Archives for April 19, 2022

Description:

A Circumstantial ad Hominem is a fallacy in an attack on a person’s circumstances (such as the person’s religion, political affiliation, ethnic background, etc.) is substituted for evidence against a claim. There is a more specific version in which a claim is attacked by asserting that the person asserting the claim is doing so only from self-interest. The fallacy has the following forms:

 

Form 1

Premise 1: Person A makes claim X.

Premise 2: Person B makes an attack on A’s circumstances.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is false.

 

Form 2

Premise 1: Person A makes claim X.

Premise 2: Person B asserts that A makes claim X because it is in A’s self-interest to claim X.

Conclusion: Therefore, claim X is false.

 

This is a fallacy because a person’s self-interest or circumstances have no bearing on the truth or falsity of the claim being made. While a person’s self-interest gives them a motive to support certain claims, the claims stand or fall on their own merits.

A person’s circumstances (religion, political affiliation, etc.) do not affect the truth or falsity of their claims. To use a silly example: “Bill claims that 1+1 =2. But he is a Republican, so his claim is false.” This is absurd.

There are times when it is prudent to suspicious of a person’s claims when there is evidence that they are biased. For example, if a tobacco company representative claims that tobacco does not cause cancer, it would be prudent to not simply accept the claim on their word. This is because the person has a motivation to make the claim, whether the claim is true or not. However, the mere fact that the person has a motivation to make the claim does not make it false. For example, suppose a parent tells her son that sticking a fork in a light socket would be dangerous. Simply because she has a motivation to say this does not make her claim false.

A person’s self-interest and other biasing factors can affect their credibility, and these are reasonable to consider when making such an assessment. For example, if you learn that a once seemingly credible expert has been receiving money from renewable energy lobbying firm, then this would reduce their credibility. But it would not prove that what they have said about renewable energy is false. This is discussed in the Appeal to Authority.

 

Defense: The defense against this fallacy is to distinguish between legitimate concerns about a person’s credibility due to biasing factors and mere attacks on their circumstances. Even if a person is biased, it does not follow that their claim is false. This fallacy can be both self-inflicted and used against you by others.

 

Example #1

“She asserts that we need more military spending, but that is false, since she is only saying it because she is a Republican.”

 

Example #2

“I think that we should reject what Father Jones has to say about the ethical issues of abortion because he is a Catholic priest. After all, Father Jones is required to hold such views.”

 

Example #3

“Of course, the Senator from Maine opposes a reduction in naval spending. After all, Bath Ironworks, which produces warships, is in Maine.”

 

Example #4

“Bill claims that tax breaks for corporations increases development. Of course, Bill is the CEO of a corporation.”

 

Example #5

Kelly: “I’m buying solar panels. While they cost up front, I’ll be getting free electricity. I’ll also help reduce climate change. I mean by some insanely small fraction, but every bit helps.”

Ted: “What gave you the idea?”

Kelly: “Well, my electrical engineering professor was talking about solar in class. She sold me on the idea.”

Ted: “You mean Dr. Lee?”

Kelly: “Yeah.”
Ted: “You know that these big solar companies help fund her research. You know they give her all those solar panels and batteries.”

Kelly: “Damn. No solar for me! All that stuff she said must be crap.”

Description:

This fallacy occurs when it is uncritically assumed that an explanation given for an action is an attempt to excuse or justify it. This fallacy has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Explanation E is offered for action A.

Conclusion: Therefore, E is an attempt to excuse or justify A.

 

This is a fallacy because an explanation of an action need not involve any attempt to excuse or justify that action.

This fallacy can be committed by accident due to a failure to distinguish between an explanation and an excuse or justification. This occurs because it can be easy to confuse explanations and arguments. Explanations are attempts to provide an account as to how or why something is the case or how it works. Arguments, in the logical sense, are attempts to establish that a claim (the conclusion) is true by providing reasons or evidence (premises). What can add to the confusion is that explanations can be used in arguments, often to establish an excuse or justify an action.

To illustrate, if someone said, “John missed class because he was in a car wreck”, this would be an explanation rather than an argument. However, if someone said, “John’s absence from class should be excused because he was in a car wreck”, then this would be an argument. This is because John being in a car wreck is being offered as a reason why his absence should be excused.

When what is being explained is linked to strong emotions or values, people can unintentionally commit this fallacy. Especially if they dislike the explanation being presented. For example, if foreign terrorist attacks against the United States are explained in terms of being reactions to United States foreign policy and economic activity, some people are likely to get angry and think the explanation is intended to excuse or justify the attacks.

