perceptions of reality.

And most ethical philosophers believe that there is some sort of ethical truth that guides or that ought to guide human behavior and that we can't just say, oh, rape is right for them and not right for us so that we really don't know what an ethical truth is. No. Most philosophers would say, there is an ethical truth in relation to rape. And I think most of them would say that rape is wrong.

And so if a society comes more in line with that ethical truth, then they're coming more in line with the truth in general, just like in our society-- another outcome of the relativist fallacy is you can't claim that there's been moral progress in your society.

So looking back at our society-- apartheid, lynching of African Americans, murder of African Americans for no other reason than the fact that their skin color is different--

I think most of us would agree that that was horrible and that our society is a lot better now that we don't have slavery. It's a lot better now that-- and of course, these things still occur, but in a lesser degree. And it appears that we're making moral progress-- that people who fought for civil rights and for equality of the sexes have made moral progress.

But if we're a relativist, what we have to say is, well, back then, things were different and things are just different now. So back then, it was right to treat African

Americans this way, but now it's not right. And most of us wouldn't want to say that.

Most of us would say, no, things are a lot better now, society-wise and ethically. So the relativist fallacy occurs when you fall into the thinking that truth is relative to a 2 society.

Now of course, there are certain things that are relative. The side of the street that you drive on is relative to your society. And it's proper to drive on the left hand side of the street in England and a lot of countries that were colonized by England, but for us, we drive on the right hand side of the street. But that's not really an ethical issue. OK. I don't want to spend too much time.

The next one-- another very popular is called the . The red herring occurs when somebody presents an argument and then, in the response to the argument, the person drags the conversation to something else. And this happens all the time. It's one of the most prevalent informal logical .

They call it the red herring because a herring is a stinky fish. And I've heard that when they were training these hunting dogs to follow a scent, they would drag the rabbit or whatever on the ground and then the hunting dog would start following the trail. But then somewhere down the road, they would drag a fish-- a stinky fish along the same trail and then off to the side to try and get the dog to learn to not follow the stinky fish, but to keep following whatever it was that originally went through.

And that's exactly what happens here. Somebody makes an argument that's pointed it in this direction, and then somebody else diverts the conversation to something else or they don't respond to the point that the person is making. They bring up something else.

So for example, you might be talking about taxation and you might say that we should be taxed more so that we can provide more services for different people who are in need. And somebody else, instead of responding to your claim about that, might start talking about how people in need are lazy or something like that. Now, that could definitely be part of an argument against your claim. Or maybe they start talking about how they dislike Obama's policy in general, or something, and they shift the conversation to something that's totally different-- totally off track.

3 Maybe you have a partner who you might believe has some infidelities and you confront that person and you say, hey, look, what's going on these text messages?

And they're like, hey, you look really nice today or oh, yeah, well-- yeah, I know I have these text messages, but did you want to go to a movie or-- so you divert the attention to something else in the red herring. It's really important that we focus on exactly what people are saying.

And if you watch a political debate, this happens all the time. They don't respond to what's been said. They shift the conversation.

I think they call it a pivot in political science parlance or something. The pivot is when you-- you basically do a red herring by taking what the person said and then you pivot to what you want to talk about. So it's like, I know my opponent, President Obama, thinks that we should increase spending on welfare and aid programs in the United States. And if I were to become president, I would tend to focus more on the military-- military spending-- support our troops-- stuff like that.

And so what you have there is you have the pivot away from these programs and then you start talking about what you want to talk about. That's a red herring. They praise the pivot, actually, as being one of the ultimate forms of debate tactics. It's often quite fallacious.

OK. The argument. The ad hominem argument means "to the person--

" to the man or to the woman. So what happens in an ad hominem argument is that instead of attacking somebody's argument or the conclusion that they draw on a specific issue, you attack the person him or herself.

So let's start with the add hominem abusive. We've all been victims of the ad hominem abusive, usually on the playground in elementary school or through high school or something. You say something like, well, I think that this is the case. And somebody just says, well, you know what? You're an idiot.

So if I say I believe that-- let's talk about an issue-- oh, I believe soldiers should be trained on military ethics and what it means to be a virtuous soldier because I

4 believe that that will help inform their decisions that they make in combat and that we need to have a very developed ethical system in which these soldiers work. And somebody says to me, well, you know what? You're a philosophy professor-- well, lets not use that one-- but you're just an idiot, or what do you know? Instead of focusing on my argument, what they've done is they've attacked me-- "to the human being."

So whenever somebody attacks you and says-- this happens at work a lot. I remember I used to work at this counter-top making factory-- one of the worst jobs of my life. And these two guys just hated each other and they would get in these political debates. One was a Democrat and one was a Republican.

