The Fallacies and Ethical Argument Terms Flashcards

There are encounters in arguments in which a reader will find material that may appear at first to be a proof but really is not a proof at all -- it is a pseudoproof, or what is commonly called a fallacy. Fallacies lead an audience astray, they distort and distract, they represent inadequate reasoning or nonreasoning, and they either exaggerate or oversimplify a claim instead of prooving it.

No support is provided by the arguer who begs the question, and the claim is simply restated, over and over again, in one form or another.

A red herring provides irrelevant and misleading support that pulls the audience away from the real argument.

Non Sequitur in Latin for "it does not follow." In this type of fallacy, the conclusion does not follow from the evidence and the warrant.

A straw man involves attributing an argument to an opponent that the opponent never made and then refuting it in a devastating way. the arguer sets up an idea, refutes it, and appears to win, even though the idea may be unrelated to the issue being discussed.

Stacking evidence to represent only one side of an issue that is clearly has two sides gives a distorted impression of the issue.

Using fake evidence to prove a claim will discredit an entire argument and ruin the reputation of the individual who makes it up.

Evidence should be verified, which means you should be able to look it up in another source and find the same information. There should also be enough evidence, and major information that could change the way one interprets the evidence should not be omitted.

Oversimplifying evidence can discredit an argument.

Statistics can be manipulated or changed so that they appear to support a claim when. actually, they do not.

Some arguments are oversimplified by the arguer and presented as black-or-white, either-or choices when there are other alternatives.

This is short for post hoc, ergo propter hoc, a Latin phrase that translates as "after this, therefore because of this." To put it more simply, post hoc is the fallacy of faulty cause.

Sometimes arguers "jump to conclusions" by basing a conclusion on too few examples.

Ad hominem means "to the man" in Latin. An ad hominem argument attacks a person's character rather than a person's ideas or policies.

The fallacy of guilt by association suggests that people's character can be judged by examining the character of their associates.