Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion

1
Fallacies and Non-Rational Persuasion
2
Appeal to Authority

• a misdirected appeal to authority in which
  something is mentioned as a trusted source when,
  in fact, it is not reliable.

3
Example of Appeal to Authority

• Barry Schweid of the Associated Press, in his
  efforts to criticize President Reagan's
  space-based defense against Soviet missiles, came
  up with a report from some Stanford University
  group that claimed to find little evidence of
  cheating by the Soviet Union on arms-control
  treaties.
• Middleton B. Freeman, Louisville, "Letters From
  Readers,"The Courier-Journal, April 1, 1987.)

4
Explanation

• The article mentions some Stanford University
  group as a source of information about missiles.
  The author points out that this group may not be
  correctly informed, and that just because the
  group is from a prestigious school does not mean
  it is a viable source.

5
Appeal to Common Belief

• A fallacy that appeals to a wide-held general
  opinion and is inappropriate to use in most
  statements used to verify facts.

6
Example of Common Belief

• Alas, we have been long led away by ancient
  prejudices, and made large sacrifices to
  superstition. We have boasted the protection of
  Great-Britain, without considering, that her
  motive was interest not attachment that she did
  not protect us from our enemies on our account,
  but from her enemies on her own account.
• Thomas Paine. Common Sense. 1776

7
Explanation

• Thomas Paine appeals to the belief that at the
  time of the American Revolution, Britain had no
  personal interest in the colonies, but, rather,
  cared only for what the colonies produced. He
  appeals to the common opinion of that time and
  does not take into consideration that perhaps
  this belief is not true

8
Common Practice

• Misleading appeal to common practice in which an
  action is justified because everyone else is
  doing it.

9
Example of Common Practice

• We found a lot of agreement on the basic goals
  of reform. No one is content with the status quo.
  Most are open to new ideas. Everyone agrees at
  least that the problems are serious and action is
  urgently needed.
• Radio address by President Bush to the nation. 27
  January 2001

10
Explanation

• Twice in this example, President Bush lumps all
  Americans into the pronouns no one and
  everyone. He says that no one is content with
  the status quo and that actions are need
  immediately. Although a majority of Americans
  might agree with Bush, he does not consider those
  who disagree with him.

11
Two Wrongs

• Argument that it is acceptable to do something,
  not because people are doing it, but because
  others are doing things that are just as bad.

12
Example of Two Wrongs

• The operation cost just under 500, and no one
  was killed, or even hurt. In that same time the
  Pentagon spent tens of millions of dollars and
  dropped tens of thousands of pounds of explosives
  on Viet Nam. Because nothing justified their
  actions in our calculus, nothing could contradict
  the merit of ours.
• (Bill Ayers, Fugitive Days, quoted in Radical
  Chic Resurgent, by Timothy Ash.)

13
Explanation

• Although the first action mentioned was wrong,
  the author argued that it could not be wrong
  because another action used at the same time was
  also wrong. One actions being more wrong than
  the other, does not give the first action any
  more merit.

14
Indirect Consequences

• Distantly possible, but usually negative effects
  are presented as the consequence of a course of
  action or belief with the idea that the
  negativity of those effects will ensure the
  rejection of that course of action or belief.

15
Example of Indirect Consequence

• "If today you can take a thing like evolution and
  make it a crime to teach it in the public
  schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to
  teach it in the private schools, and next year
  you can make it a crime to teach it in the
  church. At the next session you can ban books and
  the newspapers.
• (Clarence Darrow, cited in Stephen Jay Gould's
  Hen's Teeth and Horse's Toes, p. 278.)

16
Explanation

• The author states that if teaching evolution
  becomes a crime, the whole educational system
  will fall apart. Because the author believes
  that this will happen, he lists several negative
  consequences in order to make his point seem like
  the right idea.

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Wishful Thinking

• Like Indirect Consequence, this fallacy uses
  remote facts. However, wishful thinking uses an
  extremely positive outcome so it distracts from
  the values of the case at hand.

