What’s a non sequitur?

Special note: we’re in the process of rewriting this page–if you think we ought to add anything, or if you think we ought to clarify something, or you have fun examples of any of the fallacies you’d like to share, please don’t hesitate to let us know in the comments below.

What’s a non sequitur?

In Latin, a dead language in nearly every respect save portentous phrases like salva veritate and names of important philosophical notions, the phrase non sequitur literally means “it does not follow.”  What “does not follow” is the conclusion from the premises of an argument.  When that happened, in ancient Rome and in the Middle Ages, people would scream “non sequitur!”  In a broader sense, a non sequitur is a logical fallacy, from the Latin fallacia, meaning “trick.”  So a fallacy is a kind of trick, a logical trick.  Yet another term for a logical trick is sophism, which recalls the ancient Greek Sophists, famous for their dishonest argumentative trickery.

Reasoning fallaciously is something like cheating or stealing. You attempt to acquire something that you have not earned or paid for. Unlike cheating however, when one reasons fallaciously one does not, despite appearances to the contrary, actually acquire anything.  After all, the whole point of argument is proof–if your proof fails, you don’t earn your conclusion–even if some people think you do.  Your conclusion may turn out to be true independently of your argument, but that doesn’t make your reasoning good.  It just makes you lucky.  The cheater may be a better athlete, but that doesn’t mean the cheater deserves to win by cheating.

Very roughly then (as we have at this moment no stable theory) a fallacy is a systematic and egregious defect in an argument.  To continue the cheating analogy, we might liken a fallacy to a penalty in a football game.  Penalties are the typical ways one tries to break the rules (i.e., to cheat)–offsides, holding, face masking, etc.  There are certainly more ways to violate the rules than these, and determining which penalty has been committed sometimes involves a great deal of interpretation on the part of the referee, but the general concept is clear to anyone who knows about football.  As it’s possible to group football penalties into categories, it’s also possible to group informal fallacies into categories.  As football offensive lineman are prone to holding, ideologically driven arguers will tend to distort (straw man–see below) their opponents’ arguments in order to “win.”

But we think the analogy to football ends there.  Dealing with fallacies isn’t like the referee’s hand motions in a football game.  It involves–or rather should involve–some explanation.  Nothing annoys us more, in fact, than people who scream the fallacy name without offering any accompanying analysis.  For us it’s the analysis that’s important.  The name is just a kind of shorthand placeholder for the general problem.

What are the fallacies?

There are two basic types of fallacy–formal and informal.  A formal fallacy is a systematic defect in deductive reasoning.  Here’s an example of one:

Since all dogs are animals and all cats are animals, it follows that all cats are dogs.

The problem here is the formal fallacy of the undistributed middle.  The defect concerns the logical form of the argument, not the content of the propositions.  For a more detailed discussion of formal fallacies, click here (page not up yet).

By contrast, informal fallacies regard the content.  An informal fallacy is a systematic and diagnosable defect in inductive (broadly speaking, non-deductive) reasoning.  It usually involves some kind of distortion of the content of the argument.  These may be distortions of relevance, probative force, or meaning for instance.  Aristotle, the first to engage in the systematic study of fallacies, identified 13 different fallacies in his On Sophistical Refutations.  For those click here.   Nowadays informal reasoning texts tend to present anywhere from 18 to 25.  Some scholars have identified many more.  Here are two examples: one and two.

Following a lot of informal logic texts and for the sake of simplicity we group the the informal fallacies into three basic categories–fallacies of relevance, fallacies of weak induction (or fallacies of evidence) and fallacies of presumption and ambiguity.  These correspond to the three typical types of distortion in informal reasoning: distortion of relevance, of evidence strength or probative force, and distortions of meaning.

The following is a list of the fallacies one is likely to run across in every day arguments found in op-ed pages and elsewhere.  As time permits, we will add somewhat cartoonish examples of the fallacies for the sake of the curious public.  The egregiousness of the examples shouldn’t be viewed however as a claim that all instances of fallacies in everyday life will be similarly absurd and egregious (and consequently that any non-cartoonish instance of a fallacy which we point out is a failure of charity on our part).  They usually won’t be so silly.  Their lack of silliness, in fact, is the reason they are called “fallacies”–they’re deceptions.  Besides, the hyperbolic example is merely a pedagogical technique.  The list, by the way, is by no means comprehensive; every day we are surprised to see the lengths to which people will go to win their arguments.  We might add a couple of our own “discoveries” at the end.

