What is the name of the logical fallacy which attempts to disprove a statement by claiming the person making the statement has never personally experienced the situation?
Conclusion: “Babies should be vaccinated”
Fallacy: “Your argument is invalid because you’re not a parent!”
Conclusion: “Motorcycle riders should wear helmets”
Fallacy: “You don’t even own a motorcycle, what could you possibly know about the subject!?”
Is this simply a type of ad hominum, or is it something more specific?
Perhaps Genetic Fallacy? (Acceptance or rejection of concepts based on source as opposed to merit)
Closest I could find on the Wikipedia list is the appeal to accomplishment, which is a subset of ad hominem.
It’s a false premise, not a fallacy. A statement can be logical but still incorrect.
It’s definitely not a false premise. The premise that the speaker is not a parent is correct. However, it’s a fallacy to conclude that the speaker’s argument is invalid simply because he/she is not a parent.
That’s not the premise, it’s the statement. The premise is that one must be a parent to be knowledgeable.
The logic used is:
Premise: You must be a parent to be knowledgeable about vaccines.
Statement: You are not a parent.
Conclusion: Therefore you are not knowledgeable about vaccines.
You can convert any fallacious argument into a false premise, though.
Some swans are white
If some elements of set A have property B, then all elements of A have B
Therefore, all swans are white
Alice believes the Earth is flat
Everything Alice believes is true
Therefore, the Earth is flat
Bob is an expert on model trains
An expert on one subject is an expert on all subjects
Therefore, Bob is an expert on climatology
It’s kinda silly to just lump them all together as false premises, though. You may as well just call them invalid arguments if you’re going that route. The whole point to naming fallacies is that these invalid steps are usually left unsaid, and classifying the common ones helps identification.
Huh?
All presidents are protected by the Secret Service.
I am the president.
Therefore, I am protected by the Secret Service.
All presidents are protected by the Secret Service.
Donald Trump is the president.
Therefore, Donald Trump likes cookies.
The premise is correct in both of the above examples, the error lies elsewhere.
p.s.
I think Doug K.'s analysis is spot on.
nm
To be clear, I’m not making the same distinction between “premise” and “statement” that Doug K and you apparently are. So your first argument is sound but the second premise “I am the president” is incorrect.
The second argument is missing a premise. Not all missing premises mean you have an invalid argument; it would be impossible to make any argument if some premises weren’t left out. When we add in the missing premise to your second argument, we see that it’s false:
All presidents are protected by the Secret Service.
Donald Trump is the president.
Everyone protected by the Secret Service likes cookies
Therefore, Donald Trump likes cookies.
Unfortunately, not all errors in reasoning have snappy names that can be flashed, in order to devastate the fools and charlatans of the world.
Sometimes you just have to tell them their reasoning is in error.
Yes, perhaps it would have been better to say, in reference to the OP’s original examples, that the particular error lies in an unstated premise that is false.
It’s somewhat similar to the loaded question fallacy
where an unstated false assumption is built into the question. “Do you still beat your wife?”
The error in your reasoning here is technically known as the Ego potest cogitare de nomine illius fallacia fallacy.
Right, and the particular form of the false unstated premise so commonly fits in a few categories that they sometimes deserve a name. But igor is correct as well; not all faulty reasoning has a snappy name. You don’t want to focus solely on the special cases and ignore general reasoning. I think there’s a balance between the approaches.
Absolutely correct. Thanks!
For an argument to be a logical fallacy means that the conclusion doesn’t follow, whether the premise and second statement are true or not.
All swans are white
This bird is white
Therefore this bird is a swan.
is fallacious whether the bird is a swan or not, because there is no claim that all white birds are swan.
All white birds are swans
This bird is white
Therefore this bird is a swan
Is logical, but the premise is false. Even if the bird is not a swan, the argument is logical.
No, that’s validity (conclusion follows from premises). An argument can also be sound or not, which means it’s both valid and its premises are all true. Fallacies encompass both invalid and unsound arguments.
As said, you can always identify a missing false premise if you like.
All swans are white
This bird is white
If A is B, and all members of C are B, then A is a C
Therefore this bird is a swan.
Premise 3 is false (or rather, not true in general) but if it were true then the argument would be valid.
I think “genetic fallacy” is the best answer, but I think it’s possible to create an argument that it’s a form of the fallacy of anecdotal evidence. It is essentially arguing that personal experience, a form of anecdotal evidence, trumps anything else, including double-blind studies, or even arguing that one should follow the law to avoid punishment.
I think one of the things we’ve collectively proven in these 20 posts is that naming logical fallacies has rather little use. We’re all over the map on which it is, disagree on what’s a premise or a statement, what constitutes truth or validity or soundness.
IOW:
**IF **ref the tagline at the bottom of the page, we’re the smartest, hippest people on the planet
AND we still can’t get this right
**THEN **what chance do we have of persuading a few total dipsticks?
