Homework: Ch.4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.

Rafael Verde

Florida International University

 Homework: Ch.4, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3
4.1

Part A

1. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive). “Bonehead” is the key
word.

2. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy. “I am an orphan” involves an appeal to pity.

3. Straw man. “Genetic engineering is . . . playing God.”

4. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“hot new thinkers” . . . “new wave in
ethics”).

3. Not a fallacy.

4. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“not been able to demonstrate . . .”).

7. Straw man (“seeking the power to kill anyone who has a serious illness”!).

5. Formal fallacy: All A are B. No C are A. So, no C are B. (Counterexample: All dogs are
animals. No cats are dogs. So, no cats are animals.”)
6. Straw man. Opponents of prayer in public schools do not necessarily make the
assumptions listed.

10. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy (“I stayed up all night,” “I’ll be put on . . .
probation”).

8. Not a fallacy.

9. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“none has been able to disprove”).

13. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (“I can make good on that threat”).

9. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive).“Fool” is the key word.

10. Formal fallacy: If A, then B. B. So, A (affirming the consequent).

16. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive) (“immature and cold-
hearted”).
 12. Straw man. Attributes extreme views to all Republicans.

13. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“real men”).

19. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (circumstantial). The view is
rejected because the per-son who holds it would benefit if more people held the belief.
15. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“everybody that’s anybody”).

16. Formal fallacy: If A, then B. Not A. So, not B (denying the antecedent).

22. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (”nothing in his file to disprove that he’s a
communist”).

17. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (circumstantial). The view is
rejected because those who hold it were poor students in high school.

18. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“intelligent, refined people”).

25. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“if you want to fit in around here”).

2. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (“we have ways of making communists see the
error of their ways”).

3. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive). “Her brains are falling
out” is an insult.

28. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“no one has succeeded in proving” the
conjecture).

8. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (tu quoque). It is suggested that
there is some inconsis-tency or hypocrisy in demanding black jurors via a nonblack
attorney.
9. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“no one has been able to prove that God
exists”).

Part B: Formal and Informal Fallacies

1. Straw man. No prochoice advocate would accept this description of his or her views.

12. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy. The appeal to the needs of the family
is not relevant to the issue of desert.
 13. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (“Dad will cut you out of the inheritance if
. . .”).

4. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (circumstantial). Persons who claim
clairvoyant expe-riences stand to benefit by receiving lots of attention.
14. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (implied threat of being denied a promotion).

15. Not a fallacy.

7. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“No one has ever shown . . .”).

15. Formal fallacy: If A, then B. Not A. So, not B (denying the antecedent).

16. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (tu quoque). The argument against
hunting deer might

be sound even if the person giving it eats hamburger (and so is hypocritical or perhaps
fails to see an in-consistency between what he’s arguing and how he acts).
10. Not a fallacy.

17. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“No one has been able to demonstrate . . .”).

18. Formal fallacy: No A are B. Some C are B. So, no A are C. (Counterexample: No dogs
are cats. Some ani-mals are cats. So, no dogs are animals.)

13. Two fallacies here. Straw man—hardly a standard formulation of the doctrine of the
Trinity (i.e., the view that there is one God but three divine persons, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit). Argument against the per-son or ad hominem fallacy (abusive), the key
word being “fools.”

20. Not a fallacy.

21. Two fallacies here. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive), the
key words being “worse sort of uptight prude.” Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam
fallacy (“No one has ever

proven . . .”).

16. Formal fallacy: No A are B. All B are C. So, no A are C. (Counterexample: No dogs are
cats. All cats are animals. So, no dogs are animals.)
23. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy. “I’ve had a rough day” has no logical
bearing on whether a traf-fic ticket is deserved.
24. Not a fallacy.

19. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy. (”Real men” and “wimps” are key
words/phrases.)

29. Two fallacies. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy (“I’ve had a lot of bad luck”).
Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (“since I’m pointing a gun to your head”).

30. Two fallacies. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“dualists have never been
able to show . . .”). Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive). “It’s
just crazy to suppose” is the key phrase.
22. Straw man. The views of the evolutionist are being distorted here.

32. Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy. (The efforts at proof have “failed
miserably.”)

33. Three fallacies here. First, argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy, abusive
(“don’t have much patience with stupidity”). Second, appeal to force or ad baculum
fallacy (“you really don’t want to die young”). Third, there is a formal fallacy: If A, then
B. Not A. So, not B (denying the antecedent).

