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MC 4 Module 5-9

This module covers deductive arguments, inductive arguments, and fallacies over 3 weeks from September 13 to October 12, 2021. It introduces the key differences between deductive, inductive, and fallacious arguments. Deductive arguments are valid such that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Inductive arguments make the conclusion probable but not certain. Fallacious arguments provide weak or irrelevant support for the conclusion.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
198 views16 pages

MC 4 Module 5-9

This module covers deductive arguments, inductive arguments, and fallacies over 3 weeks from September 13 to October 12, 2021. It introduces the key differences between deductive, inductive, and fallacious arguments. Deductive arguments are valid such that if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. Inductive arguments make the conclusion probable but not certain. Fallacious arguments provide weak or irrelevant support for the conclusion.

Uploaded by

Tintin Tagupa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ST.

ANTHONY COLLEGE MODULE IN MC 4: LOGIC


AND CRITICAL THINKING
CALAPAN CITY, INC.

MODULE V-IX
Deductive Arguments, Inductive Arguments, and Fallacies

MODULE DESCRIPTOR:
This module covers the introduction to Deductive Arguments, Inductive
Arguments, and Fallacies. It includes different activities that will enhance the
student’s knowledge after the discussions.

NOMINAL DURATION:
This module’s timeframe is from September 13-October 12, 2021.

INFORMATION SHEET 1-2.1

I NT R O D U C T I O N

The premises of any argument are put forth as reasons for accepting
its conclusion. Two questions thus arise:
1. Are the premises true? We should doubt a conclusion based
on premises known to be false.
2. Is the argument logical? That is to say, would the premises,
if true, provide strong support for the conclusion?
To decide whether premises are true, we need information about the world, about the
meanings of words, or both. For example, suppose a financial analyst argues that the
stock market will go up because the Federal Reserve Bank is going to reduce interest
rates. To know whether the Fed intends to reduce rates, we need to know whether
there has been an official announcement by the Fed or whether the analyst is
depending on an insider’s tip or hunch.
The analyst’s argument relies also on an unstated premise about the connection
be- tween falling interest rates and a rising market. This correlation often holds, but
there are important exceptions. In some circumstances, reducing rates will not stir a
sluggish market.

Example

In standard form the analyst’s argument is:

The Fed will reduce interest rates.

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Very often, when interest rates


fall, the market rises. The
market will rise.

Our study of arguments focuses on the question of whether the premises would, if
true, support the conclusion. We can do this without knowing whether the premises are
actually true. The analyst’s argument is logical, which is to say that if the analyst has
the facts straight (if both premises are true) and if other relevant information is not being
ignored, then probably the market will rise.
To investigate the logical strength of ordinary-language arguments, we look at the
contexts in which they occur, the meanings of the terms in the argument, and certain
structural features of the arguments. We can analyze structures, or forms, of arguments
in a general way, without reference to specialized factual knowledge. In the sample
argument above, for example, an important structural feature is that the claim made in
the first pre- miss is linked with the claim made in the conclusion by a generalization
that states that two types of things (falling rates and rising markets) regularly go together.
This structural feature occurs in many arguments and can be discussed without
reference to the factual content of the arguments. We can thus examine in a general
way the structures that various arguments share as well as how structural features
strengthen or weaken arguments.

In this chapter we begin to address such structural questions by distinguishing


three types of arguments. To do this we ask whether the premises of an argument, if
true, (1) guarantee the truth of the conclusion, (2) make it probable that the conclusion
is true, or (3) fail to provide support for the conclusion. We can perform triage on
arguments in this way without knowing whether their premises and conclusions are
actually true.
An argument in the first category is deductive. An argument is deductive when
its premises and conclusion are related in such a way that the truth of the premises
guarantees the truth of the conclusion. Such an argument is sometimes called a valid,
or deductively valid, argument to distinguish it from the fallacies that superficially
resemble deductive arguments but lack the essential characteristic of preserving truth.
A relationship of deductive support holds between the premises and conclusion of a
deductive argument. In a deductive argument, if the premises are all true, then the
conclusion must be true.
The second type of argument is inductive. In such an argument, the premises
provide a different kind of support for the conclusion. In an inductive argument, if the
premises are all true, then probably the conclusion is true, but it might be false.
inductive support provides good reasons but not conclusive reasons to accept the
conclusion.
Into the third category fall the fallacies. In a fallacy, or fallacious argument, the

