A Review of Common Fallacies that Weaken Arguments

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | January 2, 2013 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[NYer]

Msgr. Pope ping!

[sport]

Mark

[Jacquerie]

Bump.

[arderkrag]

Where's the listing for the Slippery Slope Fallacy?

[mjp]

Is/ought Fallacy – An argument whose premises merely describe the way that the world is, but whose conclusion describes the way that the world ought to be. You can’t get an ‘ought’ simply from an ‘is’.

You can get an ought from an is by means of the law of identity.Once one knows the nature of an object, then by the law of identity, one will know both that it will have and that it ought to have certain characteristics and actions when confronted by specific context.If one knows the nature of man,and facts of reality, and the requirements for man's survival and life proper to a rational being, then one knows what man ought to desire if he wants to survive and live a life proper to a rational being. This is how it is possible to know that libtardism ought to be avoided as much as humanly possible.

[Hardastarboard]

Great post.

Twenty years from now, posting something like this on the internet will get you imprisoned for trying to overthrow the government.

[John Galt's cousin]

Slavery is evil

Taking the fruits of a human’s labor is evil

Collecivism takes the fruits of a human’s labor

Therefore, collectivism is evil

Modern Liberalism (European and North American in the 20th and 21st centuries) is a form of collectivism.

Therefore, Modern Liberalism is evil.

...Or something like that.

[Last Dakotan]

Mark for later

[70times7]

Well done write up. It's just such a shame tho that you are a New Yorker - you must be a liberal and we cannot trust anything you say! ;>)

One of my faves is argument ad absurdum (I probably spelled it wrong) wherein a situation is extended far beyond reality to imply that the original situation is invalid.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Appeal to Novelty – Appeals to novelty assume that the newness of an idea is evidence of its truth. That an idea is new certainly doesn’t entail that it is true. Merely being a new idea, of course, is no guarantee of truth. In our modern age this attitude is very pervasive. Old for many equals stuffy, prejudiced, uninformed, nonscientific etc. New is exulted by many as ipso facto better, more accurate, more informed, and some how right just because it is what we think now. Many scold the Church for not embracing modern attitudes about women, sexuality, authority and the like. We are told that we need to listen to the young and follow their lead. But the only real reason it would seem that we should do this is because these things are new and/or their proponents are young. Again, this is not a strong argument since new does not thereby equal right. To be sure there are some new things worth embracing, but that is because they are true for other reasons, rather than merely that they are new.

The worst thing about an appeal to novelty is that the idea in question is not even certain to be new. There was a story that during WWII a man was inspecting some wrecked aircraft, and a sergeant came up and asked him what he was doing. The man replied that he was determining where the planes had been hit. The sergeant asked, “What are you going to do with that information?” The man replied that they might add armor to the places where the aircraft get hit the most. The sergeant replied, “Son, airplanes get hit everywhere, and you’re only looking at the ones that got back. You find out where those aircraft got hit, and you put your armor everywhere else.” The moral is simple: you may think your idea is new - but maybe, just maybe, it has been tried before. Maybe the idea was so disastrous that the people who tried it were wiped out without a trace.

[NYer]

It's just such a shame tho that you are a New Yorker - you must be a liberal and we cannot trust anything you say! ;>)

ROFL! Indeed, I am a native New Yorker and proud of the heritage inherited in this state where my great, great grandparents arrived from France, Ireland and Germany. Nothing I see around me today, however, resembles the society in which I was raised.

[70times7]

Twenty years from now, posting something like this on the internet will get you imprisoned for trying to overthrow the government.

What a stupid statement. No way is it going to take 20 years...

[70times7]

Same here. Ever hear of Skaneateles?

[SumProVita]

Truly excellent! I honestly think that Logic should be a required course for graduation... no matter what the focus of one’s degree might be.

[Excellence]

It’s late. I will tackle this in the morning.

[Christian4Bush]

bump

[married21]

Logic was required where I went to college. I think it is needed at the elementary school level, however, and then in more depth in high school.

[TASMANIANRED]

Bump for later

[SumProVita]

I very much agree with you.

PS. It was required where I attended as well.