Critical Thinking: Fallacies 2

we're dealing with fallacies again and what I've tried to do is organize them so that fallacies that are similar to each other we cover those on the same day so what do we do that's right all the different fallacies that tie in with emotion right there you notice there are quite a few of them your book focused on two in particular argument for pity is also one that a lot of books become what we look again today where we have three different fallacies but what do they actually have in common they all deal with what we would call popularity and we actually left off talking about these desires that we have to talk a little bit about peer pressure your book also talks about what it calls group think that's actually a term I don't know if you guys know where that that term originally comes from pretty old early twentieth century and what it describes it is wanting to fit into the group so you've taken the beliefs of the group you know what we're going to look at today is not quite the same as that but it's kind of similar and if you want the overall structure it would be something like this you come to the conclusion X is through and somebody says something along the lines the or maybe they just say X is true all right so there's some sort of assumption that I got there isn't it how do you get from many people believing something is true if something actually beats grows what do you have to consume or some sort of implicit promise what would it be it's good to be able to get that statements and here's where it goes wrong right because there are a lot of cases where many people believe something is true right let's take something that we we do believe this true right your your book it I think somewhere along the lines is something like the President of the United States is a robot as one of its examples of belief that's not true anybody in here believed Barack Obama's a robot no okay so we as a group we all believe that Barack Obama's daughter loved that he's an actual human being he's not some thing sent from the future running through a weird science fictiony thing it's not a clone he's not you know anything you know he's not a hologram we believe he's a real live flesh-and-blood human being is that true because we believe it's true if we're right about that it's because our belief conforms to the facts and you know thinking about a magic show now now imagine I don't know if any of you who are lucky enough when you're kids to go on a field trip to a magic show do that no let's see if some of you did kids tend to believe a mister don't like actually a lot of adults do yeah if you start researching and what do you find out if it's fake as this trance there's you know often very ingenious tricks and they have to do a lot of work some of it consists in just you know misdirection they get you looking over here when something's happening over here some of mirrors apparently so well I haven't let me qualify that the things that have to do with control of the body well levitation is gonna be fake but things like going into suspended animation there are mind-body techniques that people have developed that allow you to slow the heart rate down or slow your breathing down and I don't know that much about it but presumably you could you could do it pretty pretty intensively and so they don't they put people in these boxes and you know take bury them for a short time now for you know days and days and days and they don't use up all the air well if you're not breathing that much I guess that's that's possible but yeah levitation that's that's gonna be soft now think about a magic show people see something happening they think that a woman got slot in half and then they put back together four or David Blaine is levitating or rather it really wasn't a half or enables four things that doesn't make that true as a matter of fact you know that it wasn't sure so you should be very wary that's going to be along those sort of lives this is the weak point the idea that if everybody thinks something is true or if many people think that it's true or even if you just put it in your groove if everybody in your group thing says that therefore it's true now think not a lot of physical things I mean nobody does anybody debate whether if I drop this truck is going to fall no they don't debate about things like that we debate about controversial issues there's a lot of people out there who want to resolve issues by taking opinion tools Wow you know 65% of the people polled think that such and such is the case maybe 65 or so the people are stupid or ignorant by the way stupid again two different things right stupidity is something harder to cure the nikah they're going to read something right study some maybe they're healing for maybe they're actually biased maybe they're they're stuck in a particular way of seeing something and they they can't actually look at all of the facts of the case here's a great example when we went to war in Iraq the media was constantly reporting on opinion polls is the more justified is that we're not justified in the first several years of the war it fluctuated now you know sentences is more against the war that not you guys remember during in 2003 when the buildup took place and then we actually went into the war it was all the time they was on the news you couldn't see anything else now very few people were willing to come out and say I'm totally against this war there were some but at the time that that was going on a lot of people fell that kind of pressure to be for and to support the troops and all that so opinion polls were giving it yeah war is it divorce justified now the people who didn't really believe that they switched afterwards and then other were the people who were hardcore against the war some because they were actually against war in general they had a principled stance so because it was the Republicans war and they were Democrats and you know they would be against whatever he did so less you know certainly less principled stance point is the number shifted now whether a war is justified or not does that depend on how many people you can get to say yes or no to that know if a war is justified at war is justified if you have a good cause for going to war good cause revenge of war it doesn't matter whether one person thinks so many people think so or a lot of people think so