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alleged evidence offers only very weak support or is irrelevant to the conclusion. We
have already seen that in the fallacy of equivocation, the premises are irrelevant to
the conclusion because of a shift in meaning of some crucial term. Fallacies also occur
when the premises make some irrelevant appeal to our emotions instead of providing
evidence for the truth of the conclusion. Still other fallacies have structures that
resemble those of deductive or inductive arguments while violating some standard of
deductive or inductive reasoning. These pretenders can be called deductive fallacies,
or invalid arguments, when they resemble deductive arguments or inductive fallacies
when they resemble inductive arguments. The premises of fallacious arguments,
even if true, do not guarantee or even make it probable that the conclusion is true. The
conclusion of a fallacious argument might be true, but its premises are not good
reasons to believe it.
Arguments (either deductive or inductive) that provide the proper kind of sup- port
for their conclusions and also have all true premises are called sound arguments.
(Terminology on this point varies. Some writers prefer to apply the term sound only to
deductive arguments and use a different term, such as cogent, to refer to an inductive
argument with all true premises.)
In this chapter, we look at examples of deductive and inductive arguments to learn
more about the differences between them. Recognizing each type is important
because different standards apply for evaluating inductive and deductive arguments.
This chapter also discusses some general characteristics of fallacious arguments and
considers a few examples of fallacies.

Dedu c ti v e A rg u m e n t s

In a deductive argument, if all the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false.
This guarantee—that true premises will yield true conclusions—is the outstanding
characteristic of deductive arguments, and it is obviously a valuable feature. How is
the truth of the premises preserved? The conclusion of a deductive argument puts
together or restates information that is contained in the premises without adding new
information about the world. For example, the conclusion of the argument might de-
pend on the definition of some expression in the premises:
Jack is a bachelor.

He has no wife.

The conclusion of this argument makes explicit something about the meaning of
bachelor rather than telling us something new about Jack. Because the truth of the
conclusion depends solely on the truth of the premise, given conventional linguistic
meanings, the conclusion contains no new information about the world.
The conclusion of a deductive argument might be an instance of a general principle

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that is stated in the premise:


Addition is
commutative.

3145413

Again, to see that the conclusion cannot be false if the premise is true, we need only
to understand the meaning of the premise (that is, reordering the terms to be added
does not change the value of the sum) and to understand that the conclusion says the
sum of 3 and 4 is the same as the sum of 4 and 3. Alternately, the conclusions of some
deductive arguments follow as a result of connections drawn among the premises by
important logical terms, such as and, or, not, all, and some:

Examples

1. Either Jeb is not graduating, or he has paid his


tuition bill. But he is graduating.
He has paid his tuition bill
2. All whales are mammals.
All mammals are
warm-blooded. All
whales are warm-
blooded.

The next argument is as old as the first text in logic—written more than 2,300
years ago.

All men are


mortal.
Socrates
is a man.
Socrates is mortal.

The first premise is a universal generalization. It contains the information that all
members of one class, or type of thing (the class of men), are also members of another
class (the class of mortals). The second premise provides the information that the
individual whose name is Socrates is a member of the class of men. The conclusion of
the argument combines the information contained separately in the two premises.
Strictly speaking, the conclusion contains no new information not already present in

