Thinking Tools is a regular feature that introduces pointers on thinking clearly and rigorously.

This chapter contains sections titled: The False Cause Fallacy Hasty Generalizations Failure to Take Context into Account Suppressing Relevant Evidence The Gambler's Fallacy Affirming the Consequent/Denying the Antecedent The Fallacies of Composition and Division Missing the Forest for the Trees.

In this paper I will attempt a unified analysis of the various examples of the fallacy of accident given by Aristotle in the Sophistical Refutations. In many cases the examples underdetermine the fallacy and it is not trivial to identify the fallacy committed. To make this identification we have to find some error common to all the examples and to show that this error would still be committed even if those other fallacies that the examples exemplify were (...) not. Aristotle says that there is only one solution “against the argument” as opposed to “against the man”, and it is this solution the paper attempts to find. It is a characteristic mark of my analysis that some arguments that we might normally be inclined to say are fallacious turn out to be valid and that some arguments that we would normally be inclined to say are valid turn out to be fallacious. This is (in part) because what we call validity in modern logic is not the same as the apodicticity that Aristotelian syllogisms require in order to be used in science. The fallacies of accident, uniquely among the fallacies, are failures of apodicticity rather than failures of, in particular, semantic entailment. This makes sense in a tensed and token-based logic such as Aristotle’s. I conclude that the closest analogue to the fallacy of accident that we can point to is a fallacy in modal logic, viz., the fallacy of necessity. (shrink)

The so-called New Theory of Reference (Marcus, Kripke etc.) is inspired by the insight that in modal and intensional contexts quantifiers presuppose nondescriptive unanalyzable identity criteria which do not reduce to any descriptive conditions. From this valid insight the New Theorists fallaciously move to the idea that free singular terms can exhibit a built-in direct reference and that there is even a special class of singular terms (proper names) necessarily exhibiting direct reference. This fallacious move has been encouraged by a (...) mistaken belief in the substitutional interpretation of quantifiers, by the myth of thede re reference, and a mistaken assimilation of direct reference to ostensive (perspectival) identification. Thede dicto vs.de re contrast does not involve direct reference, being merely a matter of rule-ordering (scope).The New Theorists' thesis of the necessity of identities of directly referred-to individuals is a consequence of an unmotivated and arbitrary restriction they tacitly impose on the identification of individuals. (shrink)

Paltrow and colleagues focus on the deleterious consequences that could occur if Roe were overturned, including food and housing insecurity, loss of employment, bankruptcy, unjustified arres...

Scholarly dissatisfaction with Aristotle’s fallacy of accident has traditionally focused on his examples, whose compatibility with the fallacy’s definition has been doubted time and again. Besides a unified account of the fallacy of accident itself, the paper provides a formalized analysis of its several examples in Aristotle’s Sophistici elenchi. The most problematic instances are dealt with by means of an internal reconstruction of their features as conveyed by Aristotle’s text and an extensive survey of their interpretation in (...) the Byzantine and Latin exegetical tradition. Carefully handled a doxographical approach, as opposed to rapid results oriented practices, proves to be most effective in that it supplies both useful albeit ordinarily overlooked insights and a comprehensive framework of reference for further investigations. (shrink)

The so-called New Theory of Reference (Marcus, Kripke etc.) is inspired by the insight that in modal and intensional contexts quantifiers presuppose nondescriptive unanalyzable identity criteria which do not reduce to any descriptive conditions. From this valid insight the New Theorists fallaciously move to the idea that free singular terms can exhibit a built-in direct reference and that there is even a special class of singular terms (proper names) necessarily exhibiting direct reference. This fallacious move has been encouraged by a (...) mistaken belief in the substitutional interpretation of quantifiers, by the myth of the de re reference, and a mistaken assimilation of "direct reference" to ostensive (perspectival) identification. The de dicto vs. de re contrast does not involve direct reference, being merely a matter of rule-ordering ("scope"). The New Theorists' thesis of the necessity of identities of directly refened-to individuals is a consequence of an unmotivated and arbitrary restriction they tacitly impose on the identification of individuals. (shrink)