34. Argument against the person or ad hominem (abusive). “Overdosed on dumb pills” is an
insult.

4.2
PART A

2. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy. “I am an orphan” involves an appeal to pity.

3. Straw man. “Genetic engineering is . . . playing God.”

5. Not a fallacy

8. Formal fallacy: All A are B. No C are A. So, no C are B. (Counterexample: All dogs are
animals. No cats are dogs. So, no cats are animals.”)

11. Not a fallacy.

14. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive).“Fool” is the key word.

15. Formal fallacy: If A, then B. B. So, A (affirming the consequent).

17. Straw man. Attributes extreme views to all Republicans.

18. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“real men”).

20. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“everybody that’s anybody”).

21. Formal fallacy: If A, then B. Not A. So, not B (denying the antecedent).

23. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (circumstantial). The view is rejected
because those who hold it were poor students in high school.

24. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“intelligent, refined people”).

26. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (“we have ways of making communists see the error
of their ways”).

27. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive). “Her brains are falling out” is
an insult.

29. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (tu quoque). It is suggested that there
is some inconsistency or hypocrisy in demanding black jurors via a nonblack attorney.

PART B

4. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy. The appeal to the needs of the family is not
relevant to the issue of desert.
5. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (“Dad will cut you out of the inheritance if . . .”).

7. Appeal to force or ad baculum fallacy (implied threat of being denied a promotion).

8. Not a fallacy.

10. Formal fallacy: If A, then B. Not A. So, not B (denying the antecedent).

11. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (tu quoque). The argument against
hunting deer might be sound even if the person giving it eats hamburger (and so is hypocritical
or perhaps fails to see an inconsistency between what he’s arguing and how he acts).

14. Formal fallacy: No A are B. Some C are B. So, no A are C. (Counterexample: No dogs are
cats. Some animals are cats. So, no dogs are animals.)

17. Two fallacies here. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive), the key
words being “worse sort of uptight prude.” Appeal to ignorance or ad ignorantiam fallacy (“No
one has ever proven . . .”).

16. Formal fallacy: No A are B. All B are C. So, no A are C. (Counterexample: No dogs are
cats. All cats are animals. So, no dogs are animals.)

19. Appeal to pity or ad misericordiam fallacy. “I’ve had a rough day” has no logical bearing
on whether a traffic ticket is deserved

4.2

PART A:

4. Composition.

5. Equivocation. In its first occurrence, the word “ham” means “a person with an exaggerated
theatrical style.” In its second occurrence, “ham” refers to a type of meat.

10. Not a fallacy.

11. Composition.

14. Composition.

16. Not a fallacy.

17. Two fallacies. Equivocation: In its first occurrence, “free” means “politically free,” while
in its second occurrence “free” means “able to choose between good and evil.” Appeal to the
people or ad populum fallacy (“Every real American . . .”).
19. Equivocation. In its first occurrence, “public interest” means “best interest or the common
good,” while in its second occurrence “public interest” merely indicates what the public is
curious about.

22. Equivocation. “Created equal” may mean “having equal rights” (presumably the meaning in
the Declaration of Independence) or “having all the same qualities.”

23. Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (circumstantial). It is claimed that
Peterson’s circumstances (he’s an embittered veteran) destroy the force of his argument.

25. Equivocation. In its first use, “want” means “want to do, all things considered,” while in its
second use “want” means merely “have a desire to do” (which allows that there might be
stronger desires to do other things).

26. Two fallacies. Equivocation: In the statement that America is not a democracy and never
has been, “democracy” seems to mean “direct rule by the majority,” but it can also mean
“indirect rule by majority,” and the electoral college is arguably an example of indirect rule by
majority. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“all good people . . .”).

31. Equivocation. If the argument is to be valid, the word “is” in premise (1) must be read as the
“is” of identity (i.e., “God is one and the same thing as love”). But this is not what religious
people normally mean in saying that “God is love.” They mean that “God is loving” (i.e., “God
has the attribute of being loving”), in which case what’s intended is the “is” of predication (or
attribution). Similarly, “The chair is red” normally means “the chair has the attribute of being
red,” not “the chair is one and the same thing as redness.”

35. Equivocation on “on drugs.” Presumably, by a speech “on drugs,” the instructor meant a
speech “about drugs.” But in the conclusion, the arguer means a speech “under the influence of
drugs.”