The fallacy can also be committed intentionally to “prove” that someone is trying to justify an action when they are only offering an explanation. As with the unintentional use of the fallacy, this commonly occurs in matters of strong emotions or values. For example, a politician or pundit might intentionally use this fallacy to convince their audience that an expert who is explaining the motivations of a terrorist group is excusing or justifying the actions of the group.

It is also a mistake to assume that an excuse or justification is only an explanation, although that sort of error is not as common as confusing explanations with excuses.

 

Defense: To avoid committing this fallacy by accident, the best defense is to examine the alleged excuse/justification and determine if it uses the language and tone of excusing or justifying an action. It is especially important to not read into an explanation when you are angry or dislike the explanation. An explanation can also be a bad explanation without being an attempt at excusing or justifying something.

To guard against others using this fallacy against you, you also need to look carefully at the wording and tone of the explanation. You should also consider that the explanation might be intentionally distorted in order to make it seem like it is an attempt to justify or excuse.

 

Example #1

Hosni: “While it has been common for many American politicians to claim that terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms, the reality seems to be that they have been primarily motivated by American foreign policy.”

Sam: “I can’t believe that you are defending the terrorists! How can you say that the 9/11 attack was justified?”

Hosni: “I said no such thing.”

Sam: “Yeah, you did. You said that they were motivated by American foreign policy. That means you think we made them attack us and they were right to do so!”

 

Example #2

Karen: “I think that Bill is doing badly in the class because he finds the subject matter boring. During my recitation sections he just spends his time texting, no matter how often I ask him not to. I know he can do good work-my sister showed me some of his work in his major, and it is good. But my sister says that he’s not interested in philosophy.”

Drew: “I know that Bill is your sister’s boyfriend, but you don’t have to defend him.”

Karen: “I’m not. I’m just saying why he is doing badly.”

Drew: “Don’t get defensive. I’m fine with teaching assistants who advocate for students. I was quite the advocate in my day, you know.”

Karen: “Really?”

Drew: “Of course. Now I’m the cruel professor. Hah, hah.”

Karen: “Hah.”

Also Known as: Questionable Cause, Reversing Causation

Description:

Confusing Cause and Effect is a fallacy that has the following form:

 

Premise 1: A and B regularly occur together (and the possibility that B causes A is not considered).

Conclusion:  Therefore, A is the cause of B.

 

This fallacy requires that there not be a common cause that causes both A and B. See Ignoring a Common Cause. To be a true case of confusing cause and effect B must cause A.

This fallacy is committed when it is inferred that one thing must cause another just because the two occur together. More formally, this fallacy involves drawing the conclusion that A is the cause of B simply because A and B are in regular conjunction (and there is not a common cause that is the cause of A and B). The mistake being made is that the causal conclusion is being drawn without adequate justification. When B is the cause of A causation has been erroneously reversed.

Sometimes the fallacy will be obvious. For example, a person might claim that the flu was caused by a person getting a fever. But the fallacy is not always evident. Causal reasoning can be difficult when it is not evident what is the cause and what is the effect. For example, a difficult child might be the cause of the parents being short tempered or the short temper of the parents might be the cause of the child being difficult.

The challenge in sorting out cause and effect is especially problematic in cases involving feedback. For example, the parents’ temper might cause the child to become difficult, and the child’s behavior could worsen the parents’ temper. Determining which was the initial cause in such cases can prove challenging.

To determine that the fallacy has been committed, it must be shown that the causal conclusion has not been adequately supported and the person committing the fallacy has confused the actual cause with the effect. Showing that the fallacy has been committed will require determining the cause and effect.

Another thing that makes causal reasoning difficult is that people have different conceptions of cause and matters can be clouded by emotions and values. For example, some claim violent media must be censored because it causes people to like violence. Some respond that there is violence in media because people like violence. In this case, it is not obvious what the cause is, and the issue is clouded because it is an emotional and political matter.

All causal fallacies involve an error in causal reasoning. However, this fallacy differs from the other causal fallacies in terms of the error in reasoning being made. In the case of a Post Hoc fallacy, the error is that a person is accepting that A is the cause of B simply because A occurs before B. In the case of the Fallacy of Ignoring a Common Cause A is taken to be the cause of B when there is, in fact, a third factor that is the cause of both A and B. For more information, see the other causal fallacies in this book.