Nearly all current attempts at environmental impact analysis and technology assessment fall victim to an ethical and methodological assumption that Keniston termed “the fallacy of unfinished business.” Related to one version of the naturalistic fallacy, this assumption is that technological and environmental problems have only technical, but not social, ethical, or political solutions. After using several impact analyses to illustrate the policy consequences of the fallacy of unfinished business, I suggest how it might be overcome. Next I (...) present three standard arguments, repeatedly used in technology and environmental impact assessments, by those who subscribe to this “fallacy.” I briefty examine the logical, consequentialist, and historical reasons for rejecting all three arguments in favor of this assumption. If my suggestions are correct, then environmental impact analysis is not only a matter of discovering how to finish our technological business, but also a question of learning how to recognize the ethical and epistemological dimensions of our assessment tasks. (shrink)

The defeat of the USSR and of the world system of socialism, which was of a world-wide significance, raised a key question of its underlying causes. As an answer to that question, it is shown that the defeat was by no way accidental as it was brought forth not only because of mistakes in the application of Marxism but also of significant economic and socio-political fallacies. The key is in the fallacies, which are hidden deeply inside the methodology of Marxism (...) and which therefore went unnoticed by anyone, i.e. in the violation in Marx’s Das Kapital of the requirements of a number of scientific methods that he used. Marx violated the requirements of the main method used in Das Kapital, viz. the method of ascension from the abstract to the concrete (he attributed the function of forecasting the future to that method, even though the method does not have it) as well as the methods of forecast, systems approach and hypothesis. Those methodological fallacies and distortions and their epistemological consequences provide evidence that Marxism is a result of seriously flawed beliefs and it could not avoid failure. Exposure of the above-mentioned fallacies and distortions will help broad masses of people to shed communist illusions and to avoid new social and political upheavals. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson argues against the tactic of criticizing confidence in a theory by identifying a logical consequence of the theory whose probability is not raised by the evidence. He dubs it “the consequence fallacy”. In this paper, we will show that Williamson’s formulation of the tactic in question is ambiguous. On one reading of Williamson’s formulation, the tactic is indeed a fallacy, but it is not a commonly used tactic; on another reading, it is a commonly used tactic (...) (or at least more often used than the former tactic), but it is not a fallacy. (shrink)

My article concerns constitutional interpretation and substantive due process, issues that played a central role in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), one of the two same-sex marriage cases. (The other same-sex marriage case was United States v. Windsor (2013).) -/- The late Justice Scalia consistently maintained that the Court “invented” substantive due process and continues to apply this legal “fiction” not because the Constitution supports it but simply because the justices like it. Two theories underlay his cynical conclusion. First is the (...) theory of “Constitutional Textualism”—or just plain “Textualism”—which says that the meaning of the Constitution lies entirely within the “four corners” of the document. Second is the theory of “Originalism,” which says that this meaning was fixed at the time of ratification. (Likewise, the meanings of the amendments were fixed at the time of their ratification.) -/- While Justice Scalia helped to inspire a Textualist/Originalist (and anti-substantive-due-process) movement, his Originalism has received far more attention than his Textualism. Since Judge Robert Bork first introduced Originalism to the general public during his Supreme Court nomination hearings in 1987, this theory has ignited passions on all sides and effectively re-framed the entire debate about how to interpret the Constitution. Constitutional scholars, left and right, now define themselves as either for or against Originalism. Meanwhile, Textualism has merely retreated into the background. -/- Part of the reason for this disparate treatment is that many who reject Originalism still consider themselves to be Textualists. They agree with Justice Scalia (and Judge Bork) that the text is all-important. They disagree, however, that its meaning was fixed for eternity at ratification. Instead, they maintain that either the meaning of the text or applications of this meaning to new cases can change as society changes. -/- In this Article, I bring Textualism out of Originalism’s shadow and into broad daylight. I argue that once we dig just a little deeper into the proposition that all of the meaning in the Constitution inheres in its words, we find that this theory simply cannot work. In order to interpret the nation’s foundational document, we must resort to assumptions that it does not explicitly state. (Indeed, even Textualism itself is a theory that the Constitution does not explicitly endorse.) And the notion that “extra-textual” assumptions necessarily inform our interpretations of the Constitution poses a direct and insurmountable threat to Textualism. -/- The Constitution actually requires each judge, when faced with a case concerning the right to privacy, not merely to consider the text but also to anticipate and evaluate the moral, social, and political consequences of both possible decisions before choosing between them. While this position may initially sound counterintuitive, it turns out to be a much more realistic theory of constitutional interpretation than Textualism (and Originalism). -/- I ultimately conclude that, contrary to Justice Scalia, the Constitution most certainly does protect a right to privacy. For what it’s worth, the Obergefell majority agree with me (and oppose Justice Scalia). I aim to show exactly why they are correct. (shrink)

