LOGICAL FALLACIES

1.    Scare Tactics

To reduce complicated issues to simple threats or to exaggerate a possible danger well beyond its actual likelihood.  

Example: Because of the possibility of a terrorist hijacking or a mechanical failure, flying on a plane is too dangerous and should be avoided altogether.

Example: Because of the possibility of poisoning of Halloween candy by some people who give it out to trick-or-treaters, communities should ban trick-or-treating.

2.    Either/Or Choices

To reduce complicated questions, which can be effectively answered in multiple different ways, to only two, diametrically opposed, possible answers.

Example: Either you support the President in everything he says and does or you are not a patriotic American.

Example: Either you worship God or you worship Satan.

3.    Slippery Slope

To greatly exaggerate the supposedly inevitable future consequences of an action by suggesting one small step will initiate a process that will necessarily lead the way to a much bigger result.

Example: If you restrict my right to say whatever I want anywhere I want however I want this is the beginning of totalitarianism in America.

Example: If we let one homosexual couple live on our street before you know it our neighborhood will start to become like Greenwich Village in New York or the Castro District in San Francisco.

4.    Sentimentality

Relying entirely on manipulatively heart-warming or heart-wrenching appeals to emotion to win support for what has not been otherwise rationally justified.

Example: That boy scout troop made an old lady’s day by visiting and entertaining her in her nursing home; we should give generously to the boy scouts as a result.

Example: That celebrity is suffering a lot of pain and anguish after breaking up with his girlfriend and coming through drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment; he is a role model for all of us, and needs us to support him by buying his albums and going to his movies.

5.    Other Fallacious Appeals to Emotion

When emotion is substituted for reason and no attempt is made to indicate logically why the end argued for should be accepted.

Example: You can’t give me a bad grade; this will make my parents angry with me.

Example: You should cancel the exam; this will give me a chance to relax and enjoy the weekend.

 6.    Bandwagon Appeals

Suggesting that simply because a lot of others are doing it, you should too.

Example: Everyone else is displaying a flag, or a support our troops sticker on their car; therefore, you should too.

Example: Everyone else is going out and getting drunk tonight, so you should too.

7.    Appeals to False Authority

Suggesting that you should listen and follow what someone has to say about something that he or she is in fact not a credible, reliable authority on.

Example: My friend, who is serving in the infantry in Iraq, tells me that the government has a secret plan for how to win the War that they won’t release until after the election, and because he is my friend and I like and respect him, this must be true.

Example: Britney Spears says that George W. Bush has got a great plan for the economy, and so therefore I am supporting him because I trust what she has to say.

8.    Dogmatism

Proposing that there simply cannot be any other possible way of making sense of and engaging with an issue but the one you represent.

Example: There’s no way that anyone can argue that abortion is anything other than murder.

Example: There’s no way a man could ever love a man or a woman could ever love a woman as much as a man and a woman can love each other.

9.      Moral Equivalence

Proposing that because some people act a certain way, than everyone else has the right to do so too.

Example: If John F. Kennedy got away with committing adultery while in office as President, then Bill Clinton and all subsequent presidents should be able to do so too.

Example: If governments are going to impose restrictions on smoking for health reasons then they must impose the same restrictions on drinking and eating of fatty foods.

10.    Ad Hominem Arguments

Attacking the character of a person rather than engaging with the claim, reasons, and evidence she or he is setting forth.

Example: In listening to what you have to say I have this to say in reply: only an idiot would argue for pursuing a peaceful solution to this conflict.

Example: Here’s what I think about what you have written: anyone who opposes the death penalty for murder is a criminal at heart.

11.    Poisoning the Well

Present an argument is such an emotionally dishonest and manipulative way that it is virtually impossible to respond without seeming to look dishonest or immoral one’s self.

Example: Of course, this liar will tell you that he didn’t steal my stuff.  You can’t believe a thief.  Go ahead and ask him.  He’ll deny it.