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Example of Wishful Thinking

• I have a dream that my four children will one
  day live in a nation where they will not be
  judged by the color of their skin but by the
  content of their character... we will be able to
  speed up that day when all of God's children will
  be able to join hands and sing.
• Martin Luther King, Jr.I Have a Dream

19
Explanation

• King uses only positive and idealistic outcomes
  in his speech. Though these outcomes are nice to
  think about, they were seemingly impossible for
  the nation at that time.

20
Appeal to Fear

• A non-rational persuasion used to threaten the
  safety or happiness of ourselves or someone we
  love the use of scare tactics in order to get
  ones way.

21
Example of Appeal to Fear

• There is no want of power in God to cast wicked
  men into hell at any moment. Men's hands cannot
  be strong when God rises up. The strongest have
  no power to resist him, nor can any deliver out
  of his hands. -- He is not only able to cast
  wicked men into hell, but he can most easily do
  it.
• excerpt from Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
  God by Jonathan Edwards

22
Explanation

• During the 1st Great Awakening, people thought
  that God was an unmerciful and harsh being.
  Edwards reaffirms this fact by telling the
  violent consequences of not obeying God and
  appeals to the fear that each human has of
  afterlife.

23
Hasty Generalization

• stating premises, or drawing conclusions, based
  on too little information, or generalizing from
  too few particulars that are probably not
  representative of an entire group

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Example of Hasty Generalization

• "I hardly think that 58 is the right age at which
  to talk about a retirement home unless there are
  some serious health concerns. My 85-year-old
  mother power-walks two miles each day, drives her
  car climbs stairs, does crosswords, and could
  beat Slatalla at almost anything." (Nancy
  Edwards, "Letters to the Editor", Time, 6/26/00.)
  

25
Explanation

• The author assumes that since her mother, who is
  85, is so active, that every other woman her age
  is just as active. She does not take into
  concern that her mother may be an exception.

26
Appeal to Pity

• Persuading the reader to agree with the
  preposition because of the pitiful state the
  author is in.

27
Example of Appeal to Pity

• How many deaths were we talking about when
  abortion was illegal? In N.A.R.A.L. we generally
  emphasized the drama of the individual case, but
  when we spoke of the latter it was always "5,000
  to 10,000 deaths a year." I confess that I knew
  the figures were totally false, I suppose the
  others did too if they stopped to think of it.
  But in the "morality" of the revolution, it was a
  useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of
  our way to correct it with honest statistics. The
  overriding concern was to get the laws
  eliminated, and anything within reason which had
  to be done was permissible.-Bernard Nathanson,
  M.D., Aborting America (New York Doubleday,
  1979), 193.

28
Explanation

• Explanation- The author describes how he was put
  under the impression that the death rate would be
  lower. He also used the argument of morality
  to tug at the emotions of the readers and to make
  evident the pitiful state of the situation.

29
Appeal to Prejudice

• Tendency to judge people, good or bad, even after
  the facts of a case indicate otherwise.

30
Example of Appeal to Prejudice

• Authority (as Professor Aitken reminded us last
  night in her splendid sermon at the Liturgy) is a
  slippery idea. In which connection, I incline to
  agree with Robert W. Jenson questions such as,
  What is the authority of Scripture? are largely
  meaningless, if by them we intend to imply that
  there can possibly be discerned any one way in
  which the Bible relates to or regulates Christian
  discourse.1

31
Explanation

• The speaker is still doubting the authority of
  authority, even though the previous sermon
  supported the contrary well. This shows how even
  though there is evidence that authority is a good
  idea, the author still thinks that it is not
  reliable.

32
Appeal to Loyalty
Appeal to the feeling of patriotism or loyalty to
a certain group or belief, instead of appealing
to logic
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Example of Appeal to Loyalty

• As a long and violent abuse of power, is
  generally the Means of calling the right of it in
  question and as the King of England hath
  undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the
  Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the
  good people of this country are grievously
  oppressed by the combination, they have an
  undoubted privilege to inquire into the
  pretensions of both, and equally to reject the
  usurpation of either.
• -Thomas Paine, Common Sense

34

• Explanation
• Thomas Paine appeals to the loyalty of the
  colonial citizens by giving them the message
  appealing to their feelings of rebellion. He
  stresses that the king has harmed the colonists
  by making his every action HIS OWN RIGHT.
  Therefore, he encourages the colonists to reject
  the kings rules and become loyal to the new
  cause, the revolution.

