Logical Lingo III

In my past couple of posts, I've explored two common fallacies, identifying them by the terms philosophers use. In particular, I've identified the non sequitur and the red herring.

For today's post, I will identify another common fallacy--the straw man. I don't know about you, but, like the red herring, when I read the name of this fallacy, I get curious. First, I get curious about the content of the fallacy: What is the straw man fallacy? Then, I get curious about the terminology:

To answer my first question, I will refer to our old friend the late Robert J. Gula. In Nonsense, Gula gives the following definition "When you take something your opponent has said, exag-gerate [sic] or distort it, and then attack what you have exaggerated or distorted, you have created a straw man (79). 

Although Gula doesn't mention it, I think my former logic professor described the straw man fallacy as a person building a scarecrow. A scarecrow is sort of like a man made of straw, and a man made of straw is, unlike a man made of muscle and bone, easily knocked down and destroyed. Of course, the man in "the straw man fallacy" is not actually a man; it's actually an argument. 

But not just any argument. 

It is the argument put forth by an opponent. Sometimes your opponent's argument might derive a conclusion that is very close to something that you already believe. Other times, however, your opponent's argument might derive a conclusion that is the opposite to something that you already believe. 

Although we should always be on guard against all fallacious reasoning, it is the latter situation that we need to be extra mindful of maintaining our logical poise. The urge to build a straw man is more intense when we confront an argument with which we intensely disagree. Why? 

Because there are certain beliefs of ours that we cherish; we don't want to admit that they lack the strength we attribute to them. 

If someone makes an argument that weakens one of our cherished beliefs, we may respond by creating a straw man. Thus, when we engage, whether in speech or writing, in controversial topics, the temptation is usually greater that I will misrepresent my opponent's argument. I will change my opponent's argument into a much weaker argument and then attack that much weaker argument.  

For example, take a look at the following dialogue:
Jack: "Who'd you vote for?
Jill: "Well, after listening to the debates I  voted for candidate X. I really think that her argument about the environment was strong. It's about time a candidate for public office built her platform on key environmental concerns."
Jack: "Candidate X? Are you crazy? My father told me that she wants to ban the sale and purchase of sports cars and that she will enact a law requiring every household to go dark for three days a month. She thinks that we should all go back to living in log cabins and riding horses. I mean, there is no way. Given the lifestyle that most Americans have grown accustomed to living, her arguments are totally impractical. Voting for candidate X is stupid."

How does Jack's response to Jill seem?

It seems dubious to me. Probably, candidate X put forth a series of arguments that contained a series of conclusions that were much more nuanced than the ones he represents. He misrepresents candidate X's argument, which makes it much weaker. After he attacks the weakened argument, he draws his own fallacious conclusion. This is a very common fallacy. Politicians do it all the time. Mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters do it all the time as well.

Let's take another example:

[It's dinner time. BLT's are on the menu. A plate of bacon is sitting in the middle of the table.]

Mom: "Look at all that grease.We're not getting any younger. We eat a lot of meat. Our blood pressure and cholesterol levels are probably at dangerous levels. If we want to live longer, we need to eat healthier. We should modify our diet. We should eat more vegetarian meals."
Dad: "Don't be ridiculous. After a hard days work, I'm not gonna sit down and waste my time nibbling on rice cakes and lettuce. If that's what you want to eat, be my guest. I don't want to eat foods that have no taste. Besides, I need protein, I need vitamins and minerals. I need iron. You can't get iron from rice cakes."

So mom concludes that her and her husband should eat more vegetarian meals. Dad takes her conclusion and exaggerates it. After he exaggerates it, mom's argument is much weaker than it was when she articulated it.There may be good reasons to reject mom's argument, but dad hasn't provided any.

Because we cherish many of our beliefs, we don't want them to come under fire. When we are engaged in an episode of argumentation--whether through speech or writing--it is easier to misrepresent an opponent's argument, especially when the argument is strong, than it is to accurately present it. We need to fight this urge.

Straw men should be built to keep crows away, not the reasoned and fair challenges our opponents present to us.  

Logical Lingo II

One of the seemingly stranger logical terms a student may encounter when listening to a debate or reading a correspondence between two opposing partisans is red herring. 

A quick check of the OED informs me that before it denoted an illogical relationship, red herring was part of a longer idiom derived from hunting. To draw a red herring across the track (or some similar verbal construction) meant that someone was using a smoked herring (which is a fish) to train hounds to follow a trail. 

