ANALYZING ARGUMENTSRhetoric, Appeals and Fallacies

RHETORIC

Your communication toolkit. The ability to find the best means of persuasion in any situation. Three rhetorical strategies:

Pathos: Appeals to the emotions of an audience

Ethos: Appeals to the ethics of the audience or to the authority of the speaker

Logos: Appeals to logic

PATHOS

Appeals to emotion; Examples: when a TV commercial

shows pictures of cute kids or puppies/kittens, it is using Pathos.

Pictures of wounded soldiers on a battlefield

A grandfather playing with his grandchildren

A US flag with the sound of “God Bless America” playing

ETHOS

Appeals to ethics; Quoting Alan Greenspan in an

argument about the economy Interviewing your grandmother about

family history The 10 Commandments The Golden Rule

LOGOS

Appeals to logic Examples: the scientific method Using statistics Using forensic evidence

FALLACIES

When good arguments go bad. The following slides give examples of different categories of fallacies.

BEGGING THE QUESTION

When a claim is restated and passed off as evidence.

Example: Politicians are all dishonest because no honest person would run for political office.

EITHER-OR

This fallacy suggests there are only 2 choices in a complex situation.

Example: Either we bail out our banks or our economy will enter a Depression.

Either you marry me or you will end up an old maid.

FALSE ANALOGIES

When you compare two situations which are not really comparable.

Example: To end World War II the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan. To end the Afghanistan war, we should drop a nuclear bomb on the country.

HASTY GENERALIZATION

A broad claim made on the basis of a few occurrences.

Example: It was a really hot summer – this is definite proof of global warming.

Example: Jane’s mother is always too strict – she grounded Jane last weekend.

NON SEQUITUR

Ties together two unrelated ideas. One thing does not necessarily follow another.

Example: The University receives a lot of donations; therefore, it should not have to raise tuition.

Example: Racism is wrong. We need affirmative action.

OVERSIMPLIFICATION

The overall claim may be true, but the argument is too simple.

Example: No one would run stop signs if we had the death penalty for doing it.

Example: All teenage crime can be linked to hormones.

POST HOC FALLACY

Assumes events which follow each other have a cause-and-effect relationship.

Example: The stock market goes up every time Dallas wins the Super Bowl.

"The difference between the post hoc and the non sequitur fallacies is that, whereas the post hoc fallacy is due to lack of a causal connection, in the non sequitur fallacy, the error is due to lack of a logical connection."(Mabel Lewis Sahakian, Ideas of the Great Philosophers. Barnes & Noble, 1993)

RATIONALIZATION

Excuses or weak explanations for behavior.

Example: I flunked the test because the teacher hates me.

Example: She wouldn’t go out with me because I don’t have a car.

SLIPPERY SLOPE

Maintains that one thing will inevitably cause another thing.

Example: If we allow gay marriage, soon people will be marrying their pets.

BANDWAGON APPEALS

Everyone else is doing it. Example: Everyone else copied a

paper from the Web – so should I.

NAME CALLING

Using words/names to try to define people or groups

Example: President Bush was a right-wing conservative.

Example: President Obama is a socialist.

STRAW MAN

Sets up the opposite argument in a way that it can easily be defeated.

Example: Environmentalists will not be satisfied until not a single human being is allowed in national parks.