It was almost just like a huge series of ad hominems. It was like, one guy would say something. The other guy's like, well, you're an idiot. And he wouldn't say it that nicely.

And the other guy would be like-- and then he would present his position. And then the other guy would be like, oh, that's ridiculous. That's so dumb-- again, not so nicely. But anyway, the ad hominem abusive is when you abuse a person rather than their argument.

The form is the "you, too" form of ad hominem and I always use the same example. You're smoking. I'm smoking with you. We're smoking. We're both smokers.

And I tell you hey, man, you should really quit smoking. It's bad for your health. It causes you to stink. It affects your heart. It can lead to other circulatory problems and, ultimately, death from lung cancer and things.

What are you going to say to me? You're not going to say, oh wow. Those are excellent points, Justin, and I'm sitting here like, [INHALES]. You're going to be like, well, you do it too.

And so whenever we point out that somebody else does it too, we're not responding to their argument. Ultimately, you might be pointing out that somebody's a 5 hypocrite, but that doesn't really attack their argument. So really, the best way to say things would be like, well, not only do I need to abide by what you said, but you do too because it was a good argument. You had strong positions on the issue. So we should both quit smoking.

And then finally, the ad hominem circumstantial. Let's go back to my example of military ethics. If I am a philosopher and I say, we need to teach military ethics to soldiers-- and someone might say to me, well, what do you know? You weren't even in the military, first of all. Secondly, you're a philosopher, so of course you want to teach people ethics.

Well, because of my circumstances, the person is claiming that I have an interest in teaching ethics. And that could be the case, but just because I'm a philosopher doesn't mean that military soldiers should not engage in classes based around ethics and what it means to be virtuous soldier. Another example of circumstantial ad hominem-- let's say that Hillary Clinton is making a speech and she's arguing that women should get paid the same amount for doing the same jobs as men, which they don't. And you can imagine after the speech, some people saying, well, the only reason why Hillary Clinton said that is because she's a woman.

OK. Again, the circumstances, right? Just because Hillary Clinton is a woman doesn't mean that women should not get paid the same amount as men. And we often see these circumstantial ad hominems, for example, when people attempt to fight for unionized labor. The higher administration of the companies and organizations they work for will say, well, the only reason you want that is because you're doing this or because you're part of the union and things, rather than responding to the arguments that are made.

OK. Next is the fallacy. Let's see if I can make a straw man here. The straw man is called straw man because what you do in this case is you take somebody else's argument and you turn it into an extremely weak form of argument and then you destroy the weak form of the argument.

So there was this philosopher who said that this other philosopher left a wake of 6 burning straw men in his path. And it's a lot easier to attack a straw man or a straw person-- maybe we should call this the straw person argument-- not be sexist-- the straw person argue. So it's a lot easier to attack a straw person and push him over or light him on fire than in is to attack a real person, and that's exactly what happens in the straw person argument.

OK. So usually, straw men arguments occur in really heated debates. And often, you'll see them in the abortion debate in the United States.

The side that is against abortion will say about the side that believes abortion should be legal-- they will say, well, performing an abortion is like murdering a baby. I don't really believe in murdering babies. Therefore, I can't align myself with baby murderers.

Now obviously, the position of people who believe that abortion should be legal is not-- they don't define an abortion as the murder of a baby. And when you set it up in terms like that, then what you're doing is you're creating a weakened form of their position. Their position might be that if you have an abortion of a ball of cells that's eight cells or 16 cells or 32 or whatever-- a blastula or whatever-- that's nothing even close to a human being. And that's where we need to meet each other in our argumentation. We need to be objective about the strengths and weaknesses of both sides.

Now on the opposite side, people who believe abortion should be legal might claim about those who believe it should be illegal, well, they just don't want any rights for women. They want women to go back to the 1800s and just sit in their houses and have their babies and have no rights and just-- I don't know-- do needlework all day.

Well again, that's another straw man argument. The side that is against abortion might only want to limit that one right for women, whereas the side that is pro abortion or believes it should be legal needs to present an objective example of the argument rather than a straw person to attack.

Somebody just slipped something under my door and I wonder what it is. OK. -- this is a good one. A false dilemma occurs when you-- let's just call this, 7 more colloquially, black and white thinking.

False dilemma occurs when you present two options as if they are the only options. So you say it's either this or it's that. But if there are more than those two options, then you've presented a false dilemma.

So you either clean your room or you're not getting any ice cream-- false dilemma.

It could be that the child doesn't clean their room, still gets ice cream. It could be that the child cleans their room and doesn't get ice cream. It could be that the child does something else. And we often see this form of black and white thinking.