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the premises. Neither premise says explicitly (in just those words) what is said in the
conclusion, but the information in the conclusion is implicit in the premises. Moreover,
this is true not only for the simple arguments in the three examples above but also for
every argument in which the conclusion follows deductively from its premises.
Deductive arguments preserve truth because they recombine and restate
information that is contained at least implicitly in the premises. Whereas the
conclusion of a deductive argument can restate or recombine information, put it
together in novel ways, and thus make explicit what was formerly only implicit, such a
conclusion can- not go beyond what was already present, at least implicitly, in the
premises to advance our knowledge of what the world is like. Deductive arguments
preserve truth, but they cannot extend factual knowledge.
If deductive arguments cannot give us any new information that was not already
present in the premises, what purpose do they serve? Why should we bother to state
a conclusion if all of the necessary information is already provided in the premises? If
all arguments were as simple as the example about Socrates, there would be little
reason to state conclusions. The mere statement of both premises together would be
sufficient for most people to get the point or “to put two and two together.” Sometimes
such simple arguments are presented without their conclusions. For the same reason
that premises can be omitted, conclusions can also be unstated. It is boring to dwell on
the obvious.
Not all deductive arguments are simple, however. Sometimes the chain of reasoning
that connects the premises to the conclusion is long and complex. When this is so,
even though the conclusion contains no new information (in the sense that it only
selectively recombines information stated in the premises), the conclusion will seem
new because we had not put together the information in the premises in just that way.
Even the person constructing the argument might be surprised to see where the
premises lead, because although the premises jointly imply the conclusion, the
conclusion is not merely a restatement or specific instance of one of the premises.
Thus, although the conclusion of a correct deductive argument cannot yield new
information, it can put information together in ways that might not have occurred to
anyone before. We can and do deduce conclusions that are new from a psychological
standpoint. Even when the conclusions of deductive arguments are novel, surprising,
or startling in this sense, however, they can only draw out what was already there in
the premises.

Example

In the following example, Smith’s deductive argument reaches a


conclusion that is psychologically new and surprising to Jones, even
though its conclusion contains no new information. Jones commutes
from his suburban home to a job in the city. Smith wants to
demonstrate to Jones that he is spending three weeks of every year

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riding a commuter train.


Jones: Three weeks a year—that’s ridiculous!
Smith: No, it’s a simple matter of logic. You ride the train to and
from work, one hour each way, five days a week, for a
total of forty-nine weeks a year, allowing for your vacation
and holidays. Using simple arithmetic, that comes to a
total of 490 hours per year on the train. There are twenty-
four hours in a day, and if you divide 490 by 24, you get

20 and 10/24 days. That’s almost twenty-one days, or


three weeks a year you spend on the train.

Jones: Ouch.

The reasoning in this argument is mathematical, and its deductive character depends
on the calculations by which the conclusion is reached. Mathematical proofs are
primary examples of deductive reasoning. Although mathematicians may believe on
inductive grounds that a particular theorem holds in every case because it holds in
every case tested so far, they do not regard the theorem as proven until it has been
established as the conclusion of a deductive argument. Deductive arguments pervade
our every- day lives, especially in our use of mathematics, including simple arithmetic.
Balancing checkbooks, counting change, and setting up a budget all require deductive
reasoning. Although you probably do not use geometry much in your everyday life now,
if you studied it in high school you were intensely involved in constructing and
evaluating deductive arguments. You began the course in geometry with a set of first
principles— axioms, postulates, and definitions—and then proceeded to derive
theorems (conclusions) on the basis of those principles. This was an exercise in
deductive reasoning, and, as you no doubt remember, some parts of it were subtle.
Even though you had the required premises in hand, it was not always obvious how to
combine those premises to deduce the theorem you were supposed to prove.

All other areas of mathematics, including those that, unlike geometry, are not
formulated as axiomatic systems, essentially depend on deductive arguments. All
mathematical proofs, including proofs in statistics and mathematical probability, are
deductive arguments. Furthermore, we can regard mathematical proofs as the purest
form of deductive reasoning because even the premises contain no information about
what the real world is like. The mathematical principles that form the basis for
mathematical proofs are themselves usually considered to be true by definitions of the
terms involved or to be true claims about abstract constructions of the human mind,
such as numbers or geometric figures. This is what Bertrand Russell (1959) was
referring to when he said “I fear that, to a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole

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of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-footed


animal is an animal.”

