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Diversion & Relevancy Fallacies
Ignoratio Elenchi (“Ignorance of Refutation”)
– Shifting the Argument, Changing the Subject
– Missing the Point
Red Herring
– Misdirection, Smokescreen
Argumentum ad Hominem (“Argument Against the Person”)
– (1) Abusive, (2) Circumstantial, & (3) Tu Quoque
– Poisoning the Well
– Guilt by Association
– Genetic Fallacy
– Two Wrongs Make a Right
Argumentum ad Populum (“Appeal to the People”)
Argumentum ad Misericordiam (“Appeal to Pity”)
Argumentum ad Baculum (“Appeal to the Stick”)
– Might Makes Right
Straw Man Fallacy
– Principle of Charity & Virtue Epistemology
Good argumentation is to the point.
It consists in providing evidence that is relevant for a specific conclusion.
Fallacious argumentation diverts attention away from the issue at hand.
Ignoratio Elenchi (“Ignorance of Refutation”)
Logicians differ on classifying fallacies. Some have grouped the argumentum ad hominem, argumentum ad populum, and several others as sub-types of the ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
A “broad” definition of this fallacy allows this.
When an argument demonstrates (or attempts), not the proposed conclusion in question, but some other conclusion, then we have the ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
An arguer has “shifted the argument,” “changed the subject,” or is “missing the point.” The argument was supposed to be about conclusion X, but the arguer actually argues for conclusion Y. While Y might be related to X, it is not identical to X.
Example A: Political candidates are debating the merits of an insurance healthcare bill. In favor of the bill, one of the candidates argues about the importance of having good health insurance. He concludes that the bill must be signed into law.
The premise that people need good health insurance doesn’t itself establish the conclusion that the bill is a good one. It’s thereby a non sequitur. That is, the conclusion doesn’t validly derive from the premise(s).
More importantly, it’s an example of the ignoratio elenchi fallacy insofar as the politician’s argument, at most, shows that people need good health insurance (Y), not that this bill is a good one (X). Those are different conclusions (Y ≠ X).
He did nothing to prove the contradictory of the proposition “this bill is not a good one.”
An ignoratio elenchi has been committed by a person “if he proved anything other than the exact contradictory of his opponent’s thesis,” as Peter Coffey explained in his second volume to The Science of Logic (p. 315). This is Aristotle’s definition.
Hence, with Example A, the politician, at most, might have proved the contradictory of the proposition “people do not need good health insurance.” He did not prove “this bill is a good one” (X), which is the contradictory of “this bill is not a good one” (~X).
How about an example from philosophy?
George Joyce in Principles of Logic (p. 277) provides us the next example.
Example B: George Berkeley argued that man’s mind cannot form universal concepts.
Berkeley: “I can imagine a man with two heads or the upper part of a man joined to the body of a horse. I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted or separated from the rest of the body. But then whatever hand or eye I imagine, it must have some particular shape or colour. … I cannot by an effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above described.”
(From Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge, introduction, § 10.)
All that Berkeley has shown is that we cannot form a universal phantasm, not that we cannot form a universal concept. Hence, we have here the ignoratio elenchi fallacy.
Review “Concepts, Signs, & Names” on this website.
Aristotelian-Scholastic logic repudiates Berkeley’s view here.
His argument is a bad one, when considering the philosophical details.
A phantasm is necessarily particular. For example, if you have a mental picture (a.k.a. phantasm) of a triangle, it cannot be scalene, isosceles, and equilateral at once. The universal concept, though, necessarily embraces all three possibilities. And we have no problem holding onto that universal concept. Hence, Berkeley’s argument fails.
Essentially, Berkeley argued for “nominalism.” This is in contrast to Aristotelian “realism.”
Universals, for the realist, are objective. There are patterns in the world to discover. We can claim, “that’s a triangle” or “that’s a dog” because there are common features that make unique things triangles and dogs.