if you know if you don't have good cause to go to war you can get as many people on your side as you like and you don't have a good cause if you want to know whether we actually had a good cross from war that what you'd have to do is actually look at the justifications that were would have a for going war there were actually three for going into Iraq one of those weapons of mass destruction right you all remember they didn't find any good they good reason to think they were there though you know why because Hussein was we know spending a lot of time trying to convince everybody you still have that there was the al Qaeda connection that turned out to a very tenuous but then there was a brutal dictator who oppresses among people and makes war on his neighbors and we gotta get rid of them that might be a good reason you know people are saying that now about that they aren't they that's basically the reason why we're talking about intervention in yet another I don't know yeah I'm looking more the sort of big picture stuff like you know where where the rebels are and who's gonna intervene now whether you must let's update them whether if we go to war in Libya whether we intervene in Libya is it right or wrong except depend on how many Americans are for or against them no matter of fact it's even kind of strange too isn't it to think well who would be polled about that just Americans well you know if we're gonna go to war that third country and drop bombs in American territory maybe you know if we actually did want to do a popularity poll maybe we should expand it to include the people who were driving you know tanks and to go I don't know there were actually group of troops on the ground with you or you know who were flying over and then bottom end maybe we should include them in the picture even if they did though we'd still have a problem right it wouldn't matter whether we could get everybody for it it's still good bless you if it's not justified it's not justified if it is justified it doesn't matter how many people are against it it's it's justified there's a great example of this this is quite a bold one France at one time used to be a very powerful and that the you know the years of that are a very long one right and towards the end of their empire they were trying to hold on to their other colonies and they were fighting a war in Algeria that was very much like our war in Vietnam as a matter of fact they they you know fight in as well right now you know Algeria there was a lot of very vicious fighting and there were atrocities being committed by both sides by the fraction by the by the rebels and they you know the the idea the the came to the vegetables this has got an act but nobody could actually bring an end to it because once you're in a place like that it's hard to pull out it's hard to say yeah we're going to admit defeat we'll leave the country to you but French soldiers who were being you know they had conscription back then they had the draft being drafted in and fighting these wars and being maimed and dying and coming back earlier god so Charles de Gaulle who is the president of France at that time he was a pretty tough guy he was all army army commander he actually put his foot down and he decided to pull the troops out it was very unpopular a lot of people were against including his own generals and they were saying to him Lord that they're making this argument the majority of Frenchmen want to stay in Algeria no matter what the cost is we don't want it was draw from them and he said no we're going to do it I'm the president I get to decide it's the right thing to do it's better for the country and what they said is 50 million Frenchmen think that you're wrong and then he said they're not this Frenchman and this Frenchman gets to make the decisions good example of a rejection the argument from popularity now I mean there are some things in which we would want to think about popularity right when we elect so what are we doing there we're doing a popularity contest army you guys I don't know if we've done this or if you're going to active it at all you a student government Dan if you vote here a few million out against and your student governments know if you thought it really mattered I think you right and there are some things that are you know subjects of popularity contests yeah I don't know I don't know that Donald Trump is going to get much traction another relative an extra time with the disavow any more than anybody else would if mr. Trump is going on the four Republican side right so who are our other contenders like Mike Huckabee yeah I mean there is a popularity contest to get to see who becomes the candidate although it's a little bit complicated they don't take just one single vote they go state by state and there's complicated rules and some of the states right and then you get the two candidates and you also have some other partners but realistically they don't have any chance of getting many close and you did a sort of a popularity contest where there becomes president and then also more importantly who actually become senators representatives as they they exercise and some ways more powerful than just themselves there's there's there's some popularity contests stuff going on there whether the person is actually the best qualified that would be where the mistake will come in just because somebody's going down and the more popular doesn't mean that they're actually the most qualified or they have the best policies I mean if I wanted to become very popular what I would do is make a lot of promises to people that probably you know whether they can be kept or not if they couldn't be kept in just blaming on my opposition so I would say yeah I'm going to improve this and and you know fix this and punish these people and I would look like you know remember the scapegoating fallacy to say that as well so a good thing I'm not into politics I suppose philosophers don't usually make very good politicians and then kind of distaste for that sort of flying sculpture now your book talks about three different variations of us so we have the actual argument from popularity and then it also talks about another similar one which is really to the same family appeal and third one so how are these different well argument the popularity just think of running a popularity contest you see where the majority of