Deliberative politics should start from an adequate and differentiated image of our dialogical practices and their normative structures; the ideals that we eventually propose for deliberative politics should be tested against this background. In this article I will argue that equal respect, understood as respect a priori conferred on persons, is not and should not be counted as a constitutive normative ground of public discourse. Furthermore, requiring such respect, even if it might facilitate dialogue, could have negative effects and lead (...) to fallacious paths of thought –as seems to happen on matters of deep disagreement such as the Colorado Fundamentalist/Gay HIV issue I discuss in paragraph 6. I will put forward this argument from the standpoint of argumentation or discourse theory, drawing consequences for dialogical theories of politics. Basing my argument on a pluralistic notion of public discourse – understood as a mixed discourse of persuasion, information-seeking and negotiation – I will argue that respect is a dynamic, situational phenomenon, and that the norm of equal respect for persons is contextually contingent in political deliberation: equal respect should be considered as a potential outcome, a discursive achievement – which I understand as a second order consensus achieved dynamically on a provisional basis – rather than as an universal condition for dialogue. (shrink)

At some step in proving the Liar Paradox in natural language, a sentence is derived that seems overdetermined with respect to its semantic value. This is complemented by Tarski’s Theorem that a formal language cannot consistently contain a naive truth predicate given the laws of logic used in proving the Liar paradox. I argue that proofs of the Eubulidean Liar either use a principle of truth with non-canonical names in a fallacious way or make a fallacious use of substitution of (...) identicals. Tarski never committed the first fallacy and may have himself considered it fallacious. Nevertheless, I clarify that it is fallacious. I then argue substitution of identicals needs to be restricted within the scope of the truth predicate. A logic for truth implementing this restriction is a monotonic extension of a classical first order logic, or indeed a formalizable fragment of natural language. Proofs of Tarski’s Indefinability of Truth theorem are invalid in this logic. This approach generalizes to invalidate proofs of Liar-like paradoxes, particularly the predicate form of the Knower paradox. Consequently, such a logic can be further extended in a way that avoids Montague’s theorem for such a system. Yet, the semantic status of a Liar sentence is not fully resolved. It is no longer overdetermined; it is now underdetermined. (shrink)

Social media is known to be one of the finest achievements of the 21st century. However, it is no surprise that there are two sides to every coin. While there are a lot of advantages of social media in our day-to-day life it is difficult to ignore its negative consequences. As the interactions between people have increased so have the standards and expectations of people and undoubtedly, so has the mental distress that people constantly face. Multiple researches conducted on the (...) negative impacts of social media indicate towards the downside of social media, especially it's negative footprint on people's identities, social life, mental health and emotional well-being. Although there are various modalities that have been used to identify and solve the problems that people experience with social media, there are other modalities of counseling that have the potential to be effective and helpful but have not been explored in this regard. One such modality is Logic-Based Therapy. Logic-Based Therapy and Consultation is a philosophy-based practice that aims to help identify the different emotional and behavioral ways in which people upset themselves by their own faulty thinking. LBT identifies a number of fallacies or incorrect reasonings that people use very frequently in their lives and also suggests ways in which individuals can learn to cope with these fallacies. A lot of the fallacies identified by LBT can be seen in practice through social media. This paper aims at providing an insight into the reality of social media and online presence while highlighting the most common fallacies that people commit in emotional and behavioral reasoning as identified by LBT. The paper will also explore how and why people often commit these fallacies and suggest some antidotes to combat these fallacies. (shrink)

In his classic 1936 essay "On the Concept of Logical Consequence", Alfred Tarski used the notion of satisfaction to give a semantic characterization of the logical properties. Tarski is generally credited with introducing the model-theoretic characterization of the logical properties familiar to us today. However, in his book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, Etchemendy argues that Tarski's account is inadequate for quite a number of reasons, and is actually incompatible with the standard model-theoretic account. Many of his criticisms are meant (...) to apply to the model-theoretic account as well. In this paper, I discuss the following four critical charges that Etchemendy makes against Tarski and his account of the logical properties: (1) (a) Tarski's account of logical consequence diverges from the standard model-theoretic account at points where the latter account gets it right. (b) Tarski's account cannot be brought into line with the model-theoretic account, because the two are fundamentally incompatible. (2) There are simple counterexamples (enumerated by Etchemendy) which show that Tarski's account is wrong. (3) Tarski committed a modal fallacy when arguing that his account captures our pre-theoretical concept of logical consequence, and so obscured an essential weakness of the account. (4) Tarski's account depends on there being a distinction between the "logical terms" and the "non-logical terms" of a language, but (according to Etchemendy) there are very simple (even first-order) languages for which no such distinction can be made. Etchemendy's critique raises historical and philosophical questions about important foundational work. However, Etchemendy is mistaken about each of these central criticisms. In the course of justifying that claim, I give a sustained explication and defense of Tarski's account. Moreover, since I will argue that Tarski's account and the model theoretic account really do come to the same thing, my subsequent defense of Tarski's account against Etchemendy's other attacks doubles as a defense against criticisms that would apply equally to the familiar model-theoretic account of the logical properties. (shrink)