This earlier meaning does not contain any negative or fallacious connotations. However, as a logical term red herring is common fallacy that when employed will inhibit people from communicating about controversial topics without losing their cool. 

Basically, a red herring is a big, bright, pink fish with a powerful odor. Although used initially to train hounds to follow a specific scent, the idiom associated with this process eventually came to mean something closer to its opposite.

To accuse a person making an argument of employing a red herring is to, in the broadest sense, accuse them of creating a diversion. Thus, instead of staying on course, instead of pursuing the topic at hand, by employing a red herring the speaker or the writer hopes to lead the audience away from the relevant trail.

After defining red herring, Robert J. Gula adds the following detail: "The red herring is invariably irrelevant and is often emotionally charged" (74). 

It's the emotionally-charged aspect that makes this particular fallacy so insidious to group discussion. Once the topic of debate becomes obscure or unclear, the chances the discussion will be productive is nil. To illustrate the effectiveness, especially in group discussion, of the red herring let's look at the following extended dialogue.

Jack: "The problem that I have with him is the truck he bought. I mean, in this day and age, how can anyone justify purchasing a car or truck that doesn't at least get 30 miles per gallon. The environment is falling apart: the amount of arctic ice is shrinking which is causing the polar bears to die off, there are areas in the Gulf of Mexico the size of Massachusetts that cannot support any life--no fish, no plants, no amoebas, nothing. Dead zones they call them--now we got a new way to capture energy. An innovation called fracking which provides us with natural gas only at the expense of our ground water supply. I suppose no one is perfect, but I think that buying a car or truck is one decision in which a person should strongly consider the environmental impact of their purchase. It's not like there aren't beautiful and reliable cars and trucks that get 30 miles per gallon on the market.

Jill: "I think he would admit that there are beautiful and reliable cars and trucks that get 30 miles per gallon on the market, but he needs a truck for work that he can afford. The cost of a suitable work truck that gets 30 miles per gallon would cost him an extra fifteen thousand dollars."

Jack: "I guess some people are greedier than others. What's strange is that Mike is supposedly a Christian. Doesn't the Bible have a verse in it that prohibits greedy people from entering heaven?"

Jill: "That's not what the Bible says. Besides, the Bible verse I think your referring to may not have been intended literally."

Jack: "How do you know what the Bible writers intended? Maybe they intended every verse to be taken literally. I know when I write something very important, when I write something that I want people to understand clearly, I intend it to be taken literally."

Jill: "You've never written a metaphor or simile before? That's ridiculous. I know that you write song lyrics that have all sorts of figurative language in them."

Jack: "I haven't written song lyrics in like six months. But even if I have written song lyrics before that doesn't mean I use symbolic language all the time. I suppose you never use language literally? You're a lawyer for crying out loud."

Jill: "Exactly. In order to practice law, I needed to pass the bar.  You think I took a stroll in Wrigleyville? Or that the judges brought in a Chubby Checker tape and the law students limboed our way into the profession?"

Jack: "Who's Chubby Checker?"

How does this dialogue look to you?

It seems all over the place, doesn't it?

It starts off focusing on the environment and whether an environmental concern, a vehicle's miles per gallon, should determine the vehicle a person purchases. This initial topic is abandoned when Jack uses a red herring in the second paragraph to respond to Jill's explanation. The composition of the Bible may be a fascinating topic to explore under the correct circumstances, but, in the above dialogue, Jack simply uses the Bible to divert the legitimate counter-claim that Jill makes.

Jack then introduces a second red herring into the discussion. Like biblical composition, biblical interpretation may be, under the proper circumstances, a fascinating topic to discuss, but in this dialogue, Jack simply uses it to complicate and divert Jill's focus.

Jill also uses a red herring. The issue that Jack brings up about his own employment of literal language is narrowly defined. Jill doesn't address the narrowness; rather, she broadens his meaning, and, in doing so, she complicates and diverts the direction of the dialogue.

This dialogue contains only two speakers, and it ends up sprawling into all kinds of complicated but unrelated topics. Also, I hope you get the sense of the emotional aspects creeping into each speaker's tone. Emotions are an important aspect of human judgment and human life, but appealing to emotion is not acceptable in logical reasoning. Anger, laughter, pity, sadness could each be appropriate mechanisms of persuasion, but they are not logical forms of persuasion.

The red herring can incite each one of these. And once an emotional incitement occurs, it is difficult to regain the civility and seriousness that was lost.

There are many nourishing items on the menu of logic. The red herring isn't one of them.