the people line up or where the majority of the people in this group line up and you say well that's the right thing that's the true thing okay so you actually pull people you're doing it in the presence about something that's either present or future I suppose it could be something passed if you're gonna say that was wrong because usually under judging right and wrong it tends to be about things past isn't our appeal the common practice that is when you're saying because something is done by a lot of people it's a good thing to do or it's the right thing to do people use this as a cop-out don't they for a lot of things yeah I don't have to show up on time I didn't show up on time Brian problem they're not the same isn't it we have a lot of events that actually start late I'm not going to say who but sometime on videotape but I remember being very impressed when I got here how a major official was late for a ceremony that we all had to wait for in our full cap and gowns sitting taking time out of our office hours and our day where were actually getting work done this person was 15 minutes late at their own sort of starting ceremony that really did not make a good impression so when I brought it up you know I was told that's FSU time now imagine when you get into the workplace if you say something like that yeah you know the school I want two things routinely started five ten minutes later students enter this class system that day after them but the other classes that I have I would say a good third of the class walks into class five to ten minutes late every single day that's part of the culture here is that a good practice because people do it it's a bad practice it disrupts the class if you're coming in late you're not getting the full full class and you're wasting your time their fellow students time and if you try to do that in the workplace and you keep doing it they're gonna fire you right they're gonna write you off her for being late and then they'll find somebody else we can show up hi that's you know saying well that's what everybody does that's some people to common practice what are some other good examples of the appeal to common criminals well let's take a look at some of them ones they have in the text everyone cheats on their taxes so I don't see my action tax season is coming up right I don't think that I don't think that many of you have enough making up money to actually she got your chances since your students but I can tell you that there are quite a few people out there once they start making it up money that submit formula returns sometimes they get caught right and usually when people get caught what is their fear response well yeah everybody's doing it that's a common practice I don't see why I don't see why you're busting me think about speeding right when you get pulled over by the cops I'm done this myself what's what's the first thing you say no well why are you picking on me I wasn't actually driving as fast as the guy in front of me I was just keeping up with traffic I know traffic was about 15 over the speed limit but you know I'm just doing what everyone else was doing you would actually have a good justification if you said something like wait if I actually drove this beautiful that might cause an accident yeah if you drive normally the freeways in Chicago for example you're all posted at 55 traffic flows along at a nice 75 date when it's going well and the cops don't pull people over unless they're going you know 90 100 unless you really stick out yeah takes a little getting used to now it doesn't doesn't go like that with rush hour starts then it's everybody's going five miles but that wouldn't be an encounter practice what else can you think of any other cases where people have said to you well that's okay everybody else is doing where it's effective give where people have used these fallacies in ways to move on that's something to think about you know it really ticks people on cutting in line right or even worse that's so much cutting in line but you know there's a long line like someone's sort of opening or something they'll put like one person in the line to hold the spot and then 30 people will show up at that anymore now that doesn't kind of practice people do do that don't they how do the other people feel yeah that getting mad is actually a sign that they are not buying the argument that yeah everybody does this so that's one now appeal to tradition is a little bit different when you hear the word tradition what do you think of the way the ways thing has been passed down and done actually a tradition itself means passive now what else do you guys have family traditions you get together at certain times of the year what's up some of our religious yeah religions yeah pretty much I don't want say all religions because there are some there's always new religions starting up most religions have been around for quite a while and they have a lot of different rituals that we call traditions and they have ways of looking at things that we would also call traditional if you ask somebody in that group why do we look at things that way well sure well that's the way we've always done it that's that's what makes us yes Oh religious traditions do we have traditions as a country besides they don't shoot without fireworks on the fourth of July that's a good tradition yeah the Pledge of Allegiance I remember when I was a kid I had yeah I had a problem telling them break left from right and so this one honcho is about the third grade somebody would say turn to your left side return your right side any norm side mmm so you know I would do instead of saying the Pledge of Allegiance because I knew that my right hand would have to go up like that is of course a habit and that way I can tell why now why did I do that well because we did say the Pledge of Allegiance every day most kids in public schools don't do them there are some public schools where they argued again and usually that's controversial a lot of private schools make a point I know that the school that my daughter went to for kindergarten started doing now isn't the right thing to do is the wrong thing to do if you're a justification as well you know that's what we've always done that's not really much of a justification if it's a good thing to do then you should actually have some reason or why it's a good thing something other than