This paper aims to establish several interconnected points. First, a particular interpretation of the mathematical definition of information, known as the causal interpretation, is supported largely by misunderstandings of the engineering context from which it was taken. A better interpretation, which makes the definition and quantification of information relative to the function of its user, is outlined. The first half of the paper is given over to introducing communication theory and its competing interpretations. The second half explores three consequences of (...) the main thesis. First, a popular claim that the quantification of information in a signal is irrelevant for the meaning of that signal is exposed as fallacious. Second, a popular distinction between causal and semantic information is shown to be misleading, and I argue it should be replaced with a related distinction between natural and intentional signs. Finally, I argue that recent empirical work from microbiology and cognitive science drawing on resources of mathematical communication theory is best interpreted by the functional account. Overall, a functional approach is shown to be both theoretically and empirically well-supported. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy, argument from fallacy. Also known as argumentum ad logicam, argument to logic, fallacy fallacy, and fallacist's fallacy, the argument from fallacy occurs when one reasons that because the argument for some conclusion is fallacious, the conclusion of that argument is false. Truth and falsity are features of claims. Fallacies are errors in reasoning, not errors about truth or falsity. That is, if someone has (...) committed a fallacy, then he has made an error in reasoning; but it does not follow that he has made a factual error. As a deductive argument, fallacy of affirming the consequent is invalid ‐ one cannot draw/infer the conclusion from the premises ‐ and yet the conclusion is true. As such, it should be clear that poor reasoning (committing a fallacy) does not entail a false conclusion. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called 'genetic fallacy' (GnF). One commits the GnF when advocating for a conclusion based solely on origin. This is a fallacy of relevance—irrelevance, really—because the origin of a claim may be irrelevant to its truth‐value. That is to say, providing an account of the genesis of a claim, its history or origin, may be informative and helpful; however, it need not determine the truth‐value of the claim. (...) Therefore, when one draws a conclusion regarding the truth‐value of a claim based solely on the origin of the claim, then one may have committed the GnF. In the ethical language of “means and ends” reasoning, GnF helps to highlight the problematic nature of the utilitarian‐style disconnect between the justice of actions and the goodness of their consequences. (shrink)

In John Etchemendy's book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, several arguments are put forth against the standard model‐theoretic account of logical consequence and logical truth. I argue in this article that crucial parts of Etchemendy's attack depend on a failure to distinguish two senses of logic and two correlative senses of being something a logical question. According to one of these senses, the logic of a language, L, is the set of logical truths of L. In the other sense, logic (...) is a theoretical discipline whose aim is to characterize logical properties and it can be identified with the set of sentences on what, and why, the extension of the set of logical truths of a particular language is. Some particular claims by Etchemendy about the status assigned to the axiom of infinity in the model‐theoretic account are criticized and shown to be erroneous because of that conflation. (shrink)

In John Etchemendy's book, The Concept of Logical Consequence, several arguments are put forth against the standard model‐theoretic account of logical consequence and logical truth. I argue in this article that crucial parts of Etchemendy's attack depend on a failure to distinguish two senses of logic and two correlative senses of being something a logical question. According to one of these senses, the logic of a language, L, is the set of logical truths of L. In the other sense, logic (...) is a theoretical discipline whose aim is to characterize logical properties and it can be identified with the set of sentences on what, and why, the extension of the set of logical truths of a particular language is. Some particular claims by Etchemendy about the status assigned to the axiom of infinity in the model‐theoretic account are criticized and shown to be erroneous because of that conflation. (shrink)