It's either the case that we allow immigrants to come into this country and everything goes to hell or we keep them all out. Well, no. There's a third option. In logic, you can escape between the horns. So you have the horns of the bull and if you can escape between the middle, meaning present another option, then you can see that that's a false dilemma.

Now, let's be careful, though, because some things are not false dilemmas, per se.

So for example, let's go back to the example of the spouse or the partner. Let's say your partner cheats on you. And you say to your partner, look, if you do it again-- either you maintain your fidelity to me or I'm leaving you.

Now, of course in that instance, it could be the case that the person continues to cheat and the person remains with that person. But in that case, it's not really a false dilemma. Usually in those strong examples, those are kind of the options and people tend to abide by those options when they present them in that manner. So a false dilemma occurs when you present two options as being the only options. The way to refute a false dilemma is to present a third option or a fourth or a fifth or a sixth.

Oh, another false dilemma-- either evolution is true or belief in God is true. No. You could believe that God exists and that evolution is true. You could believe that God just set up the world in such a way that evolution was the way the life diversified.

Oh-- end of debate on evolution and creation.

8 Now of course, the scientist or the atheist-- and I don't equate those-- but the atheist will think that the theist is just crazy for believing that God used evolution to create life. OK. That's fine. The theist will believe that the atheist is crazy for believing that it was the result of random occurrences or the emergence out of nothing-- from nothing. And yeah, well, then have the debate there, but don't set up these debates as if it's one or the other. It's not one or the other.

The -- another very popular-- leading the witness in a court of law. A loaded question occurs when you ask a question that has certain assumptions. The most famous one is, have you stopped beating your wife yet? What happens when you answer that question?

If you say yes to that question-- have you stopped beating your wife? If you say yes, that implies that you used to be your wife and now you don't. If you say no, that implies that you used to beat your wife and you're still beating your wife. So notice that when you ask a question like that, there are implicit assumptions about the person.

Now, this happens a lot, like I said, in the courtroom or perhaps in a questioning of someone. Let's say there's a woman and her husband has just been murdered with a knife-- a big butcher knife. I used to work as an emergency room tech in Indiana for about five years. And one time, this guy came in and he had the handle of a butcher knife sticking out of his chest And I'll never forget.

He had a Roadrunner tattoo. And he was like, she told me she loved me. She told me she loved me. And man, his wife had just taken a butcher knife and just bam-- right-- I mean, all the way to the hilt.

And then they did an x-ray and could see, luckily, it went straight down and it didn't hit his heart or his lungs or anything. It was between the pleura or whatever-- the space between his lungs and his inner cavity of his ribcage-- and so he survived. I mean, I guess it's not that funny, but it was just so-- I mean, there's just a guy talking to you, like, can you believe this? [LAUGHING]

9 And from what I heard working in the hospital, apparently, men tend to stab like this.

So if somebody has a low injury with a knife, it tends to be a man who comes up, like a shiv-- like uh, uh! And women tend to do overhand stabbing where they use a knife to stab someone. Now again, that could be false, but that's what the doctors told us and stuff. And in that case, it was definitely the case because it was coming down.

But anyway, a loaded question, as I was saying-- people can be really mean in high school and stuff, like, have you told your parents you're an idiot-- stuff like that. Oh, going back to the example of the murder-- the police might question you and they might say, why were you speeding? And it's like, wait, wait. Hold on.

When they pull you over-- why were you speeding? It's like, wait. First, prove that I was speeding. Don't just assume that I was. I need to see some proof.

Or, why did you murder your husband? And then the woman is like, well, wait. I didn't murder my husband. So they're just assuming that that woman-- or, what did you use to murder your husband? So loaded questions have assumptions embedded within them.

The perfectionist fallacy-- the perfectionist fallacy occurs when-- and Paul and Elder actually have a similar fallacy-- the cold, hard world. It's the opposite of this-- the cold hard world argument. The perfectionist fallacy occurs when you say that something should not be the case because it doesn't lead to perfect outcomes.

And so for example, there is a best way to distribute resources in a society such that the society flourishes. And what I mean by that is, there's a best way to tax humans.

There might not be any country that's figured out the best way, according to their conditions, to tax their populace, but there is a best way.

And so when people say well, nothing's going to solve all of our problems, well, they're absolutely right. Not all problems will be solved through taxation. But if the society can refine the way that they tax and figure out better ways of distribution of income and resources between their society, they can lead to a society that

10 flourishes more. And we see this around the world, in terms of different things.

