Four Terrible Ways to Argue

Philosophers have mentioned thousands of fallacies (errors in reasoning), but I will discuss four more in detail that I find to be very common. These fallacies are “terrible ways to argue.” I have already discussed several other fallacies in past posts, but here are four more that everyone needs to know about. To discuss these fallacies is to give tips for good argumentation, and they can help us identify errors in reasoning given by others. The four fallacies are the following:

1. Appeal to Ignorance
2. Equivocation
3. Reversal of Burden of Proof
4. Begging the Question

Appeal to Ignorance

To say that something is true (or false) just because we don’t know something is an error in judgment. Consider the following argument:

1. We haven’t found any alien life in the universe, even though we have spent some time looking.
2. Therefore, we know there is no alien life in the universe.

This argument could be valid given an “ignorance premise,” like the following:

1. We haven’t found any alien life in the universe, even though we have spent some time looking.
2. If we can’t find proof that something exists, then it doesn’t exist.
3. Therefore, we know there is no alien life in the universe.

This argument is clearly irrational, but people have used similar (and hopefully less extreme) arguments with the same problem. The assumption that proof is required for something to be true is clearly a false assumption. Such an assumption is often not one people generally have consciously, but their arguments imply such an assumption.

I have already discussed a common appeal to ignorance. If you only object to a premise of an argument, we can’t assume that the conclusion is false:

For example, someone who argues that Socrates is mortal because he is a dog could face the objection, “But he isn’t a dog!” This objection isn’t against the conclusion, it’s only against a premise. The conclusion is still true. Socrates is mortal whether he is a dog or not.

As I said before, “If we want to prove that an argument’s conclusion is false, then we must prove that (a) a premise is probably false and (b) the conclusion is probably false.”

Equivocation

We need to use our terminology consistently. Sometimes a word has two different meanings, but it would be wrong to require an argument to both use the premises consistently and inconsistently. Consider the following argument:

1. I am logical because I know when I see an argument that “sounds bad.”
2. Therefore, I don’t need to take a logic class.

This argument requires that “logical” means “know what arguments sound bad.” However, that isn’t what logic classes are about. Logic classes are about “formal logic.” Go here to see what formal logic is.

Although this argument is obviously horrible, I suspect that almost everyone thinks it. They don’t know what logic is in the philosophical sense, so they decide it isn’t needed based on their self-confidence.

Another common equivocation is to confuse “socialism” as “Marxism” with “socialism” as “Soviet totalitarianism.” Consider the following argument:

1. Universal health care is socialistic.
2. Socialism failed in the Soviet Union.
3. Therefore universal health care will fail.

The fact is that socialism in the sense of government programs (Marxism) is very common throughout the world. Public education is socialistic in this sense. Such programs occasionally are very successful. Universal health care has had relative success in various countries. Universal health care does not have to be anything like Soviet totalitarianism.

People often decide that “logic” is faulty, “philosophy” is unreliable, and “communism” has failed. These thoughts are often based on equivocating the terms. People think an argument is logical merely if it “sounds good,” philosophy means “my personal hypothesis,” and communism means “Soviet totalitarianism.” This thinking infects our society at large and has caused all sorts of problems.

For example, philosophy and logic aren’t believed to be worth teaching in high school. Religion and science are seen as “personal commitments” rather than potentially rational. Without philosophy “critical reasoning” now means little more than “the ability to prove you understand what the teacher wants you to think.”

Begging the Question

One of the worst sorts of arguments “begs the question.” This means that someone merely gives insufficient evidence or even “circular reasoning.” For example:

1. We know God exists because the Bible says so.
2. We know the Bible is reliable because God wrote it.

A premise of this argument requires us to accept that the Bible is reliable, but the conclusion is treated as evidence of that premise. The conclusion of an argument should not be used as evidence because it’s what we want to prove in the first place.

