Logical Fallacies

� http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teMlv3rip
SM
� “an argument is a collective series of
statements to establish a definite
proposition…an intellectual process”
(Chapman and Cleese)

Small Group Response
� How is the “Death” essay flawed in terms of
argument?

What’s wrong with these statements?
LOGICAL FALLACIES

What is a logical fallacy?
� A statement that may sound reasonable or
superficially true but is actually flawed or
dishonest

� Why don’t the following statements work in
arguments? (Respond in writing as a group –
you’ll need a note-taker and speaker to share
your group’s discussion):
� “Television can’t be harmful to children
because it occupies their attention for hours
and thus keeps them off the streets” (Engel
167).

� “Marijuana can’t be all that bad. Everyone
knows about barroom brawls, but marijuana
makes people peaceful” (Engel 171).

� “California obstetrician William Waddill stood
trial in 1978 – and again in 1979 – for allegedly
strangling a baby girl delivered alive after he
performed a saline abortion on Mary Weaver,
age eighteen. Waddill admitted that the
thirty-one-week-old fetus was struggling for
breath, but claimed that they were dying
gasps and that “no doctor walking on the face
of the earth could have resuscitated that
baby (News item)” (Engel 173).

The Red Herring
� Topic A is under discussion. Topic B is
introduced under the guise of being relevant
to topic A (when topic B is actually not
relevant to topic A). Topic A is abandoned.

� “Shakespeare cannot have been a great
writer, for he did not even make up his own
plots” (Engel 132).

� “Doctors are all alike. They really don’t know
any more than you or I do. This is the third
case of faulty diagnosis I’ve heard of in the
last month” (Engel 132).

� “Let me warn you that you will find in the world a
few scoffers who will laugh at you and attempt
to do you injury. They will tell you that John D.
Rockefeller was a thief and that Henry Ford and
other great men are also thieves. Do not believe
them. The story of Rockefeller and of Ford is the
story of every great American, and you should
strive to make it your story. Like them, you were
born poor and on a farm. Like them, by honesty
and industry, you cannot fail to succeed
(Nathaniel West, A Cool Million)” (Engel 133).

Hasty Generalization
� The scope of evidence is too small to support
the conclusion.

� “We ought to be guided by the decision of our
ancestors, for old age is wiser than youth”
(Engel 108).
� “The end of a thing is its perfection; death is
the end of life; death is, therefore, the
perfection of life” (Engel 108).

� “If Americans can be divorced for
‘incompatibility,’ I cannot conceive why they
are not all divorced. I have known many
happy marriages, but never a compatible
one. For a man and a woman, as such, are
incompatible (G. K. Chesterton)” (Engel 109).

Equivocation
� Changing definitions half-way through the
discussion

� “Haste makes waste, because hurried activity
is always careless activity” (Engel 147).
� “You can tell that Frank is a disreputable
person by the character of his associates,
because people who go around with
somebody like Frank are the lowest type”
(Engel 171).

� “Comedian W.C. Fields said he knew a sure
cure for insomnia – a good rest” (Engel 148).
� “The new bell in the chapel is louder than the
old one. The old one didn’t make nearly as
much noise” (Engel 147).

Circular Reasoning
� The argument relies on a premise that says
the same thing as the conclusion.

� “I’m surprised at you. A person of your
culture and upbringing – defending those
hoodlums!” (Engel 147).
� “The deplorable deterioration of
governmental efficiency one find here is a
direct cause of a widespread indifference”
(Engel 171).

� “On November 5, three of the accused met at
the house of the fourth defendant, Smith.
There, behind locked doors and heavily
curtained windows, these four conspirators
began to hatch their dastardly plot” (Engel
148).

Loaded Language
� A word or phrase is “loaded” when it has a
secondary, evaluative meaning in addition to
its primary, descriptive meaning.