365 Days of Philosophy

365DaysofPhilosophy 17 - Straw Man Fallacy

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The straw man fallacy works like this:

  1. An argument is presented,
  2. The argument is then simplified and distorted by the opposing arguer
  3. He will then base his counter-argument on the distorted version, which is easy to knock down — he is arguing against an opponent who doesn’t really exist.
  4. It looks as if he has successfully demolished the original argument. He has done nothing of the sort.

    5. Another way of putting it is:

    1. Person A has position X.
    2. Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).
    3. Person B attacks position Y.
    4. Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

      5. Imagine that you have two figures in front of you. One is a statue made from marble; the other is a scarecrow made from bits of sack and made of straw. The state is a very good representation of the human figure; the scarecrow sags and droops and has a carrot for a nose. You knock it over with your hand because it is an easy target and it is useless. Poor scarecrow! This what happens in straw man arguments.

      Some clues to help spot a straw man fallacy:

      1. Deliberate distortion of the opponent’s position
      2. Deliberate distortion of the opponent’s position in order to present it as a very weak argument in order to knock it down, or discredit it. 

        3. They have not committed ad hominem, because they have not attacked a person’s character, honesty, integrity and so on.

        Exercises: identify if / where straw man fallacies have occurred in the following examples.

        1. Prof. Jones: “The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000.”
        Prof. Smith: “What are we going to do?”
        Prof. Brown: “I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it.”
        Prof. Jones: “We could reduce our scheduled raises instead.”
        Prof. Brown: ” I can’t understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones.”

        2. Prof Anna: “Evolution has been the main engine of speciation throughout natural history, from mice to elephants.”
        Prof Nanna: “Evolution is false! How could a mouse evolve into an elephant? There would have to be billions of changes for that to occur, and nobody has ever seen speciation anyway! So it’s silly…who has ever seen a mouse evolve into an elephant? Nobody! Therefore, evolution must be false!”

        3. Child: “Can we get a dog?”
        Parent: “No.”
        Child: “It would protect us.”
        Parent: “Still, no, as I am allergic.”
        Child: “An allergy to not being robbed? Why do you want to leave us and our house unprotected?”

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        365 Days of PhilosophyBy Kylie Sturgess