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Fallacy Summary and Application Paper The Questionable Cause Fallacy According to Wikipedia information, the Questionable Cause Fallacy is also known as non causa pro causa, causal fallacy or false cause. General structure of the Questionable Cause Fallacy is as follows: A and B are regularly associated Therefore A is the cause of B This fallacy is committed when somebody considers one thing causes the other because both of them are associated and regularly connected. To explain in other words it means that a person assumes that A is a cause of B because B comes after A. The error being made is that a causal conclusion is being drawn from inadequate evidence (Fallacy: Questionable Cause, n. p. ).
The main advice to avoid the questionable cause fallacy is to draw attention to making causal conclusions. General questionable cause fallacy has several fallacies that are specific examples of it (Confusing Cause and Effect fallacy and Post Hoc fallacy). Post Hoc fallacy assumes its name because of the Latin phrase post hoc, ergo proper hoc (after this, therefore because of this). Lets demonstrate the fallacy with several examples. A politician claims that the country reached stability in economics after he signed a new law concerning taxes.
This is demonstration of Questionable Cause Fallacy. Economic stability of the country can not be logical cause of the new law regarding taxation. Situation: Cindy receives a letter where somebody threatens her with run of bad luck if she will not re-send twenty copies of letters to other people within one day. Cindy laughs at this stupid thread and forgets about it. Several weeks later she falls on evil days: she quarrels with her friend; she looses her bag and misses the train to London.
Cindy starts to remember the chain of events and remembers the letter somebody sent to her. Cindy assumes that the letter is the cause of her bad luck. This is False Fallacy. Run of bad luck cannot be directly associated with the threatening letter, because the causal conclusion is being drawn from inadequate evidence. Money makes people arrogant. This assumption is also erroneous and illustrates the Questionable Cause Fallacy.
Not all people become arrogant because of money. Arrogance cannot be caused by money. Tip: A person should try to prove that something is a cause of certain result and present sufficient evidence. Straw Man Fallacy A person introduces an argument one can easily disprove.
Straw Man Fallacy also takes place when a person tries to misinterpret the position of his opponent in order to attack it. Straw Man Fallacy is quite popular in political debates where the politician tries to attack a less defensible position to take priority of his opponent. T. Edward Damer (p. 158) considers Straw Man Fallacy to be the most commonly used fallacy. The person tries to attack his opponents position and has the aim to attack it. Instead of refuting real position he attacks the position not held by his opponent.
The arguer reminds the fighter who lost his target. Lets demonstrate the fallacy with several examples. Feminists want to ban all pornography and punish everyone who reads it! But such harsh measures are surely inappropriate, so the feminists are wrong: porn and its readers should be left in peace (Fallacies: Mistakes in the Logic of Arguments, n. p. ). The argument is weak and erroneous.
Feminists actually dont put an aim to punish everyone who reads pornography. They propose a number of restrictions on child porn and video, etc. In such a way, there is a logical fallacy. Opposition to the North American Free Trade Agreement amounts to nothing but opposition to free trade (Philosophical Societies. com, n. p. ) This argument is absurd, because a person can oppose the North American Free Trade Agreement and at the same time he can support the concept of free trade.
In such a way, the supposition doesnt have any sense and can be disproved easily. Individualists believe whatever an individual wants is right and the desires and welfare of others is none of their concern; so, to individualists, there is nothing an individual does for their own benefit, no matter how much it harms others, that is wrong" (Logical Fallacies, Formal and Informal, n. p. ) The opponent presents opinion in a false way. He misinterprets facts and they can be easily refuted.
Actually, the position to believe whatever an individual wants is right and the desires and welfare of others is none of their concern; so, to individualists, there is nothing an individual does for their own benefit, no matter how much it harms others, that is wrong belongs rather to subjectivism than to individualism. "[N]ot one of 800 sexologists at a recent conference raised a hand when asked if they would trust a thin rubber sheath to protect them during intercourse with a known HIV infected person. And yet they " re perfectly willing to tell our kids that 'safe sex' is within reach and that they can sleep around with impunity (Dobson, James) Fallacy of Inconsistency When a person makes contradictory statements in order to support his conclusion we call it a Fallacy of Inconsistency. The phrase contains Fallacy of Inconsistency when it has two arguments that are logically incompatible with each other. These arguments can be separated in time or given together.
Sometimes contradictory statements can be obvious, whereas there are statements difficult to spot. Contradictory statements are often used within an emotional content when a person looses his temper and cannot present logical forcible arguments. Lets demonstrate the fallacy of inconsistency with several examples. My opponents accusations that our policies have damaged the economy are entirely false. The economy has never been stronger. Our aid packages are providing decent food, shelter, clothing, and medical care for more people than ever before.
Our new total employment bill will provide jobs for every citizen who has lost a job over the last four years (Logical Fallacies, Formal and Informal, n. p. ) The conclusions are inconsistent with the premises. The economy has never been stronger conflicts with aid packages are providing decent food, shelter, clothing, and medical care for more people than ever before. A woman represents herself as a feminist. She fights for equal rights and freedoms.
At the same time she is offended when her boyfriend asks her to pay a half of the bill in the restaurant. This is illustration of Fallacy of Inconsistency. The actions of woman are inconsequent. She needs either to represent herself as a feminist and to have equal rights (i.
e. to pay for herself in the restaurant) or not to uphold the position of feminist at all. Bibliography Damer, T. E. (1995). Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments.
Third Edition. Wadsworth Dobson, James C. (February 13, 1992). Fund-raising letter for Focus on the Family Fallacies: Mistakes in the Logic of Arguments. Retrieved October 10, 2005.
web Fallacy: Questionable Cause. Retrieved October 10, 2005. < web > Logical Fallacies, Formal and Informal. Retrieved October 10, 2005. web Philosophical Societies. com Website. Logical Fallacies.
Retrieved October 10, 2005. web
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Research essay sample on North American Free Trade Agreement Logical Fallacies
