The Quality of Arguments:
Fallacies
Pei Lei: sarahpei7@gmail.com
Three Basic Fallacies
• Problematic premise: arguments that for any
reason fail to fulfill the acceptability
requirements.
• Irrelevant reason: an argument fails to
minimally satisfy the criteria of relevance.
• Hasty conclusions: all evidence and links taken
together fail to meet the test of sufficiency.
Basic Fallacy #1:
Problematic Premise
• Begging the question
• Fallacy of incompatibility
Problematic Premise
• Free speech is good for the society because it
is conducive to the interests of the
community.
• Begging the Question
Basic Fallacy #1:
Problematic Premise
• Green-card holder should get voting rights.
They live in this country so they should have
their voting rights to protect their interest.
However, this wouldn’t harm the citizens’
interests, because the statistics shows not
many of immigrants really get involved in their
local affairs like voting for community leaders.
• Fallacy of incompatibility
Basic Fallacy #2:
Irrelevant Reason
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Argument ad hominem
Straw person fallacy
Red herring
Poisoning the well
Guilt by association
Appeal to fear
Appeal to popularity
Appeal to tradition
Irrelevant Reason
• Examples
– Fallacious: Attacking a candidate for
President of the debate club for failing a
math examination.
– Not fallacious: Attacking a candidate for the
Ministry of Health for cheating on medical
exams.
–Ad Hominem
Irrelevant Reason
• Example: Someone opposing the death
penalty argues that the death penalty risks
executing an innocent person. The straw
person response might be: “you’re suggesting
we open the doors of our prisons and let
everyone out to avoid wrongfully convicting
anyone.”
• Straw Person
Irrelevant Reason
• George W. Bush announced that the congress
got two bills and they’ll pass one of it. One is
to ban cyclists across the nation the other is to
launch the war in Iraq. A journalist asked why
he wanted to ban cyclists. George responded:
“ See, nobody cares Iraq. So we’ll pass the
second motion.”
• Red Herring
Irrelevant Reason
Additional Fallacies
• “Robert is an American. We can’t expect him
to help Chinese debate education.”
• Poisoning the well:
• “How can you possibly expect Pei Lei to help
with debate teaching in China. After all, she
works for Robert!”
• Guilt by Association:
Irrelevant Reason
Additional Fallacies
• attempting to take the focus off the argument
by shifting the focus solely on the basis of fear.
“If you vote for my opponent, we should all
build bomb shelters because we will be
attacked.”
• Appeal to fear:
Irrelevant Reason
Additional Fallacies
• “All the nations in the world are taking actions
towards CO2 emission. So should China.”
• Appeal to popularity: Using the popularity of
someone or something to justify a favorable
evaluation.
Irrelevant Reason
Additional Fallacies
• “The Chinese has been using fireworks for
hundreds of years so we should continue to
do so in the future.
• Appeal to tradition:
Basic Fallacy #3
Hasty Conclusion
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Hasty generalization
Fallacious slippery slope arguments
Two wrongs fallacy
Improper appeal to practice
Fallacy of composition
Fallacy of division
Post hoc fallacy
Faulty analogy
Hasty Conclusions
• I have five students in my class from Xi’an and
they are all failing. I suppose Xi’an does not
produce good students.
• Hasty Generalization
Hasty Conclusions
• “If the university bans electric ovens in
dormitory. They will also ban TV. Then
computer. Then our smartphones will also be
banned. Even an iwatch will not be allowed.
We will have no appliance or any electronic
products at all. Because they produce heat
and probably cause fire! ”
• Fallacious Slippery Slope Arguments
Hasty Conclusions
• As a college teacher, you shouldn’t complain
about your salary, because college teachers
are supposed to devote(sometimes sacrifice)
themselves and ask for no return.
• Two Wrongs Fallacy
Hasty Conclusions
Additional Fallacies
• “Why should government set a quota for
woman in the office? Other businesses
have more men than women.”
• Improper appeal to practice:
Hasty Conclusions
Additional Fallacies
• “Tim Howard, the keeper for Manchester
United, is a superb keeper. Therefore,
Manchester United is one of the best football
teams in Europe.”
• Fallacy of composition:
Hasty Conclusions
Additional Fallacies
• “Harvard is an excellent university, therefore
Law Professor Lawrence Tribe must be an
excellent Professor.”
• Fallacy of division: The evidence is drawn
from the whole, but the conclusion is about
the part.
Hasty Conclusions
Additional Fallacies
• the assumption that because one thing
precedes another, the first must have caused
the first. “After Barak Obama was elected, the
U.S. economy went into recession. Therefore
Obama was the cause of the recession.”
• Post hoc fallacy:
Hasty Conclusions
Additional Fallacies
• Abortion practices are just like Hitler’s murder
of six million Jews.
• Faulty analogy: this fallacy occurs when two
events are compared to each other but are
not similar in terms of the comparison.
Fallacies:
Some Concluding Thoughts
• Fallacies are about the quality of an
argument’s construction, not its truth.
– An argument free of fallacies is not necessarily a
true argument.
– An argument is not necessarily false just because
it contains a fallacy.
• Arguments are not either categorically “good”
or “bad.” They exist on a continuum from
more -or-less good to more-or-less bad.