If it’s not a logical fallacy, what do you call this type of argument. I’ve been looking at logic sites and can’t pin this one down. (BTW, not asking for a discussion of my example, just to name the fallacy.)
Example: Yesterday I was at the synagogue for Rosh Hashanah (L’shana tova to fellow Jewish Dopers), and there was a young woman between 18 and 25-ish wearing a spaghetti-strap dress (similar to thisbut in red) that IMHO was completely inappropriate for any religious service of any denomination, except possibly a beach/garden wedding. She didn’t have any kind of wrap or shawl. I was right behind her, and the dress was reeeeally low in the back.
I imagined mentioning this to old fogies of my own age, and I’m pretty sure they would agree with my opinion that this was not appropriate for a solemn religious occasion indoors. And that a wrap or shawl of some kind would have been the thing to do.
But I imagined mentioning this to young women (and possibly men) in the same age group as the congregant and could also imagine **possible **replies along the lines of: “So, I suppose you’d like to see all women covered head to toe with just their eyes showing like conservative Muslim women?”
What’s that called when the OP jumps to the extreme opposite of what you’re suggesting to illustrate (so they think) why your non-extreme opinion is invalid? IOW jumping to an extreme opposite as a way of discrediting the original question/comment/proposition.
I come across this ALL the time IRL. It also shows up a lot on TV shows, to wit: “Where were you on Saturday night?” “Oh, so now you think I killed him??”
Is there a name for this kind of illogical logical attack?
I would call it an excluded middle or false dichotomy.
ETA: although, thinking more about it, I’m not sure that’s quite right. In the false dichotomy, the reasonable option is excluded from the possible solutions. In your example, the reasonable option is available right off the bat, and the extreme option is presented to discredit it. So, probably not the right fallacy.
Which actually took a long time to be recognized during the development of formal logic. The ancient Greeks were famous for swallowing this one without objection.
Straw man - is misrepresenting or exaggerating the view of the person so that it easy to dismiss.
A straw man is an easy to cut down (with a sword presumably) surrogate for a real combatant - hence the term.
Reductio ad absurdum doesn’t mean the argument is absurd, it means you assume the base proposition and prove its opposite, thus leading to a contradiction. It is a logical technique, used in proof or rhetoric, it is not a fallacy.
Your example of “So, I suppose you’d like to see all women covered head to toe with just their eyes showing like conservative Muslim women?” is clearly a logical fallacy, and counts as a straw man.
The example of “Where were you on Saturday night?” “Oh, so now you think I killed him??” isn’t a logical fallacy. There really isn’t enough context to say it is much more than it is a couple of lines of conversation. The emphasis on I is perhaps important, but we don’t know enough to know why.
Neither of these are reductio ad absurdum. The first is close, in that you get to an untenable consequence, but you do it by misrepresenting the initial argument, not by an honest use. It is the misrepresentation that makes the logical argument a fallacy.
Thanks. I can see that my two examples aren’t quite parallel, except that in each case the imagined reply jumps several steps to a ridiculous conclusion.
In the first, because I think a spaghetti-strap dress in temple is inappropriate, therefore I believe all women should be covered from head to toe all the time.
And in the second, because you’re asking me where I was on Saturday night, therefore you must consider me a suspect in your murder investigation. (I’ve been binge-watching British cop shows.)
Not a straw man. A straw man mischaracterizes the opponent’s argument into one that can be refuted while the excluded middle presupposes that there are only two extreme choices. In this case the excluded middle refers to there only being two perceived modes of dress. A straw man would be more of restating the OP’s statement as implying women should not be allowed to choose their own clothes.
My first impression was straw man. The person is not refuting your argument but rather putting words in your mouth and arguing against that. However, this person did not even present an argument against the straw man, so I think this a not a logical fallacy at all, but rather a rhetorical device.
I don’t think it’s the excluded middle either, because the speaker is not presenting a false dilemma, but rather misrepresenting the opposing view’s position as more extreme than it really is. The excluded middle would be more like, “You’re either with the United States, or you’re with the terrorists.”
Not every ridiculous assertion is a logical fallacy. A logical fallacy implies a flaw in the chain of reasoning, and in this case there was no reasoning at all.
The example in the OP about the dress is definitely NOT any sort of logical fallacy. It’s nothing more than someone trying to bully you. The issue is the appropriateness of this particular dress in this particular situation. To address anything else is blowing smoke.
“So, I suppose you’d like to see all women covered head to toe with just their eyes showing like conservative Muslim women?”
“What I would like to see is this young woman wearing a more appropriate dress or at least some sort of wrap or modest cover.”
It isn’t a logical fallacy to allow yourself to be bullied.
I’ll still stick to straw man. The conversation is a compressed argument. Sure it is a one sentence retort, but in context it is a refutation of the suggestion that more modest dress be worn. It misrepresents the proposal by claiming the desire for more modest dress is a desire for the burka.
The retort starts with “So, I suppose you’d like to see” which is clearly an attempt to misrepresent.
This isn’t an excluded middle - there is no suggestion or assumption that there isn’t a middle ground, it is suggesting that the proposal is for something extreme.
It might not be a logical fallacy, but it’s a rhetorical fallacy. It rebuts something that wasn’t actually said. In that, it resembles a straw man. But False Dichotomy is closer, because it presents the rebuttal as the only possible alternative.
“I don’t like vanilla.”
“So, you must like chocolate, right?”
It leaves out “butterscotch” entirely. (Don’t say it! I love butterscotch!)
You can build a number of fallacious arguments out of the building blocks. The key is the structure of the rebuttal.
“So, I suppose you’d like to see all women in a burka?” Straw man - your opinion in being misrepresented as something that can be easily attacked.
“So which is it then, freedom to wear what they like, or women all in burkas?” False dichotomy. Stating the argument in a way that asserts there is no middle ground.
“Next thing you know, all women will be forced to wear burkas” Slippery Slope. Asserting that your opinion will continue on a path to an extreme.