just hates what we always do if there was a good reason to do it at the start you should be able to say what that good reason was well same with religious traditions you know just saying well that's the way our church is always been or that's the way our religion was always been actually if you do some research you find out know if somebody made a decision and they probably broke down some reasoning why things are that way if you look at any Christian denomination a lot of them split off from each other they split off from each other over reasons that weren't just we've always done things this way it turns into that later on doesn't it what are some other traditions that we have in the United States that are you think good things like say letting you vote they don't do that everywhere do them get to vote China party roads things you might get to vote enough for a member of the party for the election the party crap in that area why would we do that well you know we've done things that way since the beginning of the holidays you know Thanksgiving great example and for us you know if you took the way over Thanksgiving we get mad all right because that's that's not just a time when the family gets together those are two days we get off or we get paid for we expect that what's up oh yeah black Black Friday that that's a somewhat newer tradition but I think people get very worked up over that as well oh yeah this doesn't matter I'm gonna dust other clearly so if you actually look back into the past Thanksgiving didn't just sort of start itself out and it didn't actually start itself out at least for the Republicans this you know pilgrims sitting down with India these long tables that sort of things we have kids what it wasn't well precedents actually if you go back and look through their papers they declared a day of Thanksgiving there was usually supposed to be a pretty quiet day you know we had a football later which I'm all for about and it was supposed to be a day and they make up some different terminology we can actually see which presidents thought which things about religion you know it was Jefferson's turn it's the the the date or the creator doesn't say God or anything like that when it's more religiously inclined presidents that are like the language along the religious originally it gets started as this day that's that's just rude proclaimed and then it becomes part of the culture it becomes a regular thing that we do and now it's a tradition and if you were to try to take away people's Thanksgiving they really manage it with a thing could you give any other reasons for why we want to have Thanksgiving other they have well we've always done things that way if you can use those reasons don't just say you haven't always done things that way because you know if you think about it are there any bad traditions are there any things in there we can think of maybe in the past or the present where people have done things that wait for a long time and they justified them by saying yeah this is this is part of our way of life we've done for a long time yeah yeah and then the broader issue was the cake decayed actually about was was hating blacks Jews of how it's like yeah they wanted to preserve a segregationist regime okay that's why the the KKK one of our early domestic terror organizations really formed quite there by the deform to terrorize they said that what were they about they viewed racial relations as white should be superior to all races by the way they didn't just include black the KKK was against Jews and Catholics they considered and say the Irish not to be white or or Italians were polish anglo-saxon Protestants slavery if you look back into the debates about slavery what will you find you'll find people saying it's our peculiar institution you guys remember that from from American history that was sort of a catchphrase that might fit in your study guides peculiar institution that was a way of talking about slavery by by making an appeal to tradition was used by some some sovereign states and then trying to defend slavery they're saying hey northern areas I know that you have and you have no slavery and you have different racial relations up there but down here this is the way we do this you can justify all sorts of terrible things on the basis of you know that's just the way we do things should women get to vote you know for most of the time in our country they didn't as a matter of fact if you go worldwide French women didn't get to vote until the 1950s a lot of people who are opposed to women vote in the tradition whether they've never or did why should we let them do it now not a good argument if you didn't get a women should vote which I might actually like you're some particles before that because you know very hard time defending that proposition aren't you but if you think that that's the case then you should you should supply something rather than just well that's the way it's always been and that's the way it used to be and then sometimes appeal the tradition is also but that's the way it used to be we should go back to that now one thing that your book does of caution against is thinking that joining the other industry just because something is a tradition doesn't do a lot of good traditions getting to vote I think that's a good tradition I don't think it's good just because it's a tradition I can give you reasons why it's good that we do that letting women vote I think that's a good thing to know right should we say yeah wolves locomotives we've done that for a while now is that a good reason to do it what are you women in the class tank does that make you feel secure in your right to vote that people have done it for a while let them continue wouldn't you rather hear something like women should have the same rights as men and also sort of principle yeah I think so so just because something is old or tradition doesn't mean it's bad you have to evaluate it by other criteria same thing with popularity it could be that in some respects most people are right about some things right I think all of us believe that we shouldn't steal things from other people it's stealing wrong because we all think that no we just all happen to agree in something that's right but it is still right even though it is popular so you don't want to switch to the other extreme the one with the thing I'm going to talk about is