Consider that the truth of “one plus one equals two” doesn’t depend upon man. It expresses a truth that’s universal — it’s always true. It was true before man existed and would be true if man didn’t exist. (The proposition of “one plus one being two,” moreover, is distinct from its English sentence.)
By the way, the great Richard Weaver wrote a famous idiosyncratic book on the destructive social influence of nominalism called Ideas Have Consequences.
Red Herring
Related but not identical to the ignoratio elenchi is a red herring.
Engaging in an ignoratio elenchi produces an irrelevant conclusion.
Engaging in a red herring introduces an irrelevant issue into an argument.
Some textbooks claim that the term gets its name from fox hunting. Supposedly, strong smelling fish would be dragged by pranksters along pathways to confuse hounds in their search for the foxes.
(Other sources claim it was rather a way to train the hounds to search for the initial scent.)
In argumentation a “red herring” distracts one away from the actual argument.
It “misdirects.” It can be a “smokescreen.”
It “changes the subject,” similar to the ignoratio elenchi.
Be aware that people often treat the term “red herring” in a colloquial sense, not a technical sense. Yet it is technically distinct from the ignoratio elenchi.
This raises a new complication, however. It was mentioned above that several common fallacies are sub-types of a “broad” definition of the ignoratio elenchi. But in practice, there may be times when a particular instance of one of these common fallacies is probably better thought of as a “red herring.”
The devil is in the details.
Regardless, it’s more important to spot a fallacy than to classify it.
Imagine two people in a debate. One person gives an argument with premises and a conclusion. Another person replies. This reply doesn’t address any of those premises. It rather brings up an irrelevant issue.
Example A: “What justifies the expensive cost of the new energy bill?”
“That’s an important question,” the politician replies, “voters know my record has stood for openness and clean air. We must think of the children!”
Examples B & C: Professor Allan Donato on YouTube provides this. . .
Example C, I think, is pretty interesting for a red herring. Notice that the reply doesn’t address the specific argument at hand (i.e., a cosmological and intelligent design argument). It shifts the debate into another argument (i.e., a problem of evil argument). That, by itself, doesn’t refute the initial argument!
To be fair, this might be a snapshot from a debate. A reply might be made more relevant by further argumentation. It’s possible, e.g., for somebody to argue that the problem of evil doesn’t refute the need for an “intelligent designer,” but only refutes that “God” has the attribute of omnibenevolence. Then again, wouldn’t that be an ignoratio elenchi?!*
With that said, the example is a fine one; it is a red herring.
*Note this technicality. Greater context often weakens our ability to definitively label something as having the precise fallacy of XYZ. (For example, it may be a combination of fallacies.) Some philosophers have therefore argued that “fallacy lists” are not as useful as we might believe.
For what it’s worth, I think they are of value! But we should suspect that greater context makes things more difficult precisely because we’re moving away from general, “formal” structures. Lists of fallacies, so to speak, describe general trends. As things get more particularized, things get messier.
In Scholastic terminology, things become less generalized and less intelligible with greater “matter.” (That’s why, relatively speaking, mathematics, with no “matter” and only formal structures, is so exacting, rigorous, and intelligible.)
Argumentum ad Hominem (“Argument Against the Person”)
Is this the most well-known fallacy? Probably.
That doesn’t mean everyone has a good understanding of it!
Just calling somebody a mean name doesn’t count.
And arguing against a person can be appropriate.
A colleague walks past you, and out of the blue, calls you an “idiot.” There was no argument presented. Hence, no fallacy could have been committed.
“This guy’s testimony is worthless. He is a self-serving, lying ideologue.” Is a lawyer in the courtroom who says this engaging in a fallacy? No, because the issue in question is the person’s character.
The argumentum ad hominem is a fallacy insofar as the issue is not the person. Person 1 makes argument X. Person 2 responds, not by addressing X as it stands, but by bringing up an irrelevant issue, namely, Person 1’s character or other personal attributes.