Russell does not believe that all mathematics is trivial to our minds, for our intellectual
powers are limited. When we apply mathematical reasoning to factual claims, as we
did in the preceding example about Jones’s commuting time, the results may seem
surprising—just as the results of a complicated mathematical proof may seem
surprising. The point is that the use of mathematical calculations in an argument does
not introduce any information about the world that goes beyond what is already stated
in the premises.

I nd u c t i v e A r g u m e nt s

Inductive arguments can have false conclusions even when all the premises are true
and support the conclusion in the sense of contributing to or upholding its probability.
Inductive arguments lack the definitive and valuable truth-preserving feature of
deductive arguments. This apparent shortcoming, however, is more than offset by a
feature of inductive arguments that is lacking in deductive arguments. Inductive
arguments can extend or amplify our factual knowledge. For this reason, we call
inductive arguments ampliative. Conclusions of inductive arguments amplify or go
beyond the in- formation found in their premises. Conclusions of ampliative arguments
contain new information that is not present, even implicitly, in their premises. Although
the field of mathematics is well suited to the almost exclusive use of deductive
reasoning, in all other fields of human endeavor—natural science, the social sciences,
history, literary criticism, the practical knowledge of everyday affairs, and even ethics—
inductive inferences and arguments are indispensable.

Inductive arguments figure strongly in reasoning about causes. Many of Holmes’s


arguments that impressed Dr. Watson supported claims about causes. Thus, Holmes
inferred that the cause of the bulge in Dr. Watson’s top hat was a hidden stethoscope
and that the cause of Watson’s carrying a stethoscope was a return to medical
practice. The following argument, which is the opening passage in Charles Darwin’s
The Origin of Species, is also causal:
When we compare the individuals of the same variety or sub- variety of
our older cultivated plants and animals, one of the first points which
strikes us is, that they generally differ more from each other than do the
individuals of any one species or variety in a state of nature. And if we
reflect on the vast diversity of the plants and animals which have been
cultivated, and which have varied during all ages under the most

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different climates and treatment, we are driven to conclude that this


great variability is due to our domestic productions having been raised
under conditions of life not so uniform as, and somewhat different from,
those to which the parent species had been exposed under nature.

Darwin noted differences among members of the same species of domestic plants and
animals, such as dogs. The range of types from Chihuahuas to Great Danes is far
more varied than that found in wild species such as elephants, which come only in two
varieties (African and Asian). Darwin concluded that differences within a single species
occur because humans breed plants and animals under a much greater variety of
conditions than the conditions to which wild species are exposed. Humans have bred
dogs for centuries in almost every part of the world—for sport, show, work, and a
variety of other purposes. Elephants flourish in highly specialized environments in only
a few places.

Causal arguments are among the most common inductive arguments. Other
familiar types of inductive arguments include the following:

1. Arguments that conclude something about the future on the


basis of what has happened in the past.

That a stone will fall, that fire will burn, that the earth
has solidity, we have observed a thousand and a
thousand times; and when any new instance of this
nature is presented, we draw without hesitation the
accustomed inference.

—D. Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural


Religion

Philo, the speaker in this passage of the dialogue, does


not actually state the obvious conclusion—that in the
future, stones will continue to fall, fire to burn, and the
earth to be solid—but his meaning is clear.

2. Arguments that conclude something about the past on the


basis of present evidence.

Pollen grains, though microscopic, are preserved in


peat bogs in a remarkable manner for hundreds and
even thousands of years. Since the pollen of every
plant has its own special form, it is possible with the
microscope to establish what plants were growing at

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different points in time. The distinct layers in peat-


bogs thus become, as it were, the pages of a great
picture book illustrating the changing flora of the land
through the ages.

—P. V. Glob, The Bog People,


1971

Here the pollen, which is observed in the present,


provides the basis for reconstructing the types of
vegetation that grew in prehistoric times. Historians,
geologists, archaeologists—all who are concerned with
knowledge of the past—use inductive reasoning in this
way.

