Well, you’re correct of course. But the first poster wasn’t using the dichotomy itself to make a case against homosexuality.
I read his point as saying, “If my beliefs are true, the answer is obvious. If yours are true then… <launch into naturalist fallacy>.” From a charitable reading, I inferred that he was considering the two most likely possibilities.
It’s a tough call. Since homosexuality does indeed exist, He’s inviting the reader to interpret the statement, “Homosexuals do not reproduce…” as saying that since it doesn’t follow genetics, its therefore bad.
I would perhaps have explained the fallacy in more detail than Satan did.
The second is much clearer. He’s explicity constructed his straw man by comparing homosexuality to necrophilia and bestiality, and then using the obvious condemnation of the latter to indict the former. The “irrelevant comparison” is almost always used to set up the straw man.
I sucked up to Wally and all I got was this lousy sig line!
Manda JO: The fallacy of composition generally applies to a correct attribute of the group being extended to the group or misapplied to another member in an evaluation or comparison.
An example of a fallacy of composition with regard to homosexuals would be: “Homosexuals individually reject ‘normal’ sexual behavior, therefore as a group they must reject ‘normal’ civil rights.”
I sucked up to Wally and all I got was this lousy sig line!
The way I read it was “If I’m right then homosexuality isn’t an inherent part of a person ('cause the Bible told me so). If you’re right, then homosexuality isn’t an inherent part of a person, because if it were, it would get selected against. Since either I’m right or you’re wrong [false dichotomy], homosecuality can’t be an inherent part of a person”.
What exactly is the definition of a straw man? Is enough to present an argument in an unfavorable light, and not actually attempt to refute it?
Such a fallacy is possibly a weak analogy, where superficial similarities are used to construct an inaccurate analogy, which is in turn used to support a conclusion. In rhetorical arguements, weak analogies usually cary a taint of the fallacy of Suppressed evidence; often it is fair to assume that the one making the weak analogy is refusing to acknowledge/ignoring important data that weakens the analogy.
This fallacy may also be considered to be a Fallacy of Composistion, where the aspects of a part are wrongly atributed to the whole. In this case, the “whole” would be “non-typical sexual practices, as seen by the OP”, with Necrophilia and Homosexuality as two parts of this whole. THe fact that the OP mentions several other “deviant” sexual practices in his post suggests that he is, in fact, commiting a fallacy of composistion.
Oh, and back to the OP:
I would say that although Satan did make a comment directed towards the poster, it was dealing primarily with the posters statements (“You’re posting a lot of fallacies!”), and not with any alledged inherent qualities of the poster. This is no more ad hominem that saying “you’re forgetting to cite rather often” or “you really need to run your posts through a spellchecker”.
I don’t believe that there is such a thing as an “ad hominem attack.” My understanding is that “ad hominem” (unless we’re all just speaking Latin as a matter of course) refers specifically to the fallacy. As an illustration, I make make a hasty generalization if I observe data quickly and make an overall statement based on it–I may be The Flash, who would do everything rather hastily. But it isn’t a “hasty generalization” in the sense of the formal term.
Tris, I’m not sure what you mean by “classical debate.” I coached a couple of national champions in collegiate debate. Saying that someone is the “king of fallacies” would be construed as rhetorics, not as an argument. It would score no points for Satan, but that’s not the same as it scoring zero points–it would score nothing because it’s not in a scored category (other than if I give points for wit, style, etc., in which case I might reward him for this comment.)
Rather than hijack this thread, if you have something to say on the subject of homosexuality (about which on two other threads you said you didn’t care one way or the other so why you feel it necessary now to compare it to raping a corpse is beyond me) perhaps you might want to take it to one of the many threads devoted to the subject or start your own.
On the other hand, do you really think that pointing out which logical fallacy was committed, will be at all interesting to anybody in the debate who is not a logician? I prefer to address arguments of this type on the grounds that they are stupid.
In fact, this is exactly what we’re doing by discussing fallacies, only with more rigor. I for one don’t kid myself that you can reason people out of opinions they didn’t reason themselves into to begin with. The only points of logic most people know are ad hominem and out of context, and they will invariably misapply both of them. But it’s not a complete waste of our time because logic, believe it or not, is a bunch of fun. To show you what I mean, here is a list of proofs given by various philosophers for a given proposition, p:
Davidson’s proof that p:
Let us make the following bold conjecture: p.
Wallace’s proof that p:
Davidson has made the following bold conjecture: p.
Grunbaum:
As I have asserted again and again in previous publications, p.
Putnam:
Some philosophers have argued that not-p, on the grounds that q. It would be an interesting exercise to count all the fallacies in this "argument." (It's really awful, isn't it?) Therefore p.
Rawls:
It would be nice to have a deductive argument that p from self-evident premises. Unfortunately I am unable to provide one. So I will have to rest content with the following intuitive considerations in its support: p.
Unger:
Suppose it were the case that not-p. It would follow from this that someone knows that q. But on my view, no one knows anything whatsoever. Therefore p. (Unger believes that the louder you say this argument, the more persuasive it becomes.)
Katz:
I have seventeen arguments for the claim that p, and I know of only four for the claim that not-p. Therefore p.
Lewis:
Most people find the claim that not-p completely obvious and when I assert p they give me an incredulous stare. But the fact that they find not-p obvious is no argument that it is true; and I do not know how to refute an incredulous stare. Therefore, p.