During the last decades, the psychology of reasoning has identified experimentally many fallacies committed by spontaneous reasoners. Given these experimental results, some theories have been developed about this phenomenon, mainly algorithmic theories. This paper develops instead a computational modelling of these current fallacies which appear as simplifications in the treatment of information that do not respect the formal rules of classical propositional logic. These fallacies are explained as crushes in the Klein group structure and so, in squares of opposition. These (...) crushes are an effect of not to take into account the dual of the binary operator at work in the major premise of the inference. This analysis allows predictions on fallacies not identified before, which are fallacies produced when reasoning with incompatibilities. The paper concludes with consequences of the analysis on pedagogical strategies for the teaching of logic. (shrink)

This paper applies dialectical argumentation structures to the problem of analyzing the ad baculum fallacy. It is shown how it is necessary in order to evaluate a suspected instance of the this fallacy to proceed through three levels of analysis: an inferential level, represented by an argument diagram, a speech act level, where conditions for specific types of speech acts are defined and applied, and a dialectical level where the first two levels are linked together and fitted into (...) formal dialogue structures. The paper adds a new type of dialogue called advising dialogue that needs to be applied at the third level. (shrink)

In light of recent developments in argumentation theory, we begin by considering the account that Aristotle gives of what he calls sophistical refutations and of the usefulness of being able to recognise various species of them. His diagnosis of one of his examples of the grouping that he labels epomenon is then compared with a very recent account of the matter, which, like Aristotle, calls on us to attribute a mistake or confusion to anyone who uses this kind of argument. (...) From examination of three other examples that Aristotle himself supplies of epomenon, it appears that there are cases of inferences of this kind that we need not, and perhaps cannot, avoid making. The suggestion is made that this is because the whole family of what Peirce calls abductions have important characteristics in common with epomenon. (shrink)

The consequence argument for the incompatibility of free action and determinism has long been under attack, but two important objections have only recently emerged: Warfield’s modal fallacy objection and Campbell’s no past objection. In this paper, I explain the significance of these objections and defend the consequence argument against them. First, I present a novel formulation of the argument that withstands their force. Next, I argue for the one controversial claim on which this formulation relies: the trans-temporality thesis. This (...) thesis implies that an agent acts freely only if there is one time at which she is able to perform an action and a distinct time at which she actually performs it. I then point out that determinism, too, is a thesis about trans-temporal relations. I conclude that it is precisely because my formulation of the consequence argument emphasizes trans-temporality that it prevails against the modal fallacy and no past objections. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called “adverse consequences”. The argument from adverse consequences can be seen as an argument that is intended to be pragmatic ‐ about what we should do, not about what is true ‐ but then comes to the wrong kind of conclusion. In many genuinely pragmatic arguments, however, adverse consequences are relevant to the conclusion and no fallacy is committed. So it is important to notice exactly what the (...) conclusion of the argument is. (shrink)

The paper argues that the two best known formal logical fallacies, namely denying the antecedent (DA) and affirming the consequent (AC) are not just basic and simple errors, which prove human irrationality, but rather informational shortcuts, which may provide a quick and dirty way of extracting useful information from the environment. DA and AC are shown to be degraded versions of Bayes’ theorem, once this is stripped of some of its probabilities. The less the probabilities count, the closer these (...) fallacies become to a reasoning that is not only informationally useful but also logically valid. (shrink)

We here report the findings of our investigation into the validity of the conjunction fallacy (Tversky & Kahneman, 1983), bearing in mind the role of conversational rules. Our first experiment showed that subjects found a logically correct answer unacceptable when it implied a violation of the conversational rules. We argue that tautological questions, such as those which concern the relationship of inclusion between a class and its sub-class, violate conversational rules because they are not informative. In this sense, it (...) is not understood that the question in a Linda-type problem involves a comparison between an inclusive and included class, but presumed that a different type of comparison is intended. Tautological questions (and, consequently, also their answers) do not become a matter of discussion except under certain specific conditions. Our second experiment showed that, providing the context was adequately marked (such as in the case of a rhetorical question), the conjunction fallacy disappears. In two further experiments, the implications of our view were compared with those of the other critical approaches to the heuristic programme: the classical pragmatic view (which we call logical complementarity) and the frequentist view. (shrink)

The paper argues that the two best known formal logical fallacies, namely denying the antecedent (DA) and affirming the consequent (AC) are not just basic and simple errors, which prove human irrationality, but rather informational shortcuts, which may provide a quick and dirty way of extracting useful information from the environment. DA and AC are shown to be degraded versions of Bayes’ theorem, once this is stripped of some of its probabilities. The less the probabilities count, the closer these (...) fallacies become to a reasoning that is not only informationally useful but also logically valid. (shrink)