3. Arguments that generalize on the basis of a sample of


observations or experiments.
This is the type of inductive reasoning that is used in
public opinion polls to determine the popularity of a
political candidate or to learn about the public’s attitude
toward a particular piece of legislation. You have seen
or heard such arguments, particularly in election years.
Here is another ex- ample of this form of reasoning:
Various researchers have studied the different effect of divorce on men and women.
One study of 3,000 divorces, based on Los Angeles county records from 1977–78,
showed that when marital property was divided equally in a divorce, men’s standard of
living improved by 42% on average during the first year following the divorce, while
women’s dropped by 73%. Later analysis of the same data by Richard Peterson
showed that because of mistakes in recording information, the true figure was closer
to a 10% increase for men and a 27% decline for women.

The statistical information shows that a policy designed to be fair (50–50 division of
property in divorce settlements) has unexpected implications. This information may
have an influence on future financial calculations for divorce settlements.
Generalizing on the basis of samples is one of the most useful ways in which we
extend our knowledge through inductive reasoning.

4. Arguments that conclude something about a particular case on the


basis of what happens usually or frequently, but not always.
The following passage, taken from Mark Twain’s Notebook, is an
amusing example of this common form of inductive argument.
At bottom I did not believe I had touched that man. The law of
probabilities decreed me guiltless of his blood, for in all my

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small experience with guns I had never hit anything I had tried
to hit. And I knew I had done my best to hit him.

—Mark Twain, Notebook

5. Arguments that conclude that a further similarity holds on the basis


of known similarities between two types of things.
This form of reasoning is often used in making a decision to buy a
particular brand of merchandise on the basis of good performance
by other items of the same brand. Similarities in materials, methods
of manufacturing, and other product qualities provide evidence to
support some further, as yet unobserved similarity, such as durability,
in a new product. This kind of reasoning also pro- vides the focus for
much of our medical research. Investigators observe the effects of
various substances on experimental animals, which are similar to
humans in certain respects, and conclude that those substances will
affect humans in similar ways. Here is an example:

Marian C. Diamond, professor of anatomy at the University of


California at Berkeley, warned recently that birth control pills may
inhibit development of the brain.

Dr. Diamond said that research reveals that female sex


hormones contained in birth control pills limit growth of the
cerebral cortex, a part of the brain which regulates intelligence.

Dr. Diamond has been working with female rats into


which she has injected a hormone equivalent to a birth
control pill. Such rats showed less growth of the cerebral
cortex than rats not injected with the hormone.

—Parade Magazine

Recognizing contexts in which inductive arguments are appropriate will help to


determine whether a given argument is inductive or deductive, but the real test of a
deductive argument is to ask the following: Would the premises, if true, make it
impossible for the conclusion to be false? In an inductive argument, the falsity of the
conclusion is compatible with the truth of the premises, but the premises should make it
probable or likely that the conclusion is true as well. As in deductive arguments, special
terms draw attention to the inductive nature of the link between the premises and the
conclusion. These terms include probably, usually, tends to support, likely, very likely, and
almost always. When Mark Twain said “The law of probabilities decreed me guiltless,”
he indicated that his argument was inductive. The terms may or might sometimes point

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to the tentative nature of an inductively drawn conclusion, as in Dr. Diamond’s claim


that “birth control pills may inhibit development of the brain.”
An important difference between deductive and inductive arguments is that
whereas deductive support is an all-or-nothing affair (either the truth of the premises
is incompatible with the falsity of the conclusion or not), inductive support may vary in
strength. The terms used to indicate that an argument is inductive can provide in-
formation about the degree of strength of the argument. For example, may, might, and
possibly indicate weak or moderate support; whereas almost always, highly probable,
and very likely indicate strong support. The expressions with practical certainty or with
moral certainty indicate a very high degree of inductive support. They are appropriate
when the evidence is overwhelmingly strong. Nevertheless, despite the meaning of the
term certain, this support is different from that demanded in deductive arguments.
The phrase beyond all reasonable doubt often indicates a strong inductive argument, but
it can signal a deductive argument as well.
A further difference between inductive and deductive arguments concerns how
additional information can affect the strength of the argument. Suppose you have
received
$1,000 from the estate of a distant relative. You want to invest it in a mutual fund, and
your main objective is preservation of capital with reasonable income from your
investment. You select a fund that has paid a dividend every quarter for forty years
and that has shown moderate growth. Your decision was based on the following
argument:

Fund X has a 40-year record of paying regular dividends


while maintaining a slow growth of capital.

