Red Herring The first fallacy is an example of a Red Herring, which has no latin translation. A red herring is a fallacy that draws the argument away from the issue currently being discussed to an argument that the person feels they can better relate to.…
The propaganda piece Blackfish tried to turn it’s audience against the idea of whales held in captivity, yet the film was ineffective because it utilized emotional appeal, inappropriate diction, and contained many logical fallacies thus alienating those that viewed the piece. Blackfish, commissioned by CNN Films and directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, is a response to the, amongst other things, taking whales from the wild, separating whales from their mothers, and keeping them in a miniscule enclosures, and perhaps most recently the death of SeaWorld trainer Dawn Brancheau. What Blackfish aims to accomplish is emotionally connecting with it’s audience, more likely than not being those who do not know much about orca whales in captivity. Where…
One occasion an illogical fallacies is used is when Arthur’s parents are told the half-truth of the scholarship to St. Joseph’s. His parents were told that Arthur that they wouldn’t have to pay for Arthur’s tuition to St. Josephs. However, what they didn’t know was Arthur would be receiving a partial scholarship to the school and if he had produced results for the basketball team then he would receive a sponsor for the rest of his tuition. For Arthur’s case, he was wasn’t providing good enough results because he wasn’t physically growing unlike his teammates which deemed him unworthy enough. On the other hand, William Gates was given this opportunity and went on to excel as a basketball player.…
Inductive Fallacies A. Lurch: “Why don’t you take an analgesic for your terrible headache, Fester?” Fester: “You know that nature’s way is best, Lurch. It’s not wise to interfere with Mother Nature.” Lurch: “So you are just going sit there and suffer?” Fester: “I’m going to let nature take its course because the natural way is obviously the best way.”…
Response to McCloskey’s Article Shamyra Thompson Liberty University Introduction In the short article On Being an Atheist, H.J. McCloskey discusses several arguments pertaining to the whether or no there is a God and what one believes to be evil. McCloskey also refers to the arguments as “proof” as well as implied several times that they can’t define or establish the existence of God. In the light of Foreman’s comments in regards to the question of God’s existence, I felt that he addressed the question by discussing the commonly asked question “Is there a God or if a God exist”. He also discussed what exactly is evil.…
Many superstitions are examples of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies. During the times of the Salem witch trials, the ignorance of the people prevented them from thinking rationally and they quickly adapted to blaming their misfortunes on other unrelated objects and people. After Dr. Hale arrives to examine Betty, Giles asks him if he should worry about his wife because she reads books: “ Last night -mark this- I tried and tried and could not say my prayers. And then she closed her book and walks out of the house, and suddenly -mark…
This is in contrast to the language used by CACI 201, entitled “More Likely True—Clear and Convincing Proof” which says: “Certain facts must be proved by clear and convincing evidence, which is a higher burden of proof. This means the party must persuade you that it is highly probable that the fact is true.” (Emphasis supplied.) We infer two things from these definitions. First, the instructions show that the standards are the same in that they require a degree of belief that the version of one party is more likely to be true than the opposing party; but that, second, they differ in that the clear and convincing evidence requires that degree of belief that the likelihood of truth is much greater.…
A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay that tied into the SLE of being a Committed Catholic where I highlighted the violence in racism and why we shouldn’t be racist to one another. I wrote it for the Maryknoll Essay contest, which called students, “to take a clear stand for creative and active nonviolence and against all forms of violence.” The SLE bullet points that I thought most tied into this essay were understanding and being able to explain Catholic beliefs and being able to live as Jesus taught us. When re-reading this essay, I noticed that these bullet points carried some relevance with the points that I was trying to get across, further advancing and proving my argument as true, making it obvious how my thesis tied into this SLE.…
This is referred to as the warrant, this explain why or how the evidence presented supports the claim. Warrants often tells assumptions, which must be accepted by the audience in order to proceed. The values of the audience, the context of the claim and the writers own feelings should be taken into consideration when choosing the warrant. For example Trump (n.d), “Make Mexico Pay For The Wall” – warrant; “A nation without borders is not a nation…the Government Accountability Office found that there were a shocking 3 million arrests attached to the incarcerated alien population.” When the warrant is not immediately accepted by the audience, a defense must be given for the warrant in order to satisfy the audience.…
During a recent interview between Judge Danforth and I, Parris and Cheever talk about my monthly attendance to church and my plowing on Sundays, respectively. Cheever goes on to imply that this may be accounted for as evidence against me. As it seems the term is nonexistent in our language as of now, I will proudly coin and introduce the phrase, logical fallacy. It entails an error in reasoning that renders an argument (in this case yours) incorrect. What has been committed here is known as a Red Herring fallacy, where, in order to redirect attention from the actual argument, another claim is produced as a distraction.…
What is the moral theory of utilitarianism? According to Vaughn, “[Utilitarianism is] the view that right actions are those that result in the greatest overall happiness for everyone involved” (Vaughn, 79). At face value such a moral theory sounds great, because it should promote general happiness. While this is true, a particular argument, the telishment argument, shows that utilitarianism is not a viable moral theory because it promotes decisions that run contrary to historical moral inclinations. To prove this is the case, this paper will first dive into what happiness means in the utilitarian sense, the telishment argument itself, what points of contention the tellishment argument brings up against utilitarianism, and finally, what utilitarianism has to say in its own defense.…
In “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell attempts to prove to his audience that their idea behind how success is attained in the United States is considerably different than what many Americans would like to think. In America many people believe in the concept of a hard-working individual pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and earning their success through dedication and talent. Gladwell attempts to prove while individual efforts are a big role in success, theses outliers would have never been as successful as they are without luck and opportunity. Throughout “Outliers,” Gladwell points out certain key opportunities that arose in the lives of many successful people and argues that these rare and exceptional opportunities are the reasons behind people’s success. While analyzing multiple stories of success, to persuade his readers into agreeing with his opinion on success, Gladwell incorporates the use of multiple logical fallacies that throw his entire perspective on success into question.…
One of the logical fallacies that I found is Post hoc ergo propter hoc, which means the author assumes that one event causes the other. For example “Times of carnival temporally marginalize the monstrous, but at the same time allow it a safe realm of expression and play: on Halloween everyone is a demon for a night” (Cohen, 191). The author is assuming that in Halloween most people dress up as the monster they desire to be, which led all the expression to come up and also the real actions that a human have by dressing up as a monster. Another logical fallacy found in Cohen article is Begging the Claim, in which the author uses enough evidence to support his claim.…
There are common fallacies in philosophy arguments, which are invalid but do not interfere with the rules of reasoning with one set of standards to another. Some types of common fallacies are begging the question, which is rephrasing the conclusion. Distraction is a wordy argument leading away from the point topic at hand. Another type of fallacy is unclear or shifting conclusions there is no clear point as to what the argument is based on. The importance of a valid argument form is to have structure of the ideas.…
Fallacies Mistaken for Good Arguments Throughout pages 72-84, the textbook focused on specific forms of bad arguments that are a result of some sort of irrelevance premises have to a conclusion. The term for these bad arguments are fallacies, and there are various different ones. They include, the Red Herring, the Easy Target, the Appeal to Fear, the Appeal to Pity, the Appeal to Popularity, the Appeal to either Novelty or Tradition, the Ad Hominem, and the Appeal to Ignorance.…