Example: You are a sick, perverted person who reminds me of Joseph Goebbels.  You’ll twist anything anyone has to say to make yourself look good.  Try to convince me that you’re right that we should break up for the good of both of us if you possibly can.

12.    Hasty Generalizations

Drawing a conclusion, especially a sweeping one, from insufficient evidence.

Example: I knew a gay guy once who was not very masculine; this just goes to show that gay guys are more effeminate than straight men.

Example: A black family moved into my neighborhood once, and they were financially quite well-off, better than we were; this proves that black people actually are economically equal to whites.

13.    Guilt by Association

Arguing that all members of a group are like some other members of that group, or are responsible for what those others have done.  

Example: Those who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 were Muslims; therefore, all Muslims are potential terrorist threats to the United States.

Example: Fred Phelps, a Christian minister, argues that “God Hates Fags” and travels to gay funerals, including that of Matthew Shephard, to contend that these gay people are “burning in hell”; since Phelps is a Christian, then Christians are all hateful toward gay people.
 
14.    Faulty Causality

The faulty assumption that because one event follows another, the second necessarily causes the first.

Example: The administration closed the smoking court in our school at the end of last year, and fights among students have gone down this year; therefore, closing the smoking court caused the reduction in fights among students.

Example: Bill bleached his hair blonde last week, and this week three other guys at the same school did the same; therefore the latter all changed their hair color because Bill did.

15.    Begging the Question

Assuming as true the very claim that is disputed, in a circular argument

Example: I can’t be guilty of embezzlement; I’m an honest person.

Example: You can’t give me a C; I’m an A student.

16.    Equivocation

An argument that gives a lie an honest appearance, by insisting on what is only partially or formally true.

Example: I did not have sex with that woman (if by sex you mean penile-vaginal intercourse).   [From Bill Clinton, in relation to the nature of his relationship with Monica Lewinsky]

Example: I gave you everything I had to give you (right then and there when you asked me, but not of course everything I could have given you if I took into account what I maintain elsewhere).

17.    Non Sequitur

An argument which leaves out a necessary portion in a logical sequence, seeming to suggest a logical connection when in fact one does not exist.

Example: American students' relatively poor performance in foreign language and geography examinations means that they should be subjected to regular standardized tests in these two areas each year throughout their mandatory period of schooling.

Example: She is a feminist; she must hate men.

18.    Appeal to Ignorance

Suggesting your argument is won simply because it has not, to your mind at least, been convincingly refuted.

Example: No one has ever convincingly proven that U.F.O.s don’t exist; therefore, they do.

Example: I have never seen evidence that Black people suffer discrimination; therefore, they don’t.

19.    Faulty Analogy

Drawing an analogy that is based upon faulty equations or identifications of terms.

Example: It has been scientifically proven that people need to drink a certain amount of water every day to keep healthy.   Water is a liquid and so is beer.   Therefore people should be able to substitute beer for water, drinking as much beer each day as doctors recommend people drink water, in order to keep healthy.

Example: Students in Kindergarten at Jefferson Elementary School did better when given milk and cookies in class than when not; therefore students at UWEC will do better too if they are given milk and cookies in class.  

20.    Red Herring

Drawing attention away from the issue at hand by focusing on an irrelevant issue as a substitute for making a case.

Example: You can’t trust Jim to do a good job as student body president; he doesn’t dress with an up-to-date sense of style.

Example: I don’t support the President’s foreign policy; look at the disastrous way he has taken care of our domestic economy.

21.    Loaded Question

Question thrown out in argumentation that actually is more than one question blended into one, making it difficult to answer without seeming to confirm part of a charge against you.

Example: Have you ever stopped beating your wife?

Example: Have you always been incapable of speaking intelligently?

22.    Appeal to Force or Reward

Offering a stick or carrot, a threat or a gift, for agreement instead of winning it.

Example: Professor McNamara told Jean that if she slept with him she would earn a grade of A, but if she didn’t he couldn’t guarantee she would earn a grade higher than a C.

Example: Jane Tompkins said she would vote against selling the nearby county park to a local logging firm if the local environmental coalition would donate to her campaign fund.