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Do Arguments for Global Warming Commit a Fallacy of Composition?

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Abstract

This essay begins with a brief description of my approach to the study of argumentation and fallacies which is empirical, historical-textual, dialectical, and meta-argumentational. It then focuses on the fallacy of composition and elaborates a number of conceptual definitions and distinctions: argument of composition; fallacy of composition; arguments and fallacies of division; arguments that confuse the distributive and collective meaning of terms; arguments from a property belonging to members of a group to its belonging to the entire group; several nuanced schemes for arguments of composition; and several principles for the evaluation of such arguments. I then call attention to the fact that some scholars have claimed that the basic argument for global warming commits the fallacy of composition, and undertake a critical analysis of this claim. I show that the global-warming argument is not a fallacy of composition, but is rather a deductively valid argument of composition from the temperature of the parts to the temperature of the whole earth; moreover, I criticize the meta-argumentation of these scholars by showing that the global-warming argument is not similar to the one for global pollution, which is indeed fallacious; finally, I argue that these scholars confuse the global-warming argument with the argument claiming that all effects of global warming are harmful, which is indeed incorrect as a hasty generalization.

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Notes

  1. See Johnson and Blair 1980, and cf. Finocchiaro 2005, 21–33; see Barth 1985, and cf. Finocchiaro 2005, 46–64; see Scriven (1987; 2009), and cf. Finocchiaro 2005, 5–7.

  2. Finocchiaro 2005, 319. Cf. Blair and Johnson 1987; Johnson 2000; Finocchiaro (2005, 292–326; 2013b, 65–74).

  3. Woods (1988; 2013). Cf. Hansen 2002; Finocchiaro (2014; 2015).

  4. Here, the use of the term ‘correct’ is deliberatively vague or broad; thus correct argument is meant to correspond to what others call good argument, and incorrect argument to bad or erroneous argument; and so, using more precise terms, incorrect arguments may be deductively invalid, or inductively weak, or rhetorically inappropriate, or epistemologically unsound.

  5. Finocchiaro 2005, 130; 2013b; 2013c, 242–47; 2015; 2019. Cf. Strawson 1952, 15; Doury 2005.

  6. For example, in economics, a common and contraaversial argument attenpts to show that the government of a whole society should refrain from operating with constantly unbalanced budgest and increasingly accumulating debts; the alleged support of this conclusion is that families (“a’s”) should operate in this manner and that business firms (“b’s”) should also operate in this manner. For details, cf. Finocchiaro 2019, 138 − 44; 2021, 64–65).

  7. I adopt the term ‘normic’ from Scriven (1959; 1989; 2009); cf. Finocchiaro 2005, 5–7). And I have learned more about it from Woods (2009; 2013); cf. Finocchiaro 2014.

  8. Cf. Ritola 2009b; Gough and Daniel 2009; Finocchiaro (2015; 2021).

  9. Van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 177; 1999. Cf. Gough and Daniel 2009; Ritola 2009b; Finocchiaro 2021.

  10. See Govier 2009, and cf. Finocchiaro 2013a; see Woods 2016, and cf. Finocchiaro 2016; see Finocchiaro 2021, especially p. 68.

  11. Here Haller refers to Balling 1992, pp. xxiv, 103.

  12. Cf. Balling 1992, IPCC 2021, Koonin 2021, Lomborg 2021, Nordhaus 2013.

  13. Cf. Balling 1992, 75–76; IPCC 2021, Technical Summary, p. 65, and Chap. 1, Frequently Asked Questions 1.1.

  14. See https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2018/nordhaus/facts/; accessed 2 June 2022.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Las Vegas, NV, 89154-5028, USA

    Maurice A. Finocchiaro

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Finocchiaro, M.A. Do Arguments for Global Warming Commit a Fallacy of Composition?. Argumentation 37, 201–215 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-023-09596-8

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