CAS 100A Exam 2 Study Guide Fallacies o Circular Reasoning immoral o Red Herring A fallacy in which a claim is supported by a premise that is merely a restatement of the claim itself or that assumes the truth of the claim Example 1 The death penalty must be abolished because killing people is A fallacy in which an irrelevant topic is introduced in order to divert the audience s attention from the issue under consideration Example When arguing that the US should maintain its military presence in Afghanistan Jane says We have already lost 2 000 of our brave fighting men and women If we give up now their sacrifice will have been meaningless o False Dilemma possibilities exist A fallacy that forces a choice between two alternatives when other Example We can either stay the course or we can cut and run And the United States of America does not cut and run Ignores the possibility that there could be another solution to the problem o Straw Person A fallacy that attributes to one s opponent a distorted exaggerated or misrepresented version of the actual position and then refutes the counterfeit argument in order to make their own position seem stronger by contrast Example When Republicans attacked his economic policies in 2009 President Obama said There are those who say these plans are too ambitious that we should be trying to do less not more o Republicans merely disagreed o Ad Hominem A fallacy in which one attempts to refute an argument by attacking irrelevant characteristics about the person supporting it Example You have to like Lynyrd Skynyrd even if it s not the greatest band You grew up in Alabama o Non Sequitur A form of logical fallacy in which the claim does not follow logically from the premises Example He was arrested for a DUI 10 years ago He is definitely an alcoholic o Post Hoc o Slippery Slope A fallacy that concludes one event was caused by another simply because it occurred after the other Example I just started using Axe Body Spray today and I ve already gotten three phone numbers That stuff really works A fallacy that suggests without sufficient evidence that one event will inaugurate a sequence of other events eventually culminating in disaster Example If you get a B in high school you won t be able to get into a top college and you ll never have a meaningful life Reasoning o Inductive Definition the intellectual process of reaching a general belief or conclusion about something from a limited number of encounters with this thing Examples Statistics Narratives Speakers use examples to establish a pattern or a basis for a broader claim Make arguments more interesting and convincing Can be used as a form of inductive evidence to support a general conclusion Intended effect of the argument is to lead an audience to view the conclusion A story a factual or fictional scenario or a biographical account that provides support for a general claim Functions as an extended example Suggest conclusions and people are persuaded by them because they can identify with a situation or character Warranting Inductive Inferences Tests of Validity The warrant is what legitimizes or validates the inferential leap from evidence to claim For inductive arguments the warrant is typically implicit rather than stated In order to provide valid support for a conclusion an inductive argument must meet the following standards o Sufficiency the number of examples or sample size warrants the inference o Accuracy the example or narrative is truthful o Representativeness the examples or statistics are typical of the general class or group identified in the claim o Deductive Reasoning In deduction we usually move from a specific fact about something through a general principles to a specific conclusion about that thing Form Major Premise or Warrant o A general rule accepted by or a belief held by that audience Minor Premise or Evidence Statement o A factual observation or assumption Conclusion or Claim o The proposition that can be inferred from the two premises taken together Steps in analyzing Argument Identify the type of claim fact value or policy Identify the evidence used to support the claim Identify the warrant o Involves figuring out what unspoken assumption or idea provides a logical link between the evidence and the claim Deduction for claims of fact value and policy Factual claims o A factual claim is supported by a specific observation and the two are connected by a general rule The rule is based either on an audience s direct experience or scientific evidence Value claims belief Policy claims o The argument turns on the warrant which is the audience s o Not everyone believes it of course so a speaker must know before planning a speech what sorts of values and moral beliefs an audience holds o As before in designing policy arguments for a particular audience a speaker must have an accurate sense of the audience s basic beliefs and values concerning the issues pertaining to the speech topic Four Types of Arguments Sign Argument fact o Example o Involves developing a logical proof based on an observable Evidence The economy s leading indicators are Warrant Falling economic indicators are a sign of down this quarter a coming recession Claim so the economy is probably headed toward recession Causal Argument Analogical argument o Reasons that because one thing is either a cause of or is caused by another thing the presence of one is evidence of the other o Example Claim We can expect an increase in rates soon Evidence The federal budget deficit this year is larger than last year s Warrant A growing budget deficit generally causes interest rates to rise o Based on a comparison of two things to show that because the two situations are similar on analogous to each other what is true of one will also be true of the other o Example Claim A bottle deposit law in Pennsylvania would lead to less litter more recycling Evidence States that have bottle deposit laws have less litter and more recycling Warrant Pennsylvania is similar to other states so such a law would affect it in a similar way o Class to individual arguments claim that because an object is a member of a class it will share the characteristics of other members of that class or category o Individual to class arguments show that because a person or object has a certain characteristic it belongs to a larger group or class that shares that characteristic Arguments from Classification o Although a speaker might not have professional knowledge