Slouching Towards Oblivion

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Logical Fallacy #1 - Straw Man


From Wikipedia:
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
  1. Person 1 has position X.
  2. Person 2 disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. The position Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
    1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position.
    2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context—i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).[4]
    3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then denying that person's arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[3]
    4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
    5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
  3. Person 2 attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This reasoning is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position does not address the actual position. The ostensible argument that Person 2 makes has the form:
"Don't support X, because X has an unacceptable (or absurd or contradictory or terrible) consequence."
However, the actual form of the argument is:
"Don't support X, because Y has an unacceptable (or absurd or contradictory or terrible) consequence."
This argument doesn't make sense; it is a non sequitur. Person 2 relies on the audience not noticing this.

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