Secondly, all of the argument’s premises are true. So there will be a popular revolutionary uprising in at least one other Arab country in the next few years. Non-deductive, as evidenced by the words “it’s most probable”. Based on a guide originally created Corliss Lee at the University of California, Berkeley, except the tab on bad arguments, which was originally created by Ethan Annis. There are no clear indicator words in this argument to help us in making a choice. Furthermore, the premises do not seem to be intended to demonstrate beyond doubt that there will be a popular revolutionary uprising in at least one other Arab country in the next few years, but rather to suggest that this is quite likely to happen. Rapid Generalization or Cherry Picking Evidence: This is when someone assumes that one example or a very small number of samples constitutes a universal pattern. Game over. Those poor Millennials who want to live under socialism are being told that they are incredibly deluded: socialism is very, very bad. But the case for basic income is being hampered by dubious arguments being made on its behalf. It’s a bad argument. Learn how to deal with stress at work and in your personal life through building resilience skills. For instance, if you eat a cookie, soon the entire box will be gone and then you will go to the store and buy all the cookies... Appeal to the People:  This argues that the crowd must be correct. Now, suppose you’re facing a deductive argument. LordZB. So the argument is weak. There are two kinds of arguments: deductive and non-deductive. [Premise]. Nonetheless, it is clear that author is trying to get us to believe something about socialism, and it’s not supposed to be pretty. Support your professional development and learn new teaching skills and approaches. Slippery Slope:  This is an argument that says that if you allow a little, soon a sequence of increasingly undesirable events will happen. Explore the science and research behind individual success and learn practical ways of reaching your goals at work and in life. It’s a bit quick to accuse your neighbour of stealing the parrot. In that case, perhaps it shouldn’t be included here as a bad argument, for it is not even reasonable enough to make it to the category of argument at all. [Premise], (2)          Any form of government that did many bad things is very bad. [1,2]. It looks like you're using Internet Explorer 11 or older. This content is taken from the The University of Auckland's online course. There’s been a popular revolutionary uprising in Egypt, another North African Arab nation. (1)          Socialism just is taking innocent people and killing them. If you continue with this browser, you may see unexpected results. And it’s now quite simple: good arguments are either cogent or sound, otherwise, they are bad. We all sometimes fall into logical fallacies but in order to avoid them in our own arguments, and defend ourselves from them when they are used against us, it’s necessary to be able to recognize them. Hence, the argument is not cogent, and is, therefore, bad. For instance, Chicago has a high crime rate therefore the USA has a high crime rate. Deductive, as evidenced by the use of the word `doubtless’. Used with permission of Corliss Lee. On Bad Arguments. Of course, a professor might have reasons to think that the student’s answer still deserves marks (maybe even full marks) even though the student’s answer is bad – in our understanding of ‘bad’. There’s been a popular revolutionary uprising in Bahrain, yet another North African Arab nation. A logical fallacy is an argument that uses a false basis in an attempt to persuade. For example, appealing to an expert in physics to argue about abortion. It’s too bad to be a bad argument. The Walkman appeared in 1979, the invention of Sony, and headphones became part of a walking outfit. Appeal to Irrelevant Authority:  These arguments appeal to someone who is not an authority on the subject of the argument. [Premise], (3)          Socialism is very bad. Therefore, Liliane is Sylvie’s sister. Think of a student sitting in a mathematics exam and making a crucial mistake in a proof. This section lists a few types of bad arguments. As you may have noticed, every argument that has false premises is bad. We will thus treat the argument as a non-deductive one. Then the argument is cogent, and is, therefore, good. Notice that if you didn’t agree that the argument was strong, then you thought it was weak, and a weak argument is a bad argument, so you would agree that the argument is bad, but we would have different reasons for thinking that the argument is bad. But now the problem is this: if the author of the argument affirms premise (2), we could run a parallel argument against capitalism: (1)          Capitalist governments have killed innocent people. Maybe it wasn’t meant to give anyone an actual reason to reject socialism. But the first premise is false. Therefore neither contradictory statement should be viewed as true. Does that mean that the conclusion of the argument is false? Even the conclusion is not stated explicitly. First effort:  The caption seems to assert that socialism just is what is being depicted, namely taking an innocent person and shooting her. So how can one revise the first premise so that it has a chance of being true, and yet still have a valid argument? Speeding is well known to be one of the main causes of accidents, regardless of the skills and confidence of the speeding driver. Perhaps I am construing the anti-socialist meme too narrowly. And the answer is ‘no’, because: So at least two premises of the argument are false. So if