4.3

PART A:

3. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that soda, being one common factor, is the
cause. In fact there is another, more important common factor to consider, namely, alcohol.

5. Begging the question. The premise (“sleeping pills cause people to go to sleep”) is merely
another way of stating the conclusion (“sleeping pills work”); thus, the argument assumes the
point to be proved.
6. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that if turn signals precede turns, turn signals
cause turns.
8. Appeal to unreliable authority or ad verecundiam fallacy. The unwarranted assumption is
that Rev. Posner is an authority on the causal connections between art and sex crimes.

11. Appeal to unreliable authority or ad verecundiam fallacy. The unwarranted assumption is

that an authority on military history is an authority on the morality of war.

12. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that if A and B are perfectly correlated, then B
causes A.

13. Three fallacies. Composition (“each scene was excellent, so the whole play was excellent”).
Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“everybody who is anybody is raving about the
play”). Begging the question: To say the play is superb is just another way of saying that it is
excellent.

15. Three fallacies. Begging the question (“killing is wrong because it is wrong to take a
life”). Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“not cool, not cool at all”). Argument
against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive): the key word is “coward.”

17. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that harsh punishment is the cause of lower
rates of crime in Saudi Arabia (relative to the United States), when other factors must be
considered, for example, the relative rates of poverty, the relative degree of racial and religious
homogeneity, and perhaps the relative size of the population.

18. Three fallacies. Composition (moments are parts of time). Begging the question: “Time
seems real but isn’t real” is just another way of saying that “time is illusory.” Appeal to the
people or ad populum fallacy (“the best and the brightest people have always thought . . .”).

20. Not a fallacy.

21. Not a fallacy.

23. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that “the soul’s leaving the body” is the cause,
when other possibilities need to be considered.

26. Complex question. The unwarranted assumption is that California is the best place to live.

27. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that because the curse preceded the crash, the
curse caused the crash

30. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that if the government holds tobacco companies
liable for the addictions their products cause, then credit card companies, fast food chains, and
so on will be held liable for the addictions their products cause. But there are surely differences
in kind or degree here that call into doubt the allegation that holding tobacco companies liable
will result in holding so many other kinds of companies liable.
PART B:

2. Begging the question. “They are dead because they are not alive.”

3. Two fallacies. The appeal to unreliable authority or ad verecundiam fallacy is committed

twice. The first unwarranted assumption is that “this very intelligent man” is an authority on
whether astrology is a science. The second unwarranted assumption is that the astrologer is an
authority on winning lottery numbers.

5. Complex question. The unwarranted assumption is that we do know that there is life in other
galaxies.

8. Begging the question. In context, “He wouldn’t lie to someone he loves” presupposes that he
loves me.

9. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that since reading Kierkegaard’s book preceded
the symptoms, it caused them.

14. Not a fallacy.

15. False cause. The unwarranted assumption is that since TV shows about illegal drugs are
correlated with an increase in the use of illegal drugs, the TV shows have caused this increase.

17. Not a fallacy.

21. Begging the question. The conclusion supplies a different way of saying that religion is the
opiate of the people.

27. Three fallacies. Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“people will think you’re
superstitious if . . .”). Argument against the person or ad hominem fallacy (abusive); the key
word is “idiot.” False cause: The unwarranted assumption is that because reading horoscopes is
correlated with weirdness in one known case, reading horoscopes causes weirdness.

29. Straw man: A key qualification has been omitted from the definition of terrorism, namely,
that terrorists intentionally and directly target non-combatants. According to traditional just war
theory, there’s an important moral difference between (a) directly and intentionally targeting
non-combatants and (b) killing noncombatants as the foreseen but unintended result of striking
a military target. Ad hominem (tu quoque): Even if Americans have committed some terrorist
acts, it doesn’t follow that they are mistaken in condemning terrorism. Complex question:
Assumes that American revolutionary war heroes were all terrorists. Evidence is needed to
support the claim that the American revolutionaries directly targeted non-combatants as
opposed to British military personnel.
30. Three fallacies. False cause: The unwarranted assumption is that if saying the mantras is
correlated with “having a good day,” then saying the mantras causes one to have a good day.
Begging the question (“mantras are effective” is just another way of saying “Mantras work”).
Appeal to the people or ad populum fallacy (“mantras are recommended by many great movie
stars”).