Begging the question to to some degree is extremely common because people generally don’t know how to justify their arguments. An inappropriate appeal to authority, false analogy, hasty generalization, and anecdotal evidence are very popular fallacious sorts of justification that merely “beg the question.” Go here for more information.

Reversal of Burden of Proof

The question every argument requires us to answer is, “Who needs to prove something?” If one conclusion must be proven, then that conclusion has the “burden of proof.” If the conclusion is not proven, then we have reason to reject it. To misrepresent the burden of proof is a fallacy called the “reversal of the burden of proof.”

Consider the following argument:

1. It is possible that there is life on Mars and we haven’t found it yet.
2. Therefore, we should believe in Martians.

This argument assumes that people who don’t believe in Martians have the burden of proof. They need to prove that there is no life on Mars, but they haven’t done so. However, this is a misrepresentation of the burden of proof. If we want others to believe something exists, then we need sufficient evidence. We don’t have sufficient evidence that there is life on Mars at this time, so it is currently most reasonable to disbelieve in Martians. It also makes perfect sense to disbelieve in ghosts, bigfoot, and unicorns considering that scientists don’t have enough evidence to confirm the existence of these entities.

A similar fallacy to “reversing the burden of proof” is to deny any burden of proof. To say that we should remain undecided rather than disbelieve in ghosts, for example. If there is no evidence that ghosts exist, then we shouldn’t believe in them. Some  good evidence is required before we should even be undecided.

Many people argue that we should be undecided about whether or not God exists, which assumes that there is equal reason to believe in God as there is to disbelieve. However, this assumption must be proven. It isn’t obviously true.

Note that begging the question always requires someone to “reverse the burden of proof.” If we reverse the burden of proof, then we beg the question. If we beg the question, then we are ignoring our burden of proof.

Occam’s razor

Some people have related Occam’s Razor to the default position to disbelieve. If two explanations are equally explanatory, then the simpler explanation is considered to be the best. For example, it is possible that the universe is an illusion, but this “hypothesis” seems to have a harder time explaining why some objects feel solid and so forth.

However, it isn’t always clear what “equally explanatory” should mean. For example, some philosophers think morality is based on our instincts despite the fact that we don’t think morality is “just a matter of personal preference.” Our belief that morality is “objective” isn’t “explained” by the position that morality is based on our instincts, but some philosophers think such a belief isn’t worth explaining in the first place. It’s just delusional thinking. Perhaps we “project our preferences onto the world.”

Overly ambitious conclusions

Some conclusions are very ambitious, and such arguments have a unusually strong burden of proof. To try to prove that bread probably won’t be poisonous two days from now is a modest conclusion that requires very little proof. However, proving that God exists is about as ambitious as an argument could get. The more ambitious the argument is, the more evidence we want for the conclusion. If a conclusion appears to be “absurd,” then we need to be (almost) certain that the premises are true.

The ergo absurdum fallacy is a way of reversing the burden of proof by having overly ambitious conclusions. I discussed this fallacy in my essay Four Requirements for Good Arguments:

Even worse than having a non-argument is having an absurd conclusion. It is impossible to have an absurd conclusion if the conclusion is appropriately modest, so the premises used must be questionable. But the fact that questionable premises can lead us to an absurd conclusion just makes us that much more certain that a premise has to be false. For example:

1. I have existed for the past 29 years.
2. The past resembles the future.
3. Therefore, I will always exist.

The conclusion “I will always exist” is absurd, and the premises aren’t certain. We have good reason to think something is wrong with one of the premises. The burden of proof to justify an absurd conclusion is not taken seriously by this argument.

Conclusion

The fallacies mentioned here are serious errors in reasoning and we should keep them in mind to correct our thinking and identify fallacious thinking in others. Begging the question and reversing the burden of proof are failures to sufficiently justify our arguments, but the equivocation and appeal to ignorance fallacies don’t just fail to adequately justify an argument. They fail to do so entirely.

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