Oct 31 2008
Fallacy fallacy fallacy
The fallacy fallacy consists in thinking a conclusion false because it is the product of a fallacious argument. I often get accused of that. Such accusations reveal a manifest ignorance of how proving stuff works. The fallacy fallacy fallacy consists in thinking it fallacious (usually an ad hominem) to accuse people of having committed fallacies. So if I point out, for instance, that someone has reasoned poorly, and that person responds that I am attacking them personally, then that person has committed the fallacy fallacy fallacy. I think in fact that this occurs quite often. Here, for instance, is an imperfect example from that intellectual giant, Sarah Palin:
Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.
"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."
Got that? You can't criticize Palin's guilt-by-association tactics, because that's "attacking the person." Dumb.
For the fallacy fallacy, all the credit goes to Humbugonline. For the above Palin quotation, the Washington Monthly.
I fear you may have committed the recursion fallacy.
My brain hurts.
Why does this always seem to happen when I try to parse something Palin says?
I guess the good governor is asserting her right to be wrong.
Asserting her right to be wrong? Is this what is left of the Right?
(Ba-dum, ching.)
A thought.
You can attack someone personally and not be making a fallacy, anyway.
For example, “Palin is wrong to argue that the media shouldn’t criticise her for poisoning the well with Obama, because at the same time she states she has the right to criticise Obama. This is inconsistent. They are questioning whether the nature of her criticisms are warranted. A perfectly valid use of the freedom of speech. As such, she’s a complete moron.”
This would only be a fallacy if I said, “Palin is a complete moron, so why would anyone take her criticism of the media seriously.”
In the first version, the “moron” comment is an addendum to the argument, or even the conclusion. In the second (fallacious) version, the “moron” comment is the basis of my argument.
This is not a good argument, even if it happens to be true…
[...] This guy is such a super troll that if you try to point out his foundational wrongness, he accuses you of logical fallacies–that, as I think we might have noted before, is the fallacy fallacy fallacy. [...]