there is a decent argument to be seen here, I haven’t found it, but I welcome efforts to spell one out. Discover how to make better personal and professional decisions, and how the brain could be more flexible than we think. Liliane is Patrick’s sister, and Patrick is Sylvie’s brother. Personal Attack or Ad Hominem Attack: These are arguments against the person arguing rather than the substance of the argument. "Truth, Politics and the Power of Contradiction" The New York Times May 7, 2016, This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. [Premise]. For instance: "The reason the tsunami struck this coast was because of the religion of the people who lived on the coast.". Not a Cause for a Cause:  These arguments assume causation when there is a coincidental sequence. Now, suppose you’re facing a deductive argument. If we take the argument to be a deductive one, it would be quite easy to show that it’s invalid. Adapted from: An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi. If there is a purple elephant in the hall, then I am a giant turkey. If the argument is invalid, then it’s a bad argument: it’s an argument that is intended to give conclusive support for it’s conclusion, but fails to do so. For example, take Dostoevsky's line, “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.” Discussions of objective morality aside, the appeal to the apparent grim consequences of a purely materialistic world says nothing about whether or not the antecedent is true. Maybe the image is just supposed to convey that socialist governments did many bad things. Browse more in Business & Management and Psychology & Mental Health. Finally, there’s been a popular revolutionary uprising in Iran, which is an Arab nation. As the Wikipedia article quoted in the About Fake News page, bad arguments deliberately "spread of misinformation in social media or traditional news media with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically." Argument by meme: an anti-socialism argument . Download: 0611boudreaux It’s regrettable but not surprising that many people are ignorant of economics, of history, and of all the other disciplines that are important to our understanding of society. For example: If you smoke pot, even only once in your life, you are very likely to start using heroin. Otherwise, you may have a non-deductive argument, in which case the argument is either strong or weak. If all premises are true, then they provide evidence that there’s some political instability that is spreading in that region of the world, and this makes it quite probable that the spread won’t stop. In the case of bad consequences, such an argument may instead appeal to an audience's fears. This article is from the free online course: Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join: Learners who joined this course have also enjoyed these courses. In this case, the argument is not cogent. Now premise (1) is true, and I’ve added a second premise that will allow the conclusion to follow logically. Donald J. Boudreaux. This meme doesn’t look much like an argument: no premises are identified, no inferences.Even the conclusion is not stated explicitly. If the argument is valid, there are two cases: Firstly, the argument has false premises, in which case it is not sound. Circular Reasoning:  This argument says, "I'm right, because I say I am right. 15 Bad Arguments We All Abuse. Bahrain is not a North African Arab nation. All we can conclude is that the reasons provided in this argument do not give grounds to believe the conclusion, but it may be that another argument with better premises and the same conclusion is a good one. Now we’re asking if the premises are true. We left our parrot in the house this morning. However, of course we could then run parallel versions of this argument against capitalism or democracy, for it can hardly be denied that capitalist, democratic governments have done many horrible things. Secondly, all of the argument’s premises are true. It’s not true that if you are a confident driver and have never been in an accident, that driving over the speed limit is not dangerous for you or others. We use cookies to give you a better experience. That is, are all the premises true? To be fair, there were innocent people who were summarily executed in state socialist countries, but to define socialism as this practice would be absurd. Learn new skills with a flexible online course, Earn professional or academic accreditation, Study flexibly online as you build to a degree. Wednesday, November 1, 2006. You could say that the premises fail to provide support for the conclusion altogether. They are also often used to distract from the real news. Game over. If all the premises happen to be true, given the number of Arab countries there are, we’ll say the argument is reasonably strong. [Premise], (2)          Any form of government that has killed innocent people is very bad. [1,2], (1)          Democratic governments have killed innocent people. Bad arguments can be used for many of the same purposes as fake news. One might try this: (1)          Socialist governments have killed innocent people. The picture and the caption are presumably intended to give us some sort of reason to believe that conclusion. So the proponent of that argument cannot deny that premise here but affirm it in their own argument. Changing Reality to Suit a Belief:  If someone said that all swans are white and then encountered a black swan, which could be confirmed to be a swan based on genetic tests, then the person could redefine swan to necessarily be the color white. 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