Psychogenetic Fallacy: if you learn the psychological reason why your opponent likes an argument, then he's biased, so his argument must be wrong.
A good example of one of those sort-of fallacies. In reality, everyone is biased, and understanding those biases is part of politics. Politics is not a truth-seeking endeavor, and so fallacies are very much acceptable strategically. Someone who surrenders his own biases, and also surrenders examining his opponents' biases losses every time.
over-simplifying. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Political slogans such as "Taxation is theft" fall in this category.
Right, exactly. Actually, all taxation is in fact theft. The nuance that is missed by people who say that, is that some theft is positive-sum, even to the victim.
Similarly, a common justification for bribery is that "Everybody does it". And in the past, this was a justification for slavery.
"Slavery: Everybody does it"? Uh, no. I doubt anyone ever put together those words.
Uh, again, no. At least in the United States, there was the status quo which is not a matter of truth or falsehood, and then there were arguments. Slavery was always a matter of debate, and the South had lots of "good" reasons for the practice, and it was never "because everybody's doing it." That's a straw man, not that it matters.
And your argumentation falls under the Amazing Familiarity :)
Twelve million Africans were shipped to the Americas from the 16th to the 19th centuries (according to Wikipedia), I doubt any of us know how every single person involved justified this enterprise.
Concerning 'taxation is theft': you are redefining theft. Theft is, by the definition everyone uses in practice, something immoral. Something that we don't want and that should be punished. If taxation is positive-sum, even to the victim, then it cannot possibly be theft. By asserting that 'taxation is theft', you muddle the discussion, because the point in question is whether taxation is immoral.
Theft means taking someone's property without their consent. If we had a system by which taxation had some sort of optional element (e.g. it's up to you but if you don't pay you can't vote) then we could debate the morality of taxation. But from the perspective of the taxed, under the present system, there is no moral element - it's simply beyond your control.
> Theft means taking someone's property without their consent.
Actually, it doesn't. Well, it certainly isn't the whole story.
IANAL, but this snippet from a web page accords almost precisely with my memory of what I learned when I had cause to deal with such a matter professionally:
> A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly
> appropriates property belonging to another with
> the intention of permanently depriving the other
> of it ...
According to law, it's not theft if you did it honestly, or if you intended to give it back. "Consent" is not part of the legal definition.
EDIT: I note that the wikipedia article mentions consent. These things will differ between English, American and other country's laws.
Certainly in the case of taxes the intent is to deprive permanently, so it comes down to whether it's dishonest. Since the government makes the laws, and the government won't want taxation to be declared theft, we can deduce that taxation isn't dishonest.
Nobody said they are equivalent; taxation is a subset of theft, theft that is approved by the government. That is all taxation is theft (coercive appropriation) but not all theft is taxation (legal coercive appropriation).
I hate these fallacious argument articles, mainly because I think they miss the point.
Sure, if you're on a collegiate debate team it's great to be able to categorize the faults in your opponent's argument. But in the real world, we have discussions -- sometimes heated ones -- in order to advance some common cause. That means we should be working on each other's teams here. When somebody uses one of these, they're not "cheating" -- it's more like they slipped up into a simple response when a more well-thought out response was called for. Lists like this lead us to think we just point our finger and shout "ad hominem!" instead of actually engaging somebody.
Somebody can commit every logical fallacy there is and still have valuable and important information that you need to have. Heck -- they can actually have a better case than you do. If somebody runs in the room and shouts "you're such an idiot you probably don't even realize the building is on fire", the proper response is not to critique their argumentation skills.
I have the same problem with these lists as I do with design pattern books. The purpose shouldn't be to memorize the label and pattern, the purpose should be to develop enough critical thinking skills that you don't need the list, don't need the patterns book. Then the labels are just nice after-thoughts.
I'd like to know what the fallacious argument is called when someone cites an obscure logical fallacy in order to sound more intelligent, while ignoring the otherwise valid portions of the original argument.
It's a version of the Argument by Generalization: you show that one of the arguments is fallacious and generalize that everything the other has said must be fallacious. The generalization might be merely implied, by not responding to other arguments.
BTW, you are aware that 'cites an obscure logical fallacy in order to sound more intelligent' is something between an ad hominem and a red herring, because you draw attention to the supposed, morally questionable, intentions of the other, rather than face the fallacy head on?
Straw man and ad hominem are obviously the big hitters here. A good way to find examples is to search for, say: "ad hominem fuck" or "straw man asshole". The extra profanity term helps narrow the search to discussions which are particularly heated.
A good example of one of those sort-of fallacies. In reality, everyone is biased, and understanding those biases is part of politics. Politics is not a truth-seeking endeavor, and so fallacies are very much acceptable strategically. Someone who surrenders his own biases, and also surrenders examining his opponents' biases losses every time.
over-simplifying. As Einstein said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Political slogans such as "Taxation is theft" fall in this category.
Right, exactly. Actually, all taxation is in fact theft. The nuance that is missed by people who say that, is that some theft is positive-sum, even to the victim.
Similarly, a common justification for bribery is that "Everybody does it". And in the past, this was a justification for slavery.
"Slavery: Everybody does it"? Uh, no. I doubt anyone ever put together those words.