This chapter presents a probability logical approach to fallacies. A special interpretation of (subjective) probability is used, which is based on coherence. Coherence provides not only a foundation of probability theory, but also a normative standard of reference for distinguishing fallacious from non-fallacious arguments. The violation of coherence is sufficient for an argument to be fallacious. The inherent uncertainty of everyday life argumentation is captured by attaching degrees of belief to the premises. Probability logic analyzes the structure of the argument (...) and deduces the uncertainty of the conclusion from the premises. The approach is illustrated by prominent examples of fallacies, like the argumentum ad ignorantiam, affirming the consequent and the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)

Recent work on conditional reasoning argues that denying the antecedent [DA] and affirming the consequent [AC] are defeasible but cogent patterns of argument, either because they are effective, rational, albeit heuristic applications of Bayesian probability, or because they are licensed by the principle of total evidence. Against this, we show that on any prevailing interpretation of indicative conditionals the premises of DA and AC arguments do not license their conclusions without additional assumptions. The cogency of DA and AC inferences (...) rather depends on contingent factors extrinsic to, and independent of, what is asserted by DA and AC arguments. arguments do not license their conclusions without additional assumptions. The cogency of DA and AC inferences rather depends on contingent factors extrinsic to, and independent of, what is asserted by DA and AC arguments. (shrink)

Nietzsche’s late writings present a value opposition of health and decadence based in his conception of organic life. While this appears to be a moral ideal that risks the naturalistic fallacy of directly deriving norms from facts, it instead describes a meta-ethical ideal: the necessary conditions for any kind of moral agency. Nietzsche’s ideal of health not only evades but also dissolves the naturalistic fallacy by suggesting that the specific content of morality is irrelevant. If health is measured (...) by power over one’s drives rather than the environment, then the source of moral conflict—organic life’s essential tendency toward domination—is surmounted by successful integration of any moral norms, regardless of content. Nietzsche’s concept of health draws on his characterization of organic life as essentially ‘exploitation’: growth through domination of the environment (BGE 259, GM II: 12). In animals, power coincides with happiness, while health and decadence track the correspondence between instinct and happiness (TI II: 11). This simple picture is complicated by the Genealogy, where Nietzsche depicts human nature as an animal illness caused by civilization’s disruption of the natural correspondence of instinct and happiness. Civilization shapes this ‘sick animal’ into the distinctly human ‘sovereign individual’ (GM III: 13, II: 2), restoring the harmony of instinct and happiness in an internal hierarchy of drives. So, sovereign individuality is a distinctly human model of health. Although life is exploitation, human health does not coincide with greater environmental power, but rather an internal qualitative expansion of power: greater variety and tension among drives, greater ‘wholeness in diversity’ in the ‘social structure’ of the self (BGE 212, 12). Nonetheless, health is not a moral criterion, but instead the precondition of moral agency. The subordination of drives to a commanding hierarchy grounds the ability to uphold any moral principles at all, to make and keep promises to oneself and others. Moral agency coincides, in turn, with overcoming the source of moral conflict in organic life’s drive for growth. The unification of opposing drives provides pleasure in power over oneself rather than one’s environment, the ‘happiness of high tension’ among drives (BGE 260), and in environmental resistance, a need for ‘equal opponents’ (TI IX: 38, EH 1: 7). Consequently, Nietzsche’s meta-ethical ideal supports a moral pluralism that supports any moral content. Moral conflicts arise precisely to the degree individuals are incapable of achieving moral agency, but they dissolve as moral agency of any kind is more widely achieved. (shrink)

In this note I examine a case of teleological reasoning in international law and find it to be the fallacy of affirming the consequent.I then show that and how the basis of this fallacy is a manipulation (or juxtaposition) of ?necessary? and ?sufficient? conditions.I conclude by giving reasons for thinking that this kind of reasoning is a regular feature of international law.