Fodor:
My argument for p is based on three premises:
(1) q (2) r, and (3) p
From these, the claim that p deductively follows.
Some people may find the third premise controversial, but it is clear that if we replaced that premise by any other reasonable premise, the argument would go through just as well.
Sellars:
Unfortunately limitations of space prevent it from being included here, but important parts of the proof can be found in each of the articles in the attached bibliography.
Earman:
There are solutions to the field equations of general relativity in which space-time has the structure of a four-dimensional Klein bottle and in which there is no matter. In each such space-time, the claim that not-p is false. Therefore p.
Goodman:
Zabludowski has insinuated that my thesis that p is false, on the basis of alleged counterexamples. But these so-called "counterexamples" depend on construing my thesis that p in a way that it was obviously not intended--for I intended my thesis to have no counterexamples. Therefore p.
Kripke:
Outline of a Proof That P(1)
Some philosophers have argued that not-p. But none of them seems to me to have made a convincing argument against the intuitive view that this is not the case. Therefore, p. _______________________________________________________________
1. This outline was prepared hastily--at the editor's insistence--from a taped manuscript of a lecture. Since I was not even given the opportunity to revise the first draft before publication, I cannot be held responsible for any lacunae in the (published version of the) argument, or for any fallacious or garbled inferences resulting from faulty preparation of the typescript. Also, the argument now seems to me to have problems which I did not know when I wrote it, but which I can't discuss here, and which are completely unrelated to any criticisms that have appeared in the literature (or that I have seen in manuscript); all such criticisms misconstrue my argument. It will be noted that the present version of the argument seems to presuppose the (intuitionistically unacceptable) law of double negation. But the argument can easily be reformulated in a way that avoids employing such an inference rule. I hope to expand on these matters further in a separate monograph.
Routley and Meyer:
If (q & not-q) is true, then there is a model for p. Therefore p.
Plantinga:
It is a model theorem that p p. Surely it's possible that p must be true. Thus p. But it is a model theorem that p p. Therefore p.
Chisholm:
P-ness is self-presenting. Therefore, p.
Morganbesser:
If not p, what? Q maybe?
Haack:
Unfortunately, by the very nature of logical codationalism I cannot offer a proof that P along the elegant lines of BonJour's coherentist proof. Indeed, I cannot offer a PROOF that P at all, and for two reasons; first, because PROOF (as opposed to proof) embodies a linear foundationalist conception of justification that cannot survive the "up, up and away" argument, and second because BonJour's own account of justification falls prey to the "drunken students" argument. Nor can I offer a proof that P, as I seem (like Fodor) to have mislaid my theory of the a priori.
Yet a case can be made -- in modest, fallibly naturalistic terms -- for P. And if the criteria embodied in codationalism are in fact truth-conducive (and if they are not, then every other theory of justification is likewise a failure since codational criteria are used by coherentists and foundationalists without proper appreciation of their interconnections), then this will amount not to a PROOF nor yet a proof that P, but simply a proof that P, based on the explanatory integration of P with the rest of my beliefs that are explanatorily integrated with each other.
The explanatory integration at work in this proof is rather like that found in a crossword puzzle. . . . [Remainder of the proof is left as an exercise for the reader. For the solution, consult next Sunday's London Times.]
Margolis’s disproof that p:
The assumption that P -- indeed, the belief that P is so natural and obvious as to be beyond dispute -- is so deeply woven into Western thought that any attempt to question it, much less to overthrow it, is likely to be met with disbelief, scorn, and ridicule. The denial of P is a deep thesis, a theme of courage, a profound insight into the fundamental nature of things. (Or at any rate it would be if there were a fundamental nature of things, which there isn't.) Anyone unfamiliar with the hidden brutalities of professional philosophy cannot imagine all the nasty things that will be said about someone who dares to mount an assault on P. (Just look at how neglected Protagoras is now -- they even cut his writings up into tiny little bits!)
It has repeatedly been alleged that the denial of P is self-refuting. Extraordinary! As if one bold enough to deny P would feel bound by the conventions of dialethism on which alone any charge of self-refutation rests! Once we have seen through this delusion, we are free to dismiss as nonsense our current vision not only of philosophy and science but also that quaint notion of `the good life.' We are also free to discard antiquated Hellenic prejudices as to what counts as proof and disproof, whilst retaining (of course) a proper sense of logical rigor. Hence, the foregoing constitutes a disproof of P.
Well, formal debate, with scoring, is not so formal as one might wish. A very long time ago I was a high school debate team captain. In those days we had a judging system which required a plus one point minus one point, or a zero assessment for each aspect of the each team’s speeches. The use of logical fallacy in proposal, or refutation was an automatic score of zero.
The best I can recall the rules for ad hominem is that any reference to the person was out of the realm of the subject matter, and therefore at best a score of zero. Reliance on such a reference as evidence was a minus one. Given that you had at most three points to score in a match, it pretty much meant you lost. Basically, as I often told my teammates, even if the judge doesn’t notice he is an idiot, you still can’t tell him. Identifying a logical flaw in an opposing contention is sufficient to refute it. Characterizing the opposition in person is never germane to the validity of any point. If that were so, then your own point of view would be invalidated by agreement by any idiot.
Tris
Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center.