35
Appeal to Vanity

• creating a tendency toward agreement by
  complimenting

36
Example of Appeal to Vanity
Idols define good and evil in ways contrary to
God's definitions. They establish a locus of
control that is earth-bound either in objects
(e.g., lust for money), other people ("I need to
please my critical father"), or myself (e.g.,
self-trusting pursuit of my personal agenda).
Such false gods create false laws, false
definitions of success and failure, of value and
stigma. Idols promise blessing and warn of curses
for those who succeed or fail against the law
"If you get a large enough IRA, you will be
secure. If I can get certain people to like and
respect me, then my life is valid." There are
numerous idolatrous values which influenced Wally
and continue to pressure him beguiling him,
frightening him, controlling him, constraining
him, enslaving him. 
37
Explanation
This example shows how idols appeal to vanity, by
giving the victim what they want, or telling
them what they want to hear, or appealing to them
by complementing them, thus leading them down a
path of falsehood and lies.
38
Appeal to Spite

• spite is replaced with evidence when an argument
  is made against a claim

39
Example of Appeal to Spite

• True salvation revolves around three focal
  points. These are the Word of God, the work of
  Christ and the witness of the Spirit. Cain found
  a substitute for all three and founded a false
  religion. In Genesis 41-3 he substitutes his own
  religion for the Word of God. While he did not
  have the written record we have today, he had the
  witness of his parents as well as direct
  communication with the Lord (Genesis 49). There
  can be no doubt from the Scriptures that blood
  must be shed for an acceptable sacrifice (Exodus
  123, I John 17, I Peter 118-19).

40
Explanation
This example describes how in the bible, the act
of Cain killing his brother was out of pure
spite. Therefore, he tries to justify his
religious choice.
41
Argument from Silence

• Instead of using evidence to support a
  generalization, all the audience hears is silence.

42
Example of Argument from Silence

• No one has ever seen God, but if we love one
  another, God lives in us and his love is made
  complete in us.
• 1 John 412

43
Explanation

• No one knows God or if he loves us, but the Bible
  states that we should believe in him even though
  there is a lack of evidence. This example asks
  the reader to believe in something without
  knowing the facts or background information.

44

• Ad Hominem
• The argument is not directed at the conclusion
  one wishes to deny, but at the person who
  supports or doesnt support the conclusion.
• There are two forms of Ad Hominem
• Abusive-attacking the character the one assessing
  the argument
• Circumstantial the irrelevant connection between
  the beliefs held and the circumstances of those
  holding the beliefs

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• Example of Ad Hominem
• Kenneth Robinson, when he was Great Britains
  minister of health, told Parliament that
  Scientology was potentially harmful and a
  potential menace. Elliott, the local minister of
  the Church of Scientology, was asked to comment
  on those criticisms. Of the remarks made before
  Parliament, he said I am afraid Mr.. Robinson
  has since suffered two demotions and was just in
  the last few weeks quietly released from the
  Wilson Administration altogether.
• Honolulu Advisor, November 22, 1969 p.6

46

• Explanation
• This is an abusive example of ad hominem. Elliott
  attacks Kenneth Robinsons character with
  information of his job situation. Robinson
  attacks the Church of Scientology with phrases
  such as potentially harmful because the only
  reason Robinson holds these beliefs is because he
  thinks the Church of Scientology to be morally
  wrong based on his own personal religious
  beliefs. Robinson holds little or no basis for
  his accusations against the Church of Scientology
  except for the fact that they go in direct
  opposition to his own beliefs.

