Excerpt -- What is a Straw Man?
Straw Man Fallacy
I will give you an example of this fallacy, then my description of the
conditions that must be present in order for a case of the straw man fallacy
to occur, and then one more case to look at.
In brief, the straw man fallacy occurs when someone misrepresents someone
else's argument, and does so in a way that makes the first argument look
weaker than it actually is. The person committing the fallacy then goes on
to criticize the weakened version of the argument, not the actual argument.
So what's wrong with this; it sounds like a fun way to argue with someone!
An underlying assumption in Philosophy (and most disciplines) is that we are
trying to get at the "truth" of some matter; we want to know what is the
case, so that we can make a decision based on this information. Of course,
we cannot always determine the truth of a matter, but that's another
problem! For the moment, let's operate with the assumption that we can get
an idea of what is the case, and that indeed, we want to achieve the truth.
Then, we can see that there are problems in using the straw man fallacy,
because it can prevent us from getting at what it is we want to know.
Suppose that someone argued:
"We should not permit the destruction of historical sites for the reason
that people like to be reminded of their heritage and the old buildings
serve this purpose well." (I'm trying to choose something that is not too
controversial here!)
"We should not permit the destruction of historical sites" is the conclusion
of this argument. Suppose now that someone did not agree with this
conclusion, and he wanted to argue against this view. We might expect him to
do a number of things. One, he could try to refute the given premises, or he
could develop another argument, using premises to show that there are
(sometimes) good reasons for taking down old buildings, for example, for
safety. But someone committing this fallacy might not be so philosophical
about it, they might instead say:
"Those who think that we should not tear down buildings obviously just fear
progress and like to hang on to things long after they are useful."
Aside from being somewhat negative, this person is committing the straw man
fallacy. Why? He is misrepresenting the argument that is given. There are
many ways to misrepresent an argument; one could misstate the conclusion or
the premises, one could ignore one or more premises altogether, one could
attribute some dubious motive to the other arguer, without really taking
into account what he had said. (This latter point now may also involve the
fallacy of prejudicial language and/or attacking the person.) The main point
here is that the person committing the fallacy has not given an accurate
rendering of the argument, and has thus attacked a weaker version of it. I
will return to this example a little later. Here is a summary table of what
happens when someone commits the straw man fallacy.
1. One person presents an argument. This is an important component of
committing the fallacy, for if there is not an original argument, either
implied or stated explicitly, then there is nothing to misrepresent and thus
the straw man fallacy does not occur.
2. A second person, the one committing the fallacy, misrepresents this
argument by ignoring one or more premises, misstating the premises or
conclusions, or leaving out a significant part of the argument.
3. The misrepresented argument is then criticized by the person committing
the fallacy. Note that this is not the same as criticizing the original
argument. The misrepresented argument no longer indicates what the original
arguer said, and thus to criticize the misrepresented argument is not to
criticize the given argument. A person may compound this by using strong
language or personal attack to distract from the fact that he does not have
the argument right.
4. Note that the person committing the fallacy may be doing so deliberately
or quite unintentionally. In either case, it is fallacious.
5. Note that the person committing the fallacy may or may not be agreeing
with the conclusion of the original argument. Typically, one committing the
fallacy disagrees with the conclusion, but this does not always need to be
the case. What is relevant is that in some way the person committing the
fallacy is misrepresenting the given argument.
Let's look at one more example.
Suppose someone argues:
"There has to be much greater awareness of just how unhealthy some of our
gender roles are. For example, to pretend that women are only emotional and
intuitive and incapable or reasoning is to describe only a few features that
any person might - or might not - have. To draw any conclusion based on such
stereotypical thinking; such that women ought to stay out of important
position in the work force because they cannot handle the competition, is
absurd. The social role difference that we try to attribute to gender arises
not because of some genuine innate differences, but they arise because of
the way that we structure society and unthinkingly force people in out
antiquarian roles which prevents, rather than promotes, recognition of what
people are really capable of."
Ok, this is the original argument (whether or not it contains fallacies can
be debated!). Now, suppose that a second party comes along and tries to
refute the conclusion. Instead of trying to give a reasonable argument, the
person commits the straw man fallacy by misrepresenting what the above
argument says:
Straw man fallacy: "This person obviously thinks that there are no
differences between men and women and that we cannot draw conclusions about
the suitability of different people for different types of work. If this is
true, why are there more men than women in construction, business and
academia?"
I hope that you can see that this response does not convey a sense of the
person grasping what the original argument was about! The original arguer
did not say that there are no differences between men and women, nor has
s/he commented upon the suitability of different people for different kinds
of work. The last comment conveys a lack of understanding: the whole point
of the original passage is that there may be more men in the above mentioned
fields just because the misleading gender roles s/he has argued are
incorrectly attributed to people. So the response given to us does not do
much to further the discussion and understanding of the first argument.
Why does it matter if someone commits this fallacy? If you gave the
historical site argument above, you might feel that the other person was
"missing the point" and not concerned to understand your point of view. In
matters that are very important to us, this can be distressing. It can also
prevent resolution of problems, if the person committing the fallacy is not
getting the point.
On the other hand, there may be cases in which a respondent might correctly
identify an underlying agenda of the person giving the original argument.
Suppose instead that our example was as given above, but the respondent said
"There may be some merit in keeping and maintaining some of our older
buildings, but "X" is merely speaking from self interest since the building
that he is talking about is on his property and he can make more money
selling it if it is declared an historical site."
So what do we do with this example? Well, we can still ask if the respondent
got the argument right. The first phrase suggests that he is conceding some
part of the original argument. For the moment, let's assume that the person
"X" does indeed want the value of the building that he owns to go up so that
he can sell it at a higher price. Do we still have a case of straw man?
Perhaps not. If indeed the person wants to profit in this way, then maybe
the respondent's argument is on target. On the other hand, if this claim is
false and if it is attributing motives to "x" then this looks like straw
man. The problem here is that we don't necessarily know, unless we have this
extra bit of information: is this "accusation" warranted or not? In such a
case, we need to do our best to find out what we can, and to avoid straw
man.
Caution: you are likely to see many cases of this fallacy; and it is a very
easy fallacy to commit!
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