The argumentum ad hominem fallacy is often divided into. . .
(1) abusive, (2) circumstantial, and (3) tu quoque.
The abusive form is aimed at the person directly. Instead of addressing a person’s actual arguments, there’s an irrelevant attack on a person’s character.
Example A: “…Those are ten reasons the U.S. government should have greater immigration controls,” concludes a political candidate.
“Well, you’re a racist and your argument is racist,” replies a journalist.
It’s a big red herring. Epithets are commonly used in political discourse as a means to dismiss someone’s concrete argument. Clearly, they logically do no such thing. Calling someone a “racist,” “homophobe,” “anarchist,” “statist,” “sexist,” “commie,” “right-wing extremist”, or whatever is no substitute for rational argumentation.
Example B: “You cannot take any argument from him about law seriously, as he is a druggie, pervert, and loser.”
As a preemptive attack, it’s an example of “poisoning the well.” That is, we’re put into a position to be biased against him regardless of what his actual arguments may be.
The circumstantial form is aimed at dismissing a person’s arguments via alleging particular circumstances affect the argument’s cogency.
Example C: “You’re a man; so, of course you think that about abortion rights. Your opinion, as a man, doesn’t count.”
Example D: “Your argument against affirmative action is wicked, it only upholds your white privilege.”
These should be obvious examples.
While it is true that women experience different things from men, there is no “woman” ideology as such (nor a “black” or “white” ideology as such). And there is no “woman’s” perspective on abortion, since women in fact disagree with each other on the topic. Argumentation over the topic deals with propositions, inferences, etc. Those are not properties of sex or sexual organs but come from minds, and all of us as human beings — of whatever particular sex or race — are human precisely because we are “rational animals.”
Dismissing someone’s argument because the person is a man, a woman, white, black, or whatever is a textbook example of the argumentum ad hominem fallacy.
Furthermore, something can be true even if the person who claims it as being true somehow benefits from its truth. As Thomist philosopher Edward Feser points out in All One in Christ it’s “irrelevant to allege in response that such a claim would somehow uphold ‘white advantage.'” The argument can be perfectly sound or strong, “regardless of who may or may not benefit” (p. 76).
Consider the next example from Professor Feser:
Example E: “Suppose a greengrocer says that eating lots of fruits and vegetables is much healthier than eating lots of candy, and cites medical evidence to that effect. Would pointing out that he would benefit from people buying fruits and vegetables by itself give us sufficient reason to reject his claim or the evidence he cites?” (ibid, pp. 75-76)
“Guilt by association” and the “genetic fallacy” are related to the ad hominem. Don’t take my diagram above as definitive, though. There’s no exact topology. Also, lines quickly blur between abusive and circumstantial. Abusive is more direct, so to speak; circumstantial is more indirect as an attack on the person.
Any ad hominem focuses in on the person, not the actual arguments.
In “guilt by association” the focus is to dismiss the person based on some supposedly bad association. The “genetic fallacy” happens when one focuses in on the allegedly bad origins of an argument. To be sure, this might or might not be an ad hominem strictly.
Suppose it is. It would dismiss a person’s argument by claiming its origin is from a disreputable person. Or it might be to claim that a person’s argument can be dismissed because of a supposed psychological origin.
Example F: “You sound just like a commie. So, your argument is pathetic.”
Example G: “You’re wrong. You only believe in that because your parents do.”
Example H: “You’re wrong. You believe in that because it makes you feel safe.”
The “tu quo” form of the ad hominem fallacy consists of accusing an opponent of hypocrisy. It’s the “you too” fallacy.
My opponent criticizes something I’ve done, for example, and then I reply, “You’ve done it, too.” My reply is a fallacious attempt to disprove his criticism.
Example I: “You can’t tell me not to become an alcoholic, you are an alcoholic!”
Example J: “My opponent calls me a liar, but he’s said many whoppers!”
Pointing out inconsistency itself does nothing to disprove a person’s argument.