My investment objectives are regular income and preservation

of capital. Fund X is a suitable investment for me.

Suppose you later learn that Fund X has just undergone a


reorganization and that the new managers have a reputation for
picking speculative stocks with aggressive growth potential. With the
addition of this new information to your original argument, the sup-
port for the conclusion is considerably weaker.

Alternatively, additional information can strengthen an inductive argument. Consider


some recent research on the role of heredity in alcoholism. On the basis of a 10-year
study of 202 alcoholic men, Dr. T. Reich, at the Alcohol Research Center at
Washington University, learned that 38 percent had alcoholic fathers, 21 percent had
alcoholic mothers, 57 percent had alcoholic brothers, 15 percent had alcoholic sisters,
32 percent had alcoholic sons, and 19 percent had alcoholic daughters. When we
realize that in the general population, alcoholism develops in only 3 percent of women

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and 8 to 10 per cent of men, this information supports the conclusion that hereditary
factors are important in the development of alcoholism. Additional information from
Swedish studies of adopted children—which clearly showed that the children of
alcoholics are four times more likely than other children to become alcoholics even if
the children are adopted early in life by people who do not abuse alcohol—makes the
argument in sup- port of the hereditary character of alcoholism even stronger.

Thus as these examples show, additional information can either strengthen or


weaken an inductive argument. In contrast, if a deductive argument is already valid,
then the addition of premises cannot strengthen the argument or weaken it in the
sense of making it invalid. The truth of its original premises is incompatible with the
falsity of its conclusion. Because if the premises in the original argument were true,
then the conclusion would be true as well; adding anything (even a false premise) to
the pre- misses cannot change that relationship. Premises of inductive arguments,
however, can offer a range of support—from very strong to moderate to weak—for
their conclusions. So additional premises can make an argument either stronger or
weaker. When the support in an inductive argument is extremely weak but the
argument superficially resembles a correct inductive argument, the argument is
called an inductive fallacy.

Some arguments, particularly those used in science, combine inductive and


deductive elements. An argument used by Louis Pasteur is an example. Pasteur is
well known for his method of pasteurization, a gentle heating process that destroys
harmful organisms in fresh milk. Before Pasteur tried pasteurizing milk, he suggested
the process as a solution to the problem of wine turning sour during the aging process.
Yeast cells, which are living organisms, are responsible for the fermentation necessary
to make wine. Using a microscope, Pasteur discovered that there were several types
of yeast in wine. He hypothesized that after the fermentation yeasts had done their
work, some of the other yeasts caused the wine to sour during the aging process. He
reasoned that if all remaining yeast cells in the wine were destroyed by gentle heating
after fermentation was completed, the wine could age without souring. His method
worked and earned him the enthusiastic thanks of the wine industry in France.
The deductive part of Pasteur’s argument is:
Yeast cells are the cause of
souring in wine. Gentle heating
destroys yeast cells.
Gently heated wine does not sour.

