Logical Fallacies: Straw Man
Straw Man arguments are arguments that misrepresent a position in order to refute it. Unfortunately, adopting this strategy means that only the misrepresentation of the position is refuted; the real position is left untouched by the argument.
Examples
“Christianity teaches that as long as you say ‘Sorry’ afterwards, it doesn’t matter what you do. Even the worst moral crimes can be quickly and easily erased by simply uttering a word. This is absurd. Even if a sinner does apologise for what they’ve done, the effects of their sin are often here to stay. For example, if someone repents of infanticide, that doesn’t bring the infant back to life. Christians are clearly out of touch with reality.”
This argument distorts Christianity in a couple of ways. First, it caricatures repentance as simply saying the word ‘Sorry’. Second, it implies that Christianity teaches that all of the negative effects of sin are erased when one confesses, which it doesn’t. Having distorted Christianity, the argument then correctly points out that the distortion is ludicrous, and quite reasonably rejects it as “out of touch with reality”. The argument, however, completely fails to engage with what the Church actually teachers, and so its conclusion has nothing to do with real Christianity.
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Logical Fallacies: Tu Quoque
“Tu quoque” is Latin for “you too”. The tu quoque fallacy involves using other people’s faults as an excuse for one’s own, reasoning that because someone or everyone else does something, it’s okay for us to do it. This, of course, doesn’t follow. Sometimes other people have short-comings, and we ought to do better than them. We can be blamed for emulating other people’s faults.
Example
“It doesn’t matter that I occasionally break the speed limit; everyone else does it.”
Logical Fallacies: Weak Analogy
Arguments by analogy rest on a comparison between two cases. They examine a known case, and extend their findings there to an unknown case. Thus we might reason that because we find it difficult to forgive a girlfriend or boyfriend who cheated on us (a known case), it must be extremely difficult for someone to forgive a spouse who has had an affair (an unknown case).
This kind of argument relies on the cases compared being similar. The argument is only as strong as that comparison. If the two cases are dissimilar in important respects, then the argument commits the weak analogy fallacy.
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