47
Post Hoc

• The use of the proposition as an example of a
  fallacy arguing from a sentence to a cause and
  effect relationship

48
Example of Post Hoc

• When Rodger Babson, whose prediction of the
  great stock market crash brought him renown,
  became ill with tuberculosis, he returned to his
  home in Massachusetts rather than follow his
  doctors advice to remain in the West. During the
  freezing winter he wore a coat with a heating pad
  in the back, and had his secretary wear mittens
  and hit the typewriter keys with rubber hammers.
  Babson got well he attributed the cure to fresh
  air. Air from pine woods, according to Babson,
  has chemical or electrical qualities (or both) of
  great medicinal value.
• -Martin Gardner, Fads and Fallacies in the Name
  of Science

49
Explanation

• Gardner employs a post hoc fallacy through his
  dissection of Babsons illness and how Babson
  acted throughout his illness as well as Babsons
  final outcome from his illness and Babsons
  explanation for becoming well. Gardner shows the
  cause and effect relationship, linking Babsons
  prediction of the stock market crash to his
  illness and Babsons illness to his form of
  recovery, even though each of the events did not
  actually directly deal with one another.

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• Sweeping Generalization
• When the conclusion drawn exceeds what the
  evidence given supports

51

• Example of Sweeping Generalization
• Example"Does a gun in the home make you safer?
  No. Despite claims by the National Rifle
  Association (NRA) that you need a gun in your
  home to protect you and your family from possible
  home invasion, public health research
  demonstrates that the most person likely to shoot
  you or a family member with a gun already has the
  keys to your house. Simply put Guns kept in the
  home for self-protection are more oftentimessic
  used to kill somebody you know than to kill in
  self-defense 22 times more likely, according to
  a 1998 study by the New England Journal of
  Medicine. -Sarah Brady, A Good Fight

52

• Explanation
• The statistics used in Sarah Bradys reasoning
  make this argument a sweeping generalization.
  Also, how Brady makes this statement apply not to
  the general readership as a whole, but instead to
  the individual who may or may not be pro-gun.
  Brady makes this statement through the usage of
  statistics. Brady makes the reader feel as though
  each individual possesses a gun and will
  eventually be harmed as a result of owning that
  gun.

53

• Part for the Whole
• The fallacy of composition the whole is more of
  less than the sum of its parts-the fallacious
  reasoning is from attributes to the individual
  elements or members of a collection to
  attributes of the collection or totality of those
  elements.

54

• Example of Part for the Whole
• Seeing that eye and hand and foot and every one
  of our members has some obvious function, must we
  not believe that in like manner a human being has
  a function over and above these particular
  functions? -Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics

55

• Explanation
• Aristotle demonstrates the part for the whole
  fallacy through his explanation of different body
  parts and how they related to the body and the
  functions of the body as a whole. Aristotle
  explains functions of body parts and speaks of
  how these body parts relate to the body as a
  whole, and how the parts all work together to
  make up the body as a whole.

56

• Whole for the Parts
• The fallacy of division arguing fallaciously
  that what is true of a whole must also be true of
  its parts or when one argues from the attributes
  of a collection of elements to the attributes of
  the elements themselves.

57

• Example of Whole for the Parts
• Thomas Carlyle said of Walt Whitman that he
  thinks he is a big poet because he comes from a
  big country..-Alfred Kazin, The Haunted
  Chamber, The New Republic, June 23, 1986, p.39

58

• Explanation
• The author does not commit the fallacy, but he
  claims that Whitman did commit the fallacy in
  thinking about himself. The claim is that Walt
  Whitman is a large poet therefore, he must be
  from a large country because if one part of
  something is large then the whole must be large
  itself.

59

• Straw Man
• Creating a false image of someone elses ideas,
  feelings, or beliefs

60

• Example of Straw Man
• We all want our families, our soldiers, our
  unions, our sport teams to be united toward
  clear, common goals. But is it not dangerous for
  a democratic populace weighing if and how to wage
  war to value unit above all else? It's all too
  easy to mandate patriotism, as the New York Board
  of Education did last week, bringing back the
  pledge of allegiance to classrooms as if that
  will stop the Osama bin Ladens of the world.
  -Robert Sheer (10-23-01 LA Times)

61

• Explanation
• This creates the fallacy of the straw man through
  Sheers portrayal of the New York Board of
  Education.Sheer takes their act of mandating the
  Pledge of Allegiance in every classroom not as an
  act of instilling patriotism in the young
  citizens of America, but instead he states his
  opinion that this will not result in increased
  patriotism and will not help prevent against
  terrorism. This, does not attack the beliefs of
  the New York Board towards the country as a
  whole, but rather just towards a particular
  group.