 

Defense: While causal reasoning can be difficult, many errors can be avoided with due care and careful testing procedures. This is because this fallacy occurs because the conclusion is drawn without due care. One way to avoid the fallacy is to pay careful attention to the temporal sequence of events. Since (outside of science fiction), effects do not generally precede their causes, if A occurs after B, then A (usually) cannot be the cause of B.

 

Example #1:

Bill and Joe are having a debate about music and moral decay:

Bill: ‘” It seems clear to me that this new music is causing the youth to become corrupt.”

Joe: ‘What do you mean?”

Bill: “This rap stuff is always telling the kids to kill cops, do drugs, and abuse women. That is all bad and the kids today shouldn’t be doing that sort of stuff. We ought to ban that music!”

Joe: “So, you think that getting rid of the rap music would solve the drug, violence, and sexism problems in the US?”

Bill: “Well, it wouldn’t get rid of it all, but it would take care of a lot of it.”

Joe: “Don’t you think that most of the rap singers sing about that sort of stuff because that is what is really going on these days? I mean, people often sing about the conditions of their time, just like the people did in the sixties. But then I suppose that you think that people were against the war and into drugs just because they listened to Dylan and Baez.”

Bill: “Well…”

Joe: “Well, it seems to me that the main cause of the content of the rap music is the pre-existing social conditions. If there weren’t all these problems, the rap singers probably wouldn’t be singing about them. I also think that if the social conditions were great, kids could listen to the music all day and not be affected.”

Joe: ‘Well, I still think the rap music causes the problems. You can’t argue against the fact that social ills really picked up at the same time rap music got started.”

 

Example #2:

It is claimed by some people that severe illness is caused by depression and anger. After all, people who are severely ill are very often depressed and angry. Thus, it follows that the cause of severe illness is the depression and anger. So, a good and cheerful attitude is key to staying healthy. You’d be happier and prettier if you smiled more.

 

Example #3:

Bill sets out several plates with bread on them. After a couple days, he notices that the bread has mold growing all over it. Bill concludes that the mold was produced by the bread going bad. When Bill tells his mother about his experiment, she tells him that the mold was the cause of the bread going bad and that he better clean up the mess if he wants to get his allowance this week.

Description:

The fallacy of Composition is committed when a conclusion is drawn about a whole based on the qualities of its parts without a justification provided for the inference. There are two types of this fallacy.

The first type occurs when a conclusion about an entire group is inferred from the characteristics of individual members that group. The reasoning looks like this:

 

Premise 1: Individual F things have characteristics A, B, C, etc.

Conclusion: Therefore, the whole group of F things has characteristics A, B, C, etc.

 

This is fallacious because the fact that individuals have certain characteristics does not, by itself, guarantee that the group (taken as a whole) has those characteristics.

Drawing an inference about the characteristics of a class based on the characteristics of its individual members is not always fallacious. If sufficient evidence is provided for the conclusion, no fallacy would be committed.

The second type is committed when it is concluded that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole without adequate justification for the claim. More formally, reasoning is as follows:

 

Premise 1: The parts of the whole X have characteristics A, B, C, etc.

Premise 2: Therefore, the whole X must have characteristics A, B, C.

 

This is fallacious because it cannot be inferred that simply because the parts of a complex whole have (or lack) certain properties that the whole has those properties. This math example illustrates this: The numbers 1 and 3 are both odd. 1 and 3 are parts of 4. Therefore, the number 4 is odd.

Reasoning from the properties of the parts to the properties of the whole is not always fallacious. If there is justification for the inference from parts to whole, then this fallacy would not be committed. For example, if every part of the human body is made of matter, then it would not be an error in reasoning to conclude that the whole human body is made of matter. Similarly, if every part of a structure is made of brick, there is no fallacy committed when one concludes that the whole structure is made of brick.

 

Defense:  The key to avoiding this fallacy is to be cautious about inferences from parts to wholes. If the inference is made without justification, then this fallacy has occurred.

 

Example #1

A main battle tank uses more fuel than a car. Therefore, the main battle tanks use up more of the available fuel in the world than do all the cars.

 

Example #2

A tiger eats more food than a human being. Therefore, tigers, as a group, eat more food than do all the humans on the earth as a group.

 

Example #3

Atoms are colorless. Cats are made of atoms, so cats are colorless.