A hypocrite’s argument might be perfectly sound.
Nonetheless, tu quo is not always a fallacy. Pointing out inconsistency is often the correct response. When the argument is about the person, a person’s inconsistency may be relevant. Additionally, when the argument is over a set of premises, those premises might be inconsistent with each other and, thus, it is logical to point out that those premises cannot all be true.
In regard to the latter, imagine a politician who holds the positions of “supporting a maximally limited government” and “supporting an expansion of government surveillance power.” These are inconsistent. Expanding government surveillance power cannot be done while maintaining a maximally limited government.
Related to the tu quo is the “two wrongs make a right” fallacy. This fallacy appears during war. E.g., “They bombed civilians; so, it’s legitimate if we do.”
Example K: “He did it, too. So it was OK for me. He can’t criticize me!”
Argumentum ad Populum (“Appeal to the People”)
Another fallacy of relevancy is the argumentum ad populum. Somebody argues for conclusion X either by (1) citing that many people agree with X or (2) rousing emotions of a crowd to agree with X. No further argumentation is provided.
Proving that most agree with X is not the same thing as proving X.
Hence, the ignoratio elenchi fallacy is present.
And while rhetoric and emotions have a place, and are not per se illegitimate, just getting individuals to be subjectively aroused to believe in X doesn’t prove X is true. Hence, such argumentation diverts away from sound reasoning.
This fallacy is further explored on the “Testimony & Unsound Authority” page.
Argumentum ad Misericordiam (“Appeal to Pity”)
Evoking pity (sympathy) to fallaciously argue for a conclusion is the argumentum ad misericordiam. It’s a red herring. Apropos, we could moreover subcategorize it as a “fallacy of subjectivism.” Subjective feelings become a substitute for objective evidence.
The “standard” textbook example is something like. . .
Example A: “I deserve a passing score because I studied for weeks! My parents will kill me. My career will be ruined. You will destroy my life.”
Students do make those arguments!
Alas, a few students will make the next argument. . .
Example B: “…You can’t argue for that! I feel hurt and unsafe.”
Indeed, someone feeling hurt and unsafe might have a psychological disorder.
That is what modern day “wokeness” encourages.
Argumentum ad Baculum (“Appeal to the Stick”)
Physical or psychological threats should have no place in rational discourse. Efforts to get somebody to accept an argument via force, i.e., the stick, is an argumentum ad baculum.
Example A: “Agree with me, or I’ll hit you on the head!”
A threat is no proof that my argument is any good.
A threat might indicate that it’s very bad indeed!
Example B: “Change your liberal thesis or I’ll give you a failing grade.”
Related examples include the idea that “might makes right.” Or that the victors in a bloody war get the last word to decide what’s right or what’s wrong. Someone might fallaciously argue, “The war settled that political/moral/theological question.”
Threats can incite our emotions to mislead us; fear can make us misjudge.
Hence it diverts us off from looking at things rationally, objectively.
Demagogues can make use of this type of argumentation.
And, since we’re thinking about arguments, keep in mind that a threat per se is not an argument. Not every example of a threat is an argumentum ad baculum. Pretend a mugger enters your house. You yell, “Don’t come closer or I’ll shoot!” It’s not an argument nor is a threat (for example) to defend yourself wrong.
Interesting issues are raised by this fallacy.
Shouldn’t it be characteristic of the human being, as a rational animal, to persuade each other rationally? If you’re convinced of X and I’m convinced of non-X, is it not better, as a general rule, to rationally argue with each other rather than to physically fight each other?
And if that’s so, what are the conditions so that we can argue with each other? It seems we should respect each other, as individual human beings, so as to peacefully engage in argumentation.
Douglas Walton writes this in his Informal Logic:
“In reasonable dialogue, an arguer should have the freedom to make up his own mind whether or not to accept a conclusion, based on the argument for it . . . The threat of force no longer leaves these options open to reason, and tries to forcefully close off the possibilities of free dialogue. Force seems contrary to the aims of reason” (p. 117).