62
Burden of Proof

• In an argument one asserts that the opposition
  must prove his or her side of the case in order
  to find your argument invalid.
• Common example You are innocent until proven
  guilty

63
Burden of Proof Example

• On the Senate Floor in 1950 Joe McCarthy
  announces that he had penetrated Trumans iron
  curtain of secrecy. He had 81 cases histories
  of persons whom he considered to be communist in
  the state department. Of Case 40, he said, I
  do not have much information on this except that
  general statement of the agency that here is
  nothing in the files to disprove his communist
  connections
• -Richard H. Rovere, Senator Joe McCarthy

64
Explanation

• By proving that there is no evidence against his
  case, McCarthy uses the empty files as support
  for his side of the case.

65
Circular Reasoning

• Deductive reasoning is used to prove or assert a
  fact when actually it is based on an assumption
  or a single premise. Usually used with parts
  that are irrelevant to one another.

66
Example of Circular Reasoning

• If the man who turnips cries
• Cry not when his father dies,
• Tis a proof that he had rather
• Have a turnip than his father.
• -Mrs. Piozzi Anedotes of Samual Johnson

• The author draws together two irrelevant facts to
  attempt to achieve an absurd realization.
  He tries to place turnips and the mans fathers
  death on the same level.

67
Explanation

• The author draws together two irrelevant facts to
  attempt to achieve an absurd realization.
  He tries to place turnips and the mans fathers
  death on the same level.

68
Loaded Question

• A question that involves many terms that would
  seem to be disagreeing and contradictory if
  answered. Usually people tend to want to give
  a simple yes or no answer, yet people end up
  saying things that they usually would not assert.

69
Example of Loaded Question

• Why should merely cracking down on terrorism help
  to stop it, when that method hasn't worked in any
  other country? Why are we so hated in the Muslim
  world? What did our government do there to bring
  this horror home to all those innocent Americans?
  And why don't we learn anything, from
  our free press, about the gross ineptitude of our
  state agencies? about what's really happening in
  Afghanistan? about the pertinence of Central
  Asia's huge reserves of oil and natural gas?
  About the links between the Bush and the bin
  Laden families?"
• (Mark Crispin Miller, "Brain Drain")
• The is no real simple answer that the reader is
  willing to give to this question.

70
Explanation

• The is no real simple answer that the reader is
  willing to give to this question.

71
False Dilemma

• Presenting two options as if they were
  contradictions or contraries, when in fact they
  are not. It creates a dilemma due to the fact
  that two hard choices are presented and false
  because there are actually more that the two
  presented choices.

72
Example of False Dilemma

• "'Which is better -- to be a pack of painted
  Indians like you are, or to be sensible like
  Ralph is....Which is better -- to have laws and
  agree, or to hunt and kill?'"
• Lord of The Flies, William Golding

73
Explanation

• Provides no real simple answer to the question.

74
False Compromise

• This occurs when the audience usually doesnt
  care enough or is uninterested in the topic
  enough to make an accurate decision. Therefore
  usually the audience simply splits the difference
  and make a decision rather than educate
  themselves.

75
Example of False Compromise

• There shall be a firm and universal peace between
  His Britannic Majesty and the United States, and
  between their respective countries, territories,
  cities, towns, and people, of every degree,
  without exception of places or persons. All
  hostilities, both by sea and land, shall cease as
  soon as this treaty shall have been ratified by
  both parties, as hereinafter mentioned.
• The Treaty of Ghent 1814

76
Example

• Both sides of the argument evenly split the
  difference and returned pre-war status.

77
False Equity

• Sometimes the several different meanings of a
  word or phrase can come confused, either
  intentionally or accidentally, in such case the
  word becomes used equivocally.

78
Example of False Equity

• Who did you pass on the road? the king went
  on, holding his hand out to the messenger for
  some hay.
• Nobody said the messenger.
• Quite right, said the king this young lady say
  him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than
  you.
• Through The Looking Glass Lewis Carol

79
Explanation

• The first use of the nobody, meaning no person,
  is replaced by its second uses as a name,
  Nobody.