So for example, one thing you'll hear often in the drug debate-- and some of you might be high right now, but-- is that drug laws are not going to catch everyone, therefore we don't need drug laws. That's the perfectionist fallacy. Or police officers can't catch everybody who's speeding, so why do they even pull anybody over?

But if we were to transpose that form of reasoning to more significant acts, then we can see why that's fallacious. So for example, what if I said, the police can't catch all rapists, so we don't need any laws against rape or, the police can't catch all people who murder so we don't really need laws against murder? So claiming that because something doesn't lead to a perfect outcome, therefore we should reject it is the perfectionist fallacy.

The -- so we'll do two more and then-- or yeah. OK. Maybe I'll just go through all of them.

The slippery slope fallacy occurs when you say, if A happens, then B's going to happen. And if B happens, then C is going to happen. And if C happens, then D is going to happen. And then it's all going to end with Hitler. So

This chain of reasoning-- if A, then B If B then C, if C then D-- is not an invalid form of reasoning. It's hypothetical syllogism or, if you make it longer, a sorites. But the slippery slope occurs when you begin from some benign event or something that's not very harmful and then you kind of move down and down. And it often ends with

Hitler or a nuclear Holocaust or--

OK. So here's a great example. If we allow gay people to get married, then families are going to be destroyed in the United States. And if families are destroyed in the United States, then people are going to start running around like animals because nobody's going to raise them properly. And if people start running around like animals because nobody raises them properly, then it's going to be absolute chaos.

And then in the end, it's basically going to be like Hitler ruling the world right because nobody cares about families anymore. There's no such thing. And so 11 therefore, we should reject this end. Therefore, we should reject gay people getting married.

And you hear these, in my opinion, ridiculous arguments that say well, if gay people can get married, then why can't humans to marry animals? Well, OK. I guess if somebody wants to marry an animal, that's fine. But apart from the fact that you're comparing humans to animals, just because of their sexual orientation-- is problem number one.

But problem number two is you're moving down this slope into absurdity. Well, why don't they marry their chair? Well, some people do. Some people have love affairs with inanimate objects.

There's a fetish that involves that. I saw a guy who was in love with his car. And I was like yeah, this is all a joke until you see him rolling around on his car and underneath it and doing activities with his car. So that stuff already exists in our society. And obviously, there's no nuclear holocaust or Hitler running around.

It also assumes that gay people can't have families. Why is it the case that if gay people get married, it's the dissolution of the family? Well, it's not the case because obviously, lesbian couples can have children of their own and gay men can have somebody carry a child for them or they could adopt.

And so it's a reinvention of the family. It's a reinterpretation of the family. And that's what really scares people. Because tradition-- . OK. But anyway, avoid slippery slopes at all costs.

And then the final one we'll do for this one is misplacing the burden of proof. Misplacing the burden of proof occurs when you present an argument-- or somebody's presenting you an argument and you say, well, how do you know that's the case? And then they say, well, how do you know that's not the case?

Notice that they've presented a conclusion on something. You've asked them to explain their conclusion. And what they've done is they've flipped the burden of proof unto you. 12 The burden of proof is the necessity of the person to demonstrate their conclusion. So if I say to you, for example, like I just said, that I believe gay people should be allowed to get married, then the burden of proof rests on me to give my reasons to you why. If you say, why should gay people be allowed to get married, and I say to you, well, why shouldn't they-- and I don't know why I went, well, why shouldn't they? But I mean, I'm just trying to be animated here-- then what I've done is I've flipped it all on you.

And you might be like, humana, humana, humana. Or you might think, OK. Well, now I've got to give an argument. But really, what you should do those instances is say to the person-- you should say to me, Justin, no. You're presenting an argument.

I'm not interested in presenting my side right now. I just want to hear what you have to say. Don't shift the burden of proof on me. So another example-- of course kids should say the Pledge. Why shouldn't they?

But usually, the burden of proof rests on the people who want to change the law or to change society's ideas. So because in a lot of places, gay marriage is banned, the burden of proof rests on people who want to change the law more than it does on the people who believe that the laws are correct. Now, even unjust laws-- it's kind of hard to think about-- it's like, well, that's-- even illogical, unjust laws, still, the burden of proof rests on the group that wants to change it, in general and for the most part.

So in the case of the Civil Rights movement, the burden of proof actually rested on the Civil Rights activists to prove that the laws were unjust, number one, and number two, that they should be abolished. And actually, that's exactly what you have in the amazing letter from the Birmingham jail of Martin Luther King where he attempts to prove that it is not unjust-- in the face of Plato-- it is not unjust to break an unjust law. And he does a masterful job of presenting his argument. OK-- misplacing the burden of proof.

13 All right. So that's number two. And then we'll finish up with a third fallacy video.

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