Straw Man Fallacy
The straw man fallacy consists in distorting someone’s argument making it appear weaker than it actually is. An arguer builds up a “straw man” and then easily knocks it down. That “straw man” might oversimplify an argument, exaggerate portions of it making it appear ridiculous or stupid, present weak versions of the argument, or take out of context an opponent’s words on the subject at hand.
Setting up a straw man may or may not be intentional.
It can be done unknowingly, though it still remains a fallacious argument!
Since we’ve beat up poor George Berkeley more than enough, consider the following example. This comes directly from Dr. Peter Kreeft’s Socratic Logic textbook. . .
Example A: “That great paragon of common sense, Samuel Johnson, … ‘refuted’ Berkeley’s philosophical claim that so-called material things were really ideas … by kicking a stone, and saying ‘Thus I refute Berkeley’” (p. 80).
This is an oversimplification of Berkeley’s philosophy. Tactile experience is accounted for by his philosophy — at least there is an attempt to account for it! There’s nothing special about tactile experience in comparison to visual experience.
For Berkely, esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived). Tactile experience itself is the product of minds alone. Berkeley’s philosophy might be wrong (I think it is!), though not because of Johnson’s argument.
Johnson’s argument can be classified under the ignoratio elenchi fallacy, too. That’s because Johnson’s argument only proves that stones exist, not that Berkeley’s view of a stone’s ontological status is erroneous.
Example B: “You Catholics, by subscribing to papal infallibility, believe popes make no mistakes and cannot do immoral things.”
Example C: “You liberals, by subscribing to secularism, believe religion has no place in society.”
Example D: “Arguments for the existence of God are based on the premise ‘everything has a cause.’”
Straw man arguments are caricatures.
Example B distorts a Catholic’s view of papal infallibility, which is greatly restricted and narrow in scope. Papal infallibility neither prevents a pope from acting immorally nor stops a pope from talking nonsense on theology.
Example C is ambiguous on the term “liberal.” (Who exactly is being referred to? Contemporary left-liberals or classical liberals, for example?) Even so, many “liberals,” while wanting a separation of State and Church, grant religion a place in the private sphere. Others are more hostile.
Example D gets the traditional arguments for God’s existence entirely wrong. None of them rest on the premise that “everything” has a cause. Rather, the arguments concern those specific things, e.g., which come into being or change.
Example E:
Cathy Newman’s interview with psychologist Jordan Peterson from several years ago became an Internet sensation due to the number of times Newman said, “So, what you’re saying is…” She then proceeded to give a straw man.
Principle of Charity
Knowingly setting up and attacking a straw man is an act of dishonesty. Logic is a normative science. It’s a tool to help us obtain truth.
Assessing somebody’s argument should be done fairly. Honestly evaluate an argument in such a way to interpret it as generously as possible. Consider an argument in the best light possible. Only then should we consider criticizing it, if it deserves criticism.
Debate can put us in flight-or-fight mode. This turns off our ability to be rational. Our goal shouldn’t be to win debates per se. Rather, it should be to discover truth.
Truth should be what we conform ourselves to.
Good philosophy is an openness to and embrace of reality.
According to Aristotle, understanding and justification are the aims of our reasoning.
The virtues of the intellect are developed through learning. As we are “rational animals,” it’s for our good that we develop our intellects. And that requires us to think in a rational, objective manner. Acting irrationally, in fact, is immoral.
In Book 2, Chapter 1 of Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle mentions the intellectual virtues of (1) craft or art, (2) science, (3) prudence, (4) wisdom, and (5) understanding.
Contemporary philosophers, working in virtue epistemology, have added virtues like being humble, honest, careful, and studious. Developing these virtues should help us not to engage in straw men or other fallacious reasoning. They will help us apply the principle of charity.
[N.B.: proofreading of this page was provided by a friend. Thank you, Keith!]