It is frequently claimed by critical thinking and logic textbooks that people commonly commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent. This paper argues that if people did commitment this fallacy with any type of regularity, then it would be easy to locate examples from news media. However, a review of the examples cited by critical thinking and logic textbooks show that it is nearly impossible to find a real instance of this logical fallacy since purported instances (...) of the fallacy are not deductive inferences at all but are instead inferences to the best explanation. (shrink)

Much of our ordinary thought and talk about responsibility exhibits what I call the ‘pie fallacy’—the fallacy of thinking that there is a fixed amount of responsibility for every outcome, to be distributed among all those, if any, who are responsible for it. The pie fallacy is a fallacy, I argue, because how responsible an agent is for some outcome is fully grounded in facts about the agent, the outcome and the relationships between them; it does (...) not depend, in particular, on how responsible anyone else is for that same outcome. In this paper, I explore how the pie fallacy can arise by considering several different kinds of case in which two or more agents are responsible for the same outcome. I’ll end with some brief remarks on the potential consequences of my arguments for how to think about responsibility in war. (shrink)

In a recent paper in this journal (Rottschaefer and Martinsen 1990) we have proposed a view of Darwinian evolutionary metaethics that we believe improves upon Michael Ruse's (e.g., Ruse 1986) proposals by claiming that there are evolutionary based objective moral values and that a Darwinian naturalistic account of the moral good in terms of human fitness can be given that avoids the naturalistic fallacy in both its definitional and derivational forms while providing genuine, even if limited, justifications for substantive (...) ethical claims. Jonathan Barrett (this issue) has objected to our proposal contending that we cannot hold for the reality of supervenient moral properties without either falling foul of the naturalistic fallacy or suffering the consequences of postulating inexplicable moral properties. In reply, we show that Barrett's explicit arguments that we commit either the definitional or derivational form of the naturalistic fallacy fail and that his naturalistic intuitions that supervenience explanations of moral properties by nonmoral properties force us into what we call the explanatory form of the naturalistic fallacy also fail. Positively, his objections help us to clarify the nature of the naturalistic fallacy within an evolutionary based naturalistic ethics and to point out the proper role of both supervenience explanations and moral explanations in such an ethics. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of the constitution relation have been explicated in terms of synchronic relations between higher‐ and lower‐level entities. Such accounts, I argue, are temporally austere or impoverished, and are consequently unable to make sense of the diachronic and dynamic character of constitution in dynamical systems generally and dynamically extended cognitive processes in particular. In this paper, my target domain is extended cognition based on insights from nonlinear dynamics. Contrariwise to the mainstream literature in both analytical metaphysics and extended cognition, (...) I develop a nonstandard, alternative conception of constitution, which I call “diachronic process constitution”. It will be argued that only a diachronic and dynamical conception of constitution is consistent with the nature of constitution in distributed cognitive processes. (shrink)

The denial of moral absolutes rests, I think, on a seductive but fallacious argument, which I shall attempt both to expound and to refute here. Human beings are highly complex creatures living in a highly complex world. Every human being is different from every other, every interaction or relationship between or among human beings is unique. Hence also every occasion for moral choice is also unique, and all those action kinds - be theyadultery, murder, rape, theft, ortorture on which moralists (...) are accustomed to pass judgment include an enormous variety of differing transactions, which ideally ought to be evaluated one by one. Moreover, each proposed action has a variety of different aspects: intention, foreseen consequence, conventional meaning, and symbolic significance for example, which bear on moral choice in a wide variety of ways. Moral rules are therefore rules of thumb, open to exceptions whenever persuasive arguments for making them are provided. (shrink)

Some critical reactions hardly give clues to the arguer as to how to respond to them convincingly. Other critical reactions convey some or even all of the considerations that make the critic critical of the arguer’s position and direct the arguer to defuse or to at least contend with them. First, an explication of the notion of a critical reaction will be provided, zooming in on the degree of “directiveness” that a critical reaction displays. Second, it will be examined whether (...) there are normative requirements that enhance the directiveness of criticism. Does the opponent have in circumstances a dialectical obligation to provide clarifications, explanations, or even arguments? In this paper, it is hypothesized that the competitiveness inherent in critical discussion must be mitigated by making the opponent responsible for providing her counterconsiderations, if available, thus assisting the proponent in developing an argumentative strategy that defuses them. (shrink)

A widely accepted claim about counterfactuals is that they differ from strict conditionals, that is, there is no adequate representation of them as sentences of the form   . To justify this claim, Stalnaker and Lewis have argued that some fallacious inferences would turn out valid if counterfactuals were so represented. However, their argument has a flaw, as it rests on a questionable assumption about the relation between surface grammar and logical form. Without that assumption, no consequence of the (...) alleged kind is obtained, hence the claim may be rejected. (shrink)

