Informal Fallacies

Self-contradiction

💡 A contradiction entails both a statement (P) and its negation (not P).

P and not P can’t be true at the same situation, nor can they be false at
the same situation.

Example of self-contradiction
“The cat is black” (P) and “The cat is not black” (not P).

Self-defeating

💡 A claim is logically correct, but the very act of making the claim makes it
false.

Example of self-defeating
Someone says, "I cannot speak any English.”

Circular reasoning/ Question begging arguments

Informal Fallacies 1
 In both circular and question-begging arguments, the speaker just rewords the
conclusion or presuppose the truth of the premises; no useful explanation is offered.

To avoid circular reasoning, we must give additional useful information (i.e. reason or
evidence) to support the conclusion.

💡 In circular reasoning, the premise has already assumed that the

conclusion is true, and just
rewords the conclusion to make it like a different proposition.

Logical Form:

→ X is true because of Y

→ Y is true because of X

→ “X is equivalent to Y”

Example of circular reasoning

“We should study literature because literature is a worthwhile subject.”

“You're utterly wrong because you're not making any sense.”

“Solomon can solve these difficult IQ questions. The reason is clear. It’s
because his IQ score is 125.”

Example of question begging argument

“Marriage is by definition between a man and a woman. Therefore, gay marriage
is unacceptable.”

False Dilemma

💡 The arguer gives only two options when other realistic possibilities are
available, and hence
posing a false either/or choice and leaving no grey areas

Informal Fallacies 2
 Example of false dilemma

Good students will study and learn without the threat of an exam, and bad
students won't study and learn even with the threat of an exam. So, exams
serve no purpose.
Complex Question

💡 The complex question fallacy occurs when one asks a question that
contains an unfair,
questionable, or unjustified assumption.

It is usually used to trap the respondent into acknowledging something

that s/he might not want to acknowledge.

Example of Complex Question

“Have you stopped cheating on exams?”

presupposes, without justification, that you have been cheating on exams.
“Do you still steal from your boss?”

presupposes, without justification, that you did steal from your boss .
“Have you stopped being an idiot?"

presupposes that you have been an idiot.

Personal Attack

💡 when:
- we reject someone’s argument or claim by attacking the person, his/her
position or character rather than the merits of the person’s argument or
claim (i.e. what s/he is saying)

- an arguer tries to divert the discussion and discredit another person's

argument

Examples of personal attack

Jason: Did you hear Andrew’s class presentation on the rights and privileges
of the native rural residents?

Peter: Yeah, but I don’t buy any of his arguments. His family is native
rural residents who always think that the urban residents are unfair to
them.

Informal Fallacies 3
 George Jackson has argued that last week’s police shooting was racially
motivated. But this is exactly what you would expect Jackson to say. After
all, he’s black.
Appeal to Irrelevant Authority

💡 when the reasoning appeals to an authority that is not an expert on the

issue at hand

Appeal to Popularity

💡 may claim that a theory or belief is plausible because it is accepted by a

lot of people.

they require us to accept the false assumption that anything favored by

the majority is desirable

Examples of appeal to popularity

About 91% of Philippines citizens supported what the President Rodrigo

Duterte did in cracking down on drug dealers and addicts. Therefore, what
Duterte did must be correct.

Since I was young, my family members, my teachers and my friends told me

that lightning never strikes the same place twice. Therefore, if a lightning
struck a place before, the place should be safe from lightning.

Appeal to Emotion

💡 This fallacy is committed when our emotional responses should not be

relevant ( 不應牽涉情緒 ) to the conclusion.
e.g. threat/pity

Example of appeal to emotions

Chan Tai Man deserves to be promoted to supervisor. He has three small

children, and just last week his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer.

A child told his playmate, “Admit it! Admit that Batman is a greater hero than
Superman! If you don’t, my big brother is going to beat you up!

Red Herring

💡 one tries to distract attention from an issue by introducing an irrelevant

Informal Fallacies 4
 Examples of red herring

Suppose people in our community are drawing graffiti on public buildings.

A: Graffiti is an illegal activity and we should make a more concerted effort to
warn and prosecute the offenders.
B: But graffiti is art and the people who do it are artists

Citizen: "Mr Secretary of Welfare, it's really hard to survive in this city with
the low monthly government financial support of $6,000 for a family of four
people."

Secretary of Welfare: "Consider yourself lucky, man. Why? Twenty years

ago, the allowance was only $1,000 per month. And in today’s India, a
family like you only gets $2,500."

Mike: It is morally wrong to pilfer stationery from your company. Why on

earth would you have done that?

Ken: Do you know how much profit the company got last year?
Mike: I’m not sure.

Ken: It earned trillions in 2015, but our salaries were much lower than the
market rate. The stationery means nothing to a company like this.
Straw Person

💡 A strawman argument usually distorts the opponent's argument for the

purpose of making it easier to attack and defeating her.

by misinterpreting/ overexaggerating/ oversimplifying

Example of straw person

Rachel Peters has argued that assault weapons should be outlawed.

Apparently, Rachel believes that no one has the right to possess firearms for
purposes of self-protection. But such a view is completely ridiculous. It
would leave law-abiding citizens defenseless against cold-blooded criminals.

Opponents of capital punishment have argued that the death penalty is

unfair and discriminatory. But it’s ridiculous to suggest that cold-blooded
murderers should not have to pay for their crimes. How is that fair to the
victims or their families?

Slippery slope

💡 然地an arguer assumes that the sequence of events will happen inevitably (
) but
必
provides no evidence to support the claim.

Informal Fallacies 5
 Causal Fallacy

💡 When someone claims, without sufficient evidence, that one thing is the
cause of
something else, he commits the causal fallacy.

Correlation does not imply causation!

Examples of causal fallacy

Mickey got a chain e-mail that threatened him with bad consequences if he
broke the
chain. He laughed at it and deleted it right away. On the way to work he
slipped and broke his arm badly. When he got back from the hospital he sent
out 200 copies of the chain e-mail, hoping to avoid further accidents

Not replying to email → bad luck

Possible alternative reason: he had a pre-existing view, so paid

particular attention to events that supported this view

Confirmation bias

Hasty Generalization

💡 one draws a general conclusion from a sample that is biased/ too small.

- general is true cuz bias/small is true

Example of hasty generalization

Sarah is bad at driving, all girls are bad at driving

Fallacy of Composition

💡 one infers that something must be true to the whole just because it is true
to its parts.
whole must contain the same attributes as the parts

- parts is true, so whole is true

Examples of fallacy of composition

If the parts are good, the whole must be good.

If the parts are ugly, the whole must be ugly.

Fallacy of Division

Informal Fallacies 6
 💡 one infers that if something is true to the whole, then it is true to the parts.

- whole is true, so parts is true

Informal Fallacies 7