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Unit 4: Rhetorical Fallacies
The Rhetorical Fallacy Trap
A rhetorical fallacy is basically faulty reasoning leading to a conclusion the advertiser, author, or speaker wants you to make.
They pop up often—in ads, in statements by politicians, in appeals from charities, in arguments from your own friends and family.
Skilled communicators such as political speech writers use them deliberately.
A rhetorical fallacy uses (or rather, mis-uses) language in order to trick you into accepting the author’s conclusion.
Spotting and Avoiding Rhetorical Fallacies
Think of a rhetorical fallacy as “fake evidence.”
It seems to support a conclusion that the author wants the reader to accept, but—on close examination—it doesn’t really lead to that conclusion.
You can identify rhetorical fallacies (and avoid them in your own work) by following this process:
Identify the conclusion.
Identify the evidence.
Examine the evidence.
Common Rhetorical Fallacies
Emphasizing the Person In this class of rhetorical fallacies, the evidence focuses on the person who supports a conclusion, not on the merits of the conclusion itself.
Ad Populum or “bandwagon”: A certain political candidate is ahead in the polls.
Since most people are going to vote for him, you should too.
Otherwise you’ll just be wasting your vote.
The happy crowd on the beach described at the beginning of this chapter is another instance of the “bandwagon” fallacy. All of these people are having a great vacation at this resort; you should go there, and you’ll have fun too. The conclusion is an action the author (or the advertiser) wants you to take —vote for this candidate, book a vacation at this resort. No support is provided to explain why the candidate is the best choice, or why the resort is better than others. The very thin evidence is only that others are doing it.
Argument from Authority: This rhetorical fallacy focuses solely on the credentials or fame of the person recommending the product, without saying anything about the product itself.
Dr. X recommends this medication to his patients, or well-known musician Y always drives this brand of car. Are they being paid by the manufacturers to endorse those products, or do the products have attributes that really make them superior? You’ll never know.
Ad Hominem: This rhetorical fallacy turns to the other side of the coin and points out negative characteristics of the person who promotes an idea or action.
By implication, the action is as negative as the person who endorses it. The mayor was caught plagiarizing an essay in college and was accused of embezzlement by a former employer. Therefore, his claim that municipal taxes must increase to cover necessary road repairs has to be a lie and an attempt to steal taxpayers’ money. Nothing is said about the actual condition of the roads.
Dogmatism: The conclusion must be correct because the author or speaker says it is and she can’t possibly be wrong.
After all, she is an internationally recognized authority on the subject, or she is the CEO of the most profitable company on the planet. She wouldn’t have risen to that position if she were ever wrong. No other reasons are presented to support the conclusion, and no opposing viewpoints are even considered.
Presenting Only Part of the Truth
Equivocation: This type of fallacy leaves out facts that a reader or listener would need in order to make a thorough assessment of the conclusion.
Equivocation often relies on ambiguous definitions of words.
For example: For $50, your home insurer may cover $100,000 in flood damage.
Check at the "definitions" part of your insurance and you may notice that the insurer regards "water damage" to be sewer backup damage.
Overland flooding and roof ice jams are excluded.
You undoubtedly imagined those incidents would all cause "water damage," and the insurer is depending on it to get you to spend the extra $50.
Sentimental Appeals: Charities often use this tactic when they ask for donations.
Starving children or clear-cut mountains that were previously clothed in lush trees evoke emotions rather than intellect.
This rhetorical error omits sensible justifications for why the charity merits your support.
What has it done recently to fix the problem? How much of your donation goes to programming, executive salaries, and "team-building" events? How much is it spending to raise donations?
Arousing Fear
Slippery Slope: According to this rhetorical fallacy, if you eat at a fast-food takeout once, pretty soon you’ll never want to eat healthy, nourishing home-cooked meals again.
According to this rhetorical fallacy, if you consume fast food once, you'll never want to eat wholesome, home-cooked meals again.
Thus, you must never eat at a fast-food takeout.
The author scares the reader into agreeing that the first action must not happen.
Scare Tactics: Here the speaker or author is trying to frighten you into agreeing with him.
If you don’t commit to a two-year contract, your monthly rate won’t be protected and prices are going to go through the roof in the next couple of years.
Who says? On what evidence does he make that prediction?
Weakening an Opposing Argument
These rhetorical fallacies present an opposing view in such a weak light that almost nobody would agree with it.
Readers would, instead, accept the author’s apparently stronger conclusion.
