Page 135 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
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intolerance and the zero tolerance fallacy 135
most critical thinking textbooks. For example, in the very popular Ox-
ford University Press textbook, The Power of Critical Thinking (Cana-
dian Edition), by Lewis Vaughan and Chris MacDonald, we find this:
There are certain types of defective arguments that recur so frequently that
they have names (given to them, in many cases, by ancient philosophers or
medieval scholars) and are usually gathered into critical thinking texts so
students can become aware of them. Such common, flawed arguments are
known as fallacies, and they are therefore said to be fallacious. Fallacies are
often beguiling; they can seem plausible. Time and again they are psychologi-
cally persuasive, though logically impotent. The primary motivation for stud-
ying fallacies, then, is to be able to detect them so you’re not taken in by
them (2008: 170–171, emphasis in original).
A rarely used argument which seems to be genuine but which is not
really so might count as a fallacious argument, but we would not call
it a fallacy. This is because fallacies are commonly used fallacious argu-
ments – indeed, those common enough to warrant naming them as fal-
lacies. This use is employed even when one is not writing on argumenta-
tion theory, or rhetoric, or in core areas of critical thinking. Thus, Chris
MacDonald, in “Critical Thinking for Business Ethics”, says that falla-
cies are “errors in reasoning [that] are so common that, over the years,
they’ve been given names” (2012: 33). In sum, uncommon errors do not
get to be named fallacies.
To be fully accurate, one should say that named fallacies are argu-
ments that would be frequently used in the absence of a name for the
fallacy. This is because, in naming a fallacy, the hope of argumentation
theorists, rhetoricians, and critical thinking scholars is to reduce the
frequency of that type of reasoning. (That is also my reason for sug-
gesting that “the zero tolerance fallacy” be added to our collection of
named fallacies.) But, if our standard were that something is proper-
ly a named fallacy only if its use is sufficiently frequent to warrant giv-
ing the fallacy a special name, and if doing that were to substantially
reduce the frequency with which people commit the fallacy, then by
our standard we would have to drop the fallacy from our list of named
fallacies (because, subsequent to naming it, its use would become in-
frequent). Sadly there is no reason to fear that this worry is one worth
holding. People have been naming fallacies since Aristotle’s time and,
so far as I know, there has never been a case where naming a fallacy has
been so effective in changing people’s patterns of argumentation as to
actually make the fallacy extinct. The best that argumentation theo-
most critical thinking textbooks. For example, in the very popular Ox-
ford University Press textbook, The Power of Critical Thinking (Cana-
dian Edition), by Lewis Vaughan and Chris MacDonald, we find this:
There are certain types of defective arguments that recur so frequently that
they have names (given to them, in many cases, by ancient philosophers or
medieval scholars) and are usually gathered into critical thinking texts so
students can become aware of them. Such common, flawed arguments are
known as fallacies, and they are therefore said to be fallacious. Fallacies are
often beguiling; they can seem plausible. Time and again they are psychologi-
cally persuasive, though logically impotent. The primary motivation for stud-
ying fallacies, then, is to be able to detect them so you’re not taken in by
them (2008: 170–171, emphasis in original).
A rarely used argument which seems to be genuine but which is not
really so might count as a fallacious argument, but we would not call
it a fallacy. This is because fallacies are commonly used fallacious argu-
ments – indeed, those common enough to warrant naming them as fal-
lacies. This use is employed even when one is not writing on argumenta-
tion theory, or rhetoric, or in core areas of critical thinking. Thus, Chris
MacDonald, in “Critical Thinking for Business Ethics”, says that falla-
cies are “errors in reasoning [that] are so common that, over the years,
they’ve been given names” (2012: 33). In sum, uncommon errors do not
get to be named fallacies.
To be fully accurate, one should say that named fallacies are argu-
ments that would be frequently used in the absence of a name for the
fallacy. This is because, in naming a fallacy, the hope of argumentation
theorists, rhetoricians, and critical thinking scholars is to reduce the
frequency of that type of reasoning. (That is also my reason for sug-
gesting that “the zero tolerance fallacy” be added to our collection of
named fallacies.) But, if our standard were that something is proper-
ly a named fallacy only if its use is sufficiently frequent to warrant giv-
ing the fallacy a special name, and if doing that were to substantially
reduce the frequency with which people commit the fallacy, then by
our standard we would have to drop the fallacy from our list of named
fallacies (because, subsequent to naming it, its use would become in-
frequent). Sadly there is no reason to fear that this worry is one worth
holding. People have been naming fallacies since Aristotle’s time and,
so far as I know, there has never been a case where naming a fallacy has
been so effective in changing people’s patterns of argumentation as to
actually make the fallacy extinct. The best that argumentation theo-