 

Example #4

Every player on the team is a superstar and a great player, so the team is a great team.”

This is fallacious since the superstars might not be able to play together very well and hence, they could be a lousy team.

 

Example #5

Each part of the show, from the special effects to the acting is a masterpiece. So, the whole show is a masterpiece.”

This is fallacious since a show could have great acting, great special effects, and such, yet still fail to “come together” to make a masterpiece.

 

Example #6

Come on, you like beef, potatoes, and green beans, so you will like this beef, potato, and green bean casserole.” This is fallacious for the same reason that the following is fallacious: “You like eggs, ice cream, pizza, cake, fish, Jell-O, chicken, taco sauce, soda, oranges, milk, egg rolls, and yogurt so you must like this yummy dish made from all of them.

 

Example #7

Sodium and chlorine are both dangerous to humans. Therefore, any combination of sodium and chlorine will be dangerous to humans.

 

Example #8

“I checked all the parts of my PC, and each part is good. So, once I get it assembled, the whole PC will work just fine.”

Description:

This fallacy is committed by attempting to support a claim by presenting a question resting on one or more unwarranted assumptions. The fallacy has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Question Q is asked which rests on assumption (or assumptions) A.

Conclusion: Therefore, A is true.

 

This version is like begging the question in that what needs proof is assumed rather than properly established.

Complex Question can also be defined as presenting two or more questions as if they were a single question and then using the answer to one question to answer both. The answer is then used as a premise to support a conclusion. This version has the following form:

 

Premise 1: Question Q1 is presented that is formed of two (or more) questions Q2 and Q3 (etc.).

Premise 2: Question Q1 is based on unwarranted assumption(s), U.

Premise 3: An answer, A, is received to Q1 and treated as if it answers Q2 and Q3 (etc.)

Conclusion: Therefore, U is true.

 

This is a fallacy because the answer, A, is acquired based on one or more unwarranted assumptions. As such, the conclusion is not adequately supported.

This fallacy needs to be distinguished from the rhetorical technique of the loaded question. In this technique, a question is raised that rests on one or more unwarranted assumptions, but there is no attempt to make an argument.  This is different from a leading question. A leading question guides someone towards the desired answer.

The classic example of a loaded question is “have you stopped beating your wife?” If a person answers “yes”, then it follows that they were beating their wife. If a person answers “no”, then this seems to imply that they are still beating their wife. Logically, if a person never started beating their wife, the correct answer would be “no.” This is because they cannot stop what they did not start.

 

Defense: The defense against this fallacy is to take care when answering questions, especially when they can be serious consequences. If you suspect that someone might be trying to use this fallacy against you, consider what unwarranted assumptions they might be making as well as whether they seem to ask questions with the intent of misusing your answer. Sometimes you will be able to expose the fallacy for what it is by pointing out the unwarranted assumption or misuse of your answer. In some contexts, the best response can be no response—since almost any answer will be misused. This might lead the questioner to attempt an Appeal to Silence fallacy.

In the United States, police can (as of this writing) legally use a range of deceitful techniques (including lying) when questioning people. As such, you should be on guard against this fallacy when interacting with the police. Even if you are innocent.

 

Example #1

“How can America be saved from the socialist programs and job killing ways of the current administration? Clearly there is only one way: vote Republican!”

 

Example #2

Professor: “Have you stopped plagiarizing papers?”

George: “Um, Yes.”

Professor: “Ah, that means that you were plagiarizing papers and that you have stopped now!”

George: “What?!”

Professor: “Well, you said you had stopped. That requires that you had been plagiarizing before. You could not very well stop if you had not started, right?”

George: “Um, I mean that no, I haven’t stopped.”

Professor: “Aha, so you are still plagiarizing papers! If you have not stopped, that means you have been and still are plagiarizing away!”

George: “No, I mean…I don’t know what I mean!”

Sally: “George, you got suckered into that. The right answer is to say ‘no, I didn’t stop because I never started.’”

 

Example #3

Lawyer: “So where did you hide the money that was stolen in the robbery?”

Defendant: “Nowhere.”

Lawyer: “Ah, so you did not hide it. It must then be inferred that you spent it all.”

Defendant: “What, I didn’t steal the money!”

Lawyer: “But you just said that you hid it nowhere. That seems to be an admission of guilt!”

Defendant: “Hey, shouldn’t my lawyer be objecting or something?”

Lawyer: “Even he can see you are guilty.”