Red Herring: Instead of addressing the key issues of an opposing argument, a red herring fallacy focuses attention on an insignificant or irrelevant factor.
For instance, you should avoid eating green vegetables (the conclusion) because of the risk of salmonella contamination (the red herring).
This fallacy avoids the main points of the opposing argument in favor of green vegetables (such as nutritional content and health benefits).
Straw Man: The writer creates a straw man—something that’s easy to knock down and tear apart—as the opposing viewpoint.
For example, the mayor wants taxpayers to pay for a new bridge that will go to a vast new development.
She claims that opponents of this investment don't think the new bridge is required because subdivision residents can drive downtown, across the existing bridge, and back up the other side of the river to the new neighborhood in an additional half hour.
If you live, work, or shop in the new subdivision, it's easy to argue for a new bridge.
Making Inaccurate Connections
Faulty analogy: One thing is compared with a second thing, but the comparison is exaggerated or misleading or unreasonable.
“Hiking on that trail is like descending into a dungeon of horrors from which you might never return.”
Perhaps it’s just a challenging trail that leads through thick woods and would give you a good workout.
But not many people would try it after hearing the speaker’s comparison.
Faulty causality (also called Post hoc ergo propter hoc): This type of fallacy assumes that because one event happened shortly before another, the first event must have caused the second. (That’s what the long Latin name refers to, by the way).
“She wore her old Brand X runners instead of her new Brand Y runners, therefore she lost the race.” Well, maybe.
But perhaps she lost the race because she hadn’t trained sufficiently, or because her knee was sore that day, or because others were simply faster.
No evidence is presented to prove that the first event caused the second.
Reverse Causation: Causal arguments are often faulty because the reverse causation is equally plausible.
For example, “Eating too much chocolate can make you depressed.”
Well, it’s just as likely that depressed people might feel the urge to eat too much chocolate.
If the author says “A caused B,” ask yourself, “Is it also possible that B caused A?”
Twisting the Language
Begging the Question: In this rhetorical fallacy, an assumption which is not proven is used as evidence that the conclusion is correct.
For instance, "high-altitude skiing is such a deadly activity," (the proof) "that no one under the age of 18 should be allowed to undertake it" (the conclusion).
If the writer had shown with facts or instances that high-altitude skiing is risky for youth, that would be a valid argument.
But he doesn't.
He uses that premise to justify his conclusion.
Circular Argument: This fallacy says essentially the same thing in both the conclusion and in the evidence that allegedly supports it.
Sally cares about others (the conclusion) since she's always willing to help (the evidence).
Someone who helps others cares for them. Both the conclusion and the evidence describe the same idea.
The speaker's conclusion would have been stronger if he had supplied examples of Sally helping others and other acts of kindness.
Mismatch Between Evidence and Conclusion
Missing the point: The author offers evidence that supports a conclusion—it’s just not the same conclusion that the author reaches.
Picture a presenter with stunning slides of northern plains meadows, deep woods, and subarctic tundra—grizzly bears' favored habitats.
She cites evidence showing that the grizzly population is dwindling and being forced into fewer territory as humans exploit their habitats.
As a result, she suggests transferring small groups of grizzlies to explore if they can adapt to areas with less human competition for land. She offers wetlands and high western mountains.
Non Sequitur: This Latin term means, “it doesn’t follow.”
In this rhetorical fallacy, the conclusion is not logically related to the evidence that preceded it.
Unstated Assumptions
False Dichotomy: This rhetorical fallacy assumes a black-and-white world in which there is no middle ground, no other alternative.
“If we don’t launch a preemptive attack and destroy the enemy first, they will destroy us.”
No consideration is given to other possibilities, such as a diplomatic solution or a small-scale limited strike.
Hasty Generalization: Here the author or speaker assumes that a limited experience foreshadows the entire experience.
“I could tell from the first few minutes that the movie was going to be unbearably boring, so I left rather than waste any more of my time.”
Maybe the director deliberately starts off slowly in order to intensify viewers’ reactions to the terrifying monster that is about to appear.
Non-testable hypothesis: In this rhetorical fallacy, anything that has not been proven false is assumed to be true; the author doesn’t need to prove it’s true.
For example, suppose an environmental group claims that average temperatures across the entire North American continent would fall by 1° Celsius if we switched completely to renewable energy.
Since we have never abandoned fossil fuels entirely, it’s impossible to prove that the group’s claim is false.
Therefore, the argument assumes it must be true.