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After experiments showed that heated wine did not sour, Pasteur inductively concluded
that his belief about yeast causing the wine to sour was correct. This conclusion follows
inductively rather than deductively; although the yeast cells were killed by heating, it is
possible that some other agent that also could be destroyed by heating was the causal
factor in wine spoilage. Even with a deductive component, arguments of this type have
an overall inductive structure because the conclusion about the cause does not follow
with certainty from the premises concerning the success of the experiment. Arguments
of this type are fundamental to scientific reasoning

FALLACIES

Fallacies, or fallacious arguments, appear to support their conclusions, but appear-


ances can deceive. Committing a fallacy is different from making a factual error. Al-
though in ordinary language, the term fallacy can refer to false beliefs (particularly
those that we believe because they are attractive to us), studies of logic reserve the
term for mistakes in reasoning. From this standpoint, we can be mistaken about
something without committing a fallacy. To believe, for example, that Thomas Jefferson
did not own slaves is erroneous but not fallacious. The person who does not believe
that Jefferson owned slaves is ignorant of certain facts, but that person’s logical ability
to draw conclusions on the basis of evidence may not be at fault. To commit a fallacy,
we must offer or accept non-evidence as evidence for a claim.

Two familiar fallacies are the fallacy of black-and-white thinking and the fallacy of
equivocation. The first occurs in arguments that base a conclusion on a limited set
of alternatives—such as a choice between loving and hating someone—when a
broader range of possibilities is available. The fallacy of equivocation involves using
an expression, such as “mad,” in one sense in one of the premises and a different sense
in another premise or in the conclusion of an argument. If the premises state that
someone is “mad” in the sense of “angry” and the conclusion uses the term in the sense
of “crazy,” we can- not use the term to connect premises and conclusion. Many other
fallacies arise as a result of violating logical standards for valid deductive arguments
and strong inductive arguments.

Fallacies can mislead us for many reasons. Sometimes our emotions interfere with our
power to make unbiased judgments. A conclusion can be so attractive that we are
ready to accept almost anything offered as evidence in support of it. Swindlers and
confidence men present preposterous “evidence” for the reliability of their money-
making schemes, but they count on the desire for money to cloud the judgment of their
victims. Alternatively, an assertion may be so repugnant that we will accept almost any
statement as evidence against it. (How can I believe that someone I love has betrayed

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me?) Critical thinking requires us to separate the psychological desire to believe or


deny a claim from considerations of how well supported that claim is.

In other cases, we feel a strong like or dislike, or respect or disapproval, for the
person who makes a claim. This can so prejudice us that we fail to consider the
strength of the evidence. Fond parents, for example, are notorious for their willing-
ness to accept a child’s word as sufficient evidence. Although sometimes the authority
of a person making a statement is a legitimate reason for accepting it, critical thinking
requires that we not let emotional feelings about the person making the statement
mislead us.

When someone presents a claim in the context of a threat or an enticement, we


may fail to notice the lack of evidence. An “argument” that substitutes a threat of force
for evidence has, like many fallacies, a special name. It is called “appeal to force,” or (in
Latin) ad baculum. This fallacy appeals to an emotion (fear) rather than to our reasoning
ability. Although a threat may be a good reason (in the sense of serving your best
interests) to do something, it should not be confused with evidence for the truth of a
statement. In a totalitarian regime, for example, threats against one’s life are good
reasons not to openly disagree with the party line but are not evidence for its truth.
Totalitarian societies are not alone in employing fear to achieve their ends. Leaders of
democratic societies have sometimes used fear to win citizen support for unjust or
unnecessary wars.

Another fallacy that plays on emotions is called “appeal to pity,” or ad misericor-


dium. This occurs when we confuse feeling sorry for someone with evidence for the
truth of an assertion that is made by or about the person who is to be pitied. A well-
known scientist, a victim of terminal cancer, made an appeal to pity when he said in
response to challenges to a theory he was trying to defend: “I can say these things . .
. because this is my last hurrah, and I have to tell the truth.” Although the scientist’s ill-
ness certainly deserves our sympathy, it is not a reason to believe his theory.
Sometimes lawyers defend their clients against criminal charges by saying that the
client was ill, was mistreated, or has suffered enough. Any of these claims might be
relevant to alleviating the punishment inflicted on the criminal, if convicted. Such claims
are probably not, however, relevant to the issue of whether the defendant committed
the crime. To suppose that they are would be fallacious.
Aside from exerting emotional pressure, a fallacy can deceive us by its
resemblance to a correct form of argument. One of the reasons for studying the formal
structure of arguments, as we do in the following chapters, is to be able to recognize
such fallacies. A few examples will suffice here.

