EXERCISE 7: Misrepresentations and Deductive Ambiguities
Identify the fallacy that occurs in each passage.
These will be Misrepresentations (Straw Man) and Deductive Ambiguities (Equivocation, Amphiboly, Composition, and Division).
1. How can you expect me to pay the rent, when, as everyone knows, the economy is going to hell in a hand basket?
2. Supporters of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are in favor of turning the country over to Mexico. I urge you to vote against it.
3. Curlie: I saw a chimpanzee driving past the zoo.
Mo: Gee, they'll give a driver's license to just about anybody these days.
4. Since Americans only like to use pure drugs, the Food and Drug Administration should prohibit the importation of drugs from Europe and other parts of the world. Pure drugs are drugs with no foreign substances in them, but drugs that have been imported will naturally be full of foreign substances.
5. At the Post Office there was a sign that said, "Cash only accepted for money orders." Apparently, when you buy stamps you have to use a credit card or write a check.
6. I've taken sleeping pills before, and they've done me no harm. I have drunk whiskey before, and nothing bad happened to me. So it should be perfectly safe to take these sleeping pills with a glass of whiskey.
7. Naturally fundamentalists object to playing Dungeons and Dragons. They are trying to take all the fun out of life.
8. Statistics show that women have sex more often than men. My wife must be cheating on me!
WELCOME EXPLANATION OF PRINCIPLES TABLE OF FALLACIES EXERCISES INDEX