how to pump Esther tell me the part students sometimes get mixed up with these and I'm going to focus just not guilty tradition all these going the same place both are going to say X is what's the basis again for X is true and you know we've got that other implicit premise in there what about tradition there's there's one little twisted yeah what's the difference between those one he has to do it at the present yeah actually they both to deal with the president because the appeal the tradition said accent is true now just as it was before the first premise exactly both talking about the present or maybe to Bob people thought that they ready you're actually talking about how popular is in the present you take the opinion poll down you know if you're gonna say well the war you the world was justified that acquit being justified when you know it went from 65% for to 65% against you're just looking at slivers of time that were you know presentation it's not justified anymore because people are not believing in it now I think that now is the present with the appeal to tradition what are you do it you're going from the past sort of popularity in the past two implications or the precedent as a matter of fact it might be something that's not that popular right now you might your opponent might use an appeal to popularity you might use an appeal to tradition they're both fallacies though right so that both bad ways of arguing again how would you get out of using these as thousands try to find some other reasons that would convince a person other than hey you know people did practice this you know for example you know you will see advertisements that say such and such a treatment has been used by Chinese medicine for 2,000 years or Indian medicine or take whatever you want Native American shamans now what are they saying they're saying yeah some people believe than that as a good cure and they believed in it for a long time so therefore you should believe it if that's all they've got don't buy it all right but if they have something more than that but you know let's say we take acupuncture for example it's hard to say whether acupuncture really works or not you know as far as scientific studies though the verdict is kind of out there's a lot of anecdotal cases of people being helped by it and it's been around for a very long time right and what an accurate when you have somebody saying you should get acupuncture what they usually say they appeal to tradition yeah the Chinese have been using this for 2,000 years you should get in on this well you want to know whether that should works or not don't you it's much if you're paying for that student health care I don't think student health care gives me acupuncture if you're actually the gangue one you want to have good reasons for believing it now what do you do if somebody else uses these fallacies with it you know looking at them a couple different ends how do you stop them from falling into these fallacies provide some other reason what would you do if somebody else is trying to get you to do something and you recognize that fallacy now what are your options you're gonna punch them in the nose okay that's a good oh yeah punch them in the nose I'm not of course there's a full range right you can't turn you're gonna say you're not most people okay now what you're doing there is you're making a very reasonable counter objection to that and quite often if somebody is very used to relying on an appeal to popularity they'll just stop them in their tracks same thing with the appeal the traditional boat would be like that well yeah you say that's not my tradition or where else can you go from there you could point out you've committed the fallacy of appeal to popularity instead you would say something like well you know the fact that most people believe that has to be true does it mean it's actually true or the fact that many people have done that sort of thing and believed in that sort of thing for a long time doesn't mean that I should believe that you should believe it and you might actually be doing somebody else a favor a lot of a lot of people that are thinking is kind of infected with this to go back to the think of me we started with your book talking about that groupthink thing and I said that's different than this how do those connect together why these work so well as human beings we do have an accuracy to a desire to want to be and groups do tend to see things a certain way right you often know you all want too many different groups family circles of friends classroom occupational yeah so we do have a tendency to be swayed by these kinds of thinking because we you know we do care about what other people think it does matter to us whether other people agree with us or count the same abuses us and that's legitimate I mean if you have certain views and you start expressing them and everybody around you says while you're crazy you should actually take a look at those I mean it's not an appeal to popularity just to say well you know well how do people think that there's something wrong with your thought you want to take a look at it that's how you tell to some degree whether your your your way of interpreting the world actually meshes with other people's when it becomes the appeal to popularity is when we start getting to issues and people start saying well look a whole bunch of people believe this and therefore you should notice it could also switch into other fallacies too like the appealed the theater all of us believe this if you don't believe that we're going to take you out and beat you up that's not an appeal to popularity or is it that's an appeal to to fear all of us are angry with Barack Obama you should be angered with Barack Obama that's a different family isn't that's not a beautiful marriage although it's got a connection to it then we've all heated down through the centuries we've hated this group therefore you should hate that that person that's exploiting emotions so you notice that some of these fallacies can get over the back of each other next session we're going to get a difference of fallacies

Channel: Fayetteville State University

Views: 18,849

Rating: 4.8967743 out of 5

Keywords: Appeal to popularity, Appeal to common practice, Appeal to tradition

Id: W65exF9PxOY

Length: 41min 44sec (2504 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 23 2011