Logical Lingo I

For the next few weeks, I am going to blog about some different logical terms and phrases, including the non sequitur, the red herring, and the straw man. For this blog, I will specifically explore the non sequitur.

You probably noticed the italicized font. I know the suspense is killing you.

Non sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow," and it has a colloquial meaning and a logical meaning.

Colloquially, it can mean that a person suddenly changes the topic of discussion. For example, take the following dialogue between two old colleagues:

Pete: I'm can't understand why gas prices are so high. Did you watch the news this morning?
Kate: Yeah.
Pete: Do you hear anything about a storm forming in the Gulf of Mexico--maybe the big oil refineries are threatened?
Kate: Mike just texted me. He just won $10 on a scratch off ticket.

In this dialogue, Kate's final two statements could each be colloquially classified as a non sequitur. The question that Pete asked her is ignored. Instead, she provides him with irrelevant information.

The logical definition is a little different than its colloquial one. In its most general connotation, given its etymology, I suppose it could mean several different kinds of fallacies. Any fallacy that prevents the proper movement from premises to conclusion could be considered a non sequitur.

In Nonsense, our friendly guide, the late Robert J. Gula defines it a little more narrowly: He writes: "A non sequitur is a statement that claims to make a cause-and-effect relationship when, in fact, there is no logical connection between the premises and the conclusion" (56).

Although this piece of logical lingo may be new to you. I'm sure you've been subjected to the reasoning process that it condemns. For example, let's imagine the following argument:

Premise 1: If you want to be a great basketball player, you need to have a lot of stamina.
Premise 2: In order for you to have a lot of stamina, you need to do a lot of strenuous cardiovascular activity.
Premise 3: XYZ is a pair of basketball shoes that look cool with any dark basketball uniform.
Conclusion: XYZ will make you a better basketball player.

The conclusion above is, according to Gula's definition, a non sequitur. Premise 1 is true. Premise 2 also seems true. Let's suppose that premise 3 is also true. Does the conclusion follow (or "logically connect") from these three premises?

In other words, when you move from the beginning of the argument to the end of the argument, do the terms or concepts contained in the premises move to the conclusion in a logically acceptable manner?

Perhaps another example will help to show what I mean when I ask whether the conclusion follows from the premises. Let's take a look at the following argument:

Premise 1: If I miss the bus, then I will have to walk to school.
Premise 2: If I have to walk to school, then I will be all sweaty during my class.
Premise 3: If I am all sweaty during my class, then I will not be able to concentrate on my professor's lecture.
Premise 4: I missed the bus.

What conclusion follows from these four premises? Well, it follows from premise 4 and premise 1 that "I will have to walk to school." What follows from this? Look at premise 2.

When we look at premise 2, we know that "I will be sweaty during my class" follows from "my walking to school." What follows from this?

Our conclusion: "I will not be able to concentrate on my professor's lecture."

Now let's go back to the example with the basketball shoes. I guess it's possible that the conclusion  is true, but its relationship to the premises is very loose, so loose, in fact, it is close to being irrelevant. Because it states a causal conclusion that does not logically follow from the premises, it is, if we use Gula's definition, a non sequitur.

When you write a paper that calls for you to make an argument, you should watch out for the non sequitur. It might help to look carefully at your conclusion. If you write a paper about vegetarianism and conclude that "eating meat causes obesity," be sure that your premises are specific enough to support the conclusion. If your premises are all about the cruelty that animals endure in order for people to eat meat, then your conclusion will be a non sequitur.

I'm sure you can imagine many instances where a speaker or a writer might use a non sequitur as a means to persuasion. What we need to remember is that given there fallacious character, an argument that employs a non sequitur should not earn our vote.

Looking at what I've written about non sequiturs it probably doesn't surprise you that they play a big role in comedy--both sketch comedy and the unscripted kind that takes place between you and friends. For example, take the following examples:

"Let's go get some lunch. I've got a taste for a pizza. What about you?"
"Do clowns get paid by the hour or are they salaried?"

"Vegetarians live longer than carnivores. Maybe you should stop eating meat."
"The Bears won last night. 28-13."

"Let's stop at that gas station up there, so I can get a lottery ticket. The jackpot is up to 300 million."
"Martin Scorsese's been married five times. That fifth time must've been awkward during the vow exchange."

All these short dialogues are, or at least attempt to be, comedic instances of non sequiturs. They may not be funny, but I hope they help you see the comedic potential of the non sequitur.