Nick Naylor, from the movie “Thank You for Smoking”, written by Jason Reitman and Christopher Buckley is a lobbyist whose means of ‘mortgage’ is to promote the usage of cigarettes. The Yuppie-Nuremberg defence of saying he knows what he is doing is wrong but does it anyways to make money. The entire movie is dedicated to Nick talking on shows and giving interviews about how cigarettes are not destructive. Is Nick Naylor a bullshitter, or is he a brainstormer? The answer is obvious; Naylor is a bullshitter who bullshits to win. That statement implies he is not always bullshitting because one cannot always win.
In Kerry Walter's article “Bullshitting and Brainstorming” the student is bullshitting on courses like philosophy, in the same regard …show more content…
When Nick is asked if he would share a cigarette with his son when he turns eighteen, he stalls. He has to think about his answer; if he truly did believe that smoking was not injurious, he would not have to think. When Naylor says: “My job requires a certain... moral flexibility” it proves that it is not something most people would agree with. By saying that his job requires moral flexibility, it may indicate that he goes against his own morals for the sake of keeping his job. For Naylor to be a brainstormer, he would have to research about the topic and find reliable information to prove himself right, which he does …show more content…
Naylor says: “I didn’t have to. I proved that you’re wrong, and if you’re wrong I’m right.” A bullshitter does not care about being logical or ethical. All they care about it is being correct, which is what the quote above supports. This is the fallacy to Appeal to Ignorance because he doesn’t prove himself as right, but rather the as opponent wrong. During a conversation with his son, Josh, Naylor takes the argument of which ice cream flavour is the best to the definition of liberty just for the sake of winning the argument. He also uses the fallacy Irrelevant Conclusion for this. Naylor does not simply win the argument by being right, but rather by changing the topic, which is
In Kerry Walter's article “Bullshitting and Brainstorming” the student is bullshitting on courses like philosophy, in the same regard …show more content…
When Nick is asked if he would share a cigarette with his son when he turns eighteen, he stalls. He has to think about his answer; if he truly did believe that smoking was not injurious, he would not have to think. When Naylor says: “My job requires a certain... moral flexibility” it proves that it is not something most people would agree with. By saying that his job requires moral flexibility, it may indicate that he goes against his own morals for the sake of keeping his job. For Naylor to be a brainstormer, he would have to research about the topic and find reliable information to prove himself right, which he does …show more content…
Naylor says: “I didn’t have to. I proved that you’re wrong, and if you’re wrong I’m right.” A bullshitter does not care about being logical or ethical. All they care about it is being correct, which is what the quote above supports. This is the fallacy to Appeal to Ignorance because he doesn’t prove himself as right, but rather the as opponent wrong. During a conversation with his son, Josh, Naylor takes the argument of which ice cream flavour is the best to the definition of liberty just for the sake of winning the argument. He also uses the fallacy Irrelevant Conclusion for this. Naylor does not simply win the argument by being right, but rather by changing the topic, which is