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ST. ANTHONY COLLEGE MODULE IN MC 4: LOGIC
AND CRITICAL THINKING
CALAPAN CITY, INC.

Since things that are causally connected with one another occur together in a regular
way, the premises of causal arguments often include statements that such regularities
have been observed. But to argue for a causal connection merely on the basis of the
fact that things have occurred together occasionally in the past is to argue
fallaciously. The observed co-occurrences could be coincidental. All sorts of things
hap- pen together without any causal connection existing between them. For example,
in 1993 Hanna Gray ended her tenure as president of the University of Chicago, and
Mike Ditka ended his tenure as coach of the Chicago Bears. Neither announced any
definite plans for the following year. Yet, it is unlikely that these matters are causally
linked and even more unlikely that, as a Chicago alumnus suggested, “Hanna Gray is
Coach Mike Ditka in disguise.”

1. In Woody Allen’s Love and Death, the hero offers this


argument to demonstrate his skill in logic:

All men are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore, all men are Socrates.

The transparent way in which this fallacious argument parodies the classic example of
deduction makes it amusing rather than deceptive. Life would be simpler if all fallacies
were so easy to detect.

Sometimes, as in the fallacy of black-and-white thinking, relevant evidence


concerning alternatives is ignored. Ignoring relevant evidence can also result from
thinking in terms of stereotypes—fixed, rigid, or conventional mental patterns that leave
little room for noting individual variations in information received or for classifying new
information appropriately. A blatant example of this kind of fallacy would be to argue
that a person was intelligent—or stupid—solely on the basis of the fact that he or she
was a member of some racial or ethnic group. Arguing on the basis of such an
inaccurate generalization ignores the well-known fact that individual members of every
ethnic or racial group vary considerably in intelligence and that variations among
groups as a whole are negligible compared to variations within groups. Prejudicial
judgments of this type are a particularly invidious form of thinking in terms of
stereotypes.

Stereotypic thinking is not always this obvious (or obnoxious). Psychologists have
demonstrated that fallacious reasoning involving stereotypical thinking is common
even in the absence of any racial or other type of prejudice. Two psychologists
presented the following problem to several student groups and professional
colleagues (Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgments under uncertainty.
Science, 185, 1124).

Persons to whom the problem was presented were told that the following had been

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ST. ANTHONY COLLEGE MODULE IN MC 4: LOGIC
AND CRITICAL THINKING
CALAPAN CITY, INC.

drawn at random from a collection of 100 personal descriptions (30 of lawyers and 70
of engineers):
John is a 39-year-old man. He is married and has two
children. He is active in local politics. His favorite hobby
is the collecting of rare books. He is competitive,
argumentative, and articulate.

The problem is to tell whether John is an engineer or a lawyer.

A large majority answered “lawyer,” even though no specific information about


John’s profession occurs in the description and descriptions of engineers outnumbered
descriptions of lawyers by more than two to one. It is thus much more likely that a
description drawn at random from such a collection would be a description of an
engineer, but almost everyone simply ignored this evidence and instead concentrated
on the description itself, although it contained little helpful information.

On the basis of the results of this and similar experiments, the psychologists who
conducted the study concluded that people are the captives of certain stereotypes
pertaining to lawyers and engineers. Presumably, the general stereotype of a lawyer is
formed by the media’s representation of high-powered trial lawyers, who are
competitive, argumentative, and articulate. Collecting rare books can be an expensive
hobby, and prominent lawyers earn large incomes. In addition, many high-level political
offices are held by men and women trained in the law. None of the information presented
in the description is incompatible with the engineering profession, however, and a large
number of lawyers lead less glamorous lives than those lawyers who exemplify the
stereotype. If the solid information is ignored that descriptions of engineers in the
sample far outnumber those of lawyers, then a judgment that a lawyer (not an engineer)
is being described could be accounted for by stereotypical mental pictures of lawyers
and engineers.

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