Some critical reactions hardly give clues to the arguer as to how to respond to them convincingly. Other critical reactions convey some or even all of the considerations that make the critic critical of the arguer’s position and direct the arguer to defuse or to at least contend with them. First, an explication of the notion of a critical reaction will be provided, zooming in on the degree of “directiveness” that a critical reaction displays. Second, it will be examined whether (...) there are normative requirements that enhance the directiveness of criticism. Does the opponent have in circumstances a dialectical obligation to provide clarifications, explanations, or even arguments? In this paper, it is hypothesized that the competitiveness inherent in critical discussion must be mitigated by making the opponent responsible for providing her counterconsiderations, if available, thus assisting the proponent in developing an argumentative strategy that defuses them. (shrink)

In applied health care research, an essentialised notion of culture is often used when studying ethnic disparities in health and health care access between the majority populations of Western countries and migrants, with ethnic backgrounds that differ from majority population. This notion of culture, however, is considered highly problematic in anthropology and ethnic studies. Therefore, in our research on Dutch illness certification practices, we employed a dynamic conceptualisation of culture. Our research shows that, in practice, when clients fail to meet (...) the implicit norms of this practice, doctors ascribe this nonconformity differently when the client is a migrant than when he or she is a Dutch client. More specifically, when migrants fail to meet the norms, doctors are inclined to automatically ascribe this nonconformity to the assumed cultural background of the client. Consequently, these doctors feel less able to use the tools they normally use to coach their clients. This, in turn, results in more problematic and longer reintegration trajectories for migrants in comparison to Dutch clients in similar circumstances. In other words, framing the problems of migrants in terms of culture results in greater sick leave rates for migrants than for Dutch people. Clearly, culturalistic perspectives on ethnic differences have negative consequences. We therefore implore the application of a dynamic notion of culture in applied research. (shrink)

This appearance condition of fallacies refers to the phenomenon of weak arguments, or moves in argumentation, appearing to be okay when really they aren’t. Not all theorists agree that the appearance condition should be part of the conception of fallacies but this essay explores some of the consequences of including it. In particular, the differences between committing a fallacy, causing a fallacy and observing a fallacy are identified. The remainder of the paper is given over to discussing (...) possible causes of mistakenly perceiving weak argumentation moves as okay. Among these are argument caused misperception, perspective caused misperception, discursive environment caused misperception and perceiver caused misperception. The discussion aims to be sufficiently general so that it can accommodate different models and standards of argumentation that make a place for fallacies. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many people now believe that human reproductive cloning – once sufficiently safe and effective – should be permitted on the grounds that it will allow the otherwise infertile to have children that are biologically closely related to them. However, though it is widely believed that the possession of a close genetic link to our children is morally significant and valuable, we argue that such a view is erroneous. Moreover, the claim that the genetic link is valuable is pernicious; it (...) tends to give rise to highly undesirable consequences, and therefore should be combated rather than pandered to. The emphasis on the genetic is unwarranted and unfortunate; rather than giving us moral reason to support reproductive cloning in the case of infertility, the fact that cloning requests are likely to be motivated by the genetic argument gives us reason to oppose its availability. (shrink)

Crupi et al. (2008) offer a confirmation-theoretic, Bayesian account of the conjunction fallacy—an error in reasoning that occurs when subjects judge that Pr( h 1 & h 2 | e ) > Pr( h 1 | e ). They introduce three formal conditions that are satisfied by classical conjunction fallacy cases, and they show that these same conditions imply that h 1 & h 2 is confirmed by e to a greater extent than is h 1 alone. Consequently, (...) they suggest that people are tracking this confirmation relation when they commit conjunction fallacies. I offer three experiments testing the merits of Crupi et al.’s account specifically and confirmation-theoretic accounts of the conjunction fallacy more generally. The results of Experiment 1 show that, although Crupi et al.’s conditions do seem to be causally linked to the conjunction fallacy, they are not necessary for it; there exist cases that do not meet their three conditions in which subjects still tend to commit the fallacy. The results of Experiments 2 and 3 show that Crupi et al.’s conditions, and those offered by other confirmation-theoretic accounts of the fallacy, are not sufficient for the fallacy either; there exist cases that meet all three of CFT’s conditions in which subjects do not tend to commit the fallacy. Additionally, these latter experiments show that such confirmation-theoretic conditions are at best only weakly causally relevant to the presence of the conjunction fallacy. Given these findings, CFT’s account specifically, and any general confirmation-theoretic account more broadly, falls short of offering a satisfying explanation of the presence of the conjunction fallacy. (shrink)