But we ought to stress, by the way, that we would tend to consider these fallacies to be very simple and avoidable kinds of reasoning errors.  Avoiding them is as simple as drawing within the lines of a child’s coloring book–it takes a modicum of care, patience and honesty.  There are many more systematic errors than these, however.  Many of these consist in among other things psychological propensities to misjudge data, misread statistics, ignore our own biases and in general to make faulty predictions.  Some of these errors are exceedingly difficult to detect and avoid.  The same is not true, however, of the fallacies listed below.

One final thing.  If this list doesn’t accord with your understanding of fallacies, feel free to leave a comment.

I. Fallacies of relevance:

Certainly one of the most common types of fallacy in informal reasoning consists in drawing conclusions from reasons that are not “logically” relevant to the conclusion. The reasons, however, seem to be psychologically emotionally, rhetorically or, we might add, politically relevant to the conclusion being drawn. When someone’s conclusion doesn’t seem to have much to do with the premises, you might be in the presence of a fallacy of relevance. Here are some basic types.

1. Ad hominem (against the person): attacking the person making an argument rather than the argument or position the person is supporting. There are three basic varieties of ad hominem (as well as numerous sub-varieties–for those see Walton, 1998 in the Bibliography).

  • Ad hominem abusive: challenging someone’s argument on account of real or alleged character flaws of the arguer (when such character flaws have nothing to do with the argument being made–careful, some personal attacks are not fallacious).

E.g., Al Gore has argued that human-caused global warming must be taken seriously.  But no one could possibly take the boring, overweight, and bearded Al Gore seriously.  Gore’s claims about global warming, therefore, are crap.

  • Ad hominem circumstantial: claiming that one only holds an opposing position because of vanity, self-interest, or other similar causes of bias.

E.g., Al Gore has claimed that human-caused global warming must be taken seriously, but he’s just saying that in order to drum up sales for his book (or because of his “liberal bias”), so no one should listen to Gore’s arguments.

  • Ad hominem tu quoque (against the person, “you too”): challenging an opponent’s argument on grounds of hypocrisy.

E.g., Al Gore has argued that human-caused global warming ought to be taken seriously.  But Al Gore drives around in a gas-guzzling classic car.  No one could possibly take his arguments about global warming seriously.

2. Argumentum ad populum (appeal to the people): the direct or indirect appeal to the perceptions or impressions of a group of people as support for the truth of one’s conclusion when such an appeal is irrelevant.

E.g., Evolutionary biologists have argued for the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution in public schools, but many people disagree with them–many even doubt the cogency of the theory.  For those reasons we ought not to teach evolution in public schools. [This is the “direct” variety–public opinion is claimed to be evidence for that which it isn’t]

3. Straw man: attacking a diminished or absurdly weak version of an opponent ‘s argument and claiming victory over his real argument.

E.g., conservatives claim that high taxes impede economic growth.  But that’s a silly argument.  Taxes pay for roads, police, national defense, national parks and much else.  These things are requisite for economic growth.  Such conservatives arguments are therefore poppycock.  [the argument concerns the amount of taxes, not the fact of taxes–the “conservative” position has been misrepresented].

4. Red Herring: distracting the reader or listener with an argument against a related, but essentially different, argument.  Like the straw man and the ad hominem, this is what one might call a “fallacy of criticism.”  That is to say, it’s a fallacy typical of attempted refutations.

E.g., Environmentalists have charged that oil production in the North Sea has led to the depletion of local fisheries, among much else.  But oil production is necessary for economic growth.  Oil and other petrochemicals provide the fuel for the development of new and more efficient technologies.

5. Ignoratio elenchi (missing the point): drawing an alarmingly extreme conclusion from premises which would support a different or more moderate one.  Sometimes this fallacy is used as a catch-all for as yet unnamed fallacies–much like, for that matter, “non sequitur.”  In this latter sense, this is a kind of argumentative “unsportsmanlike conduct”–a catch-all for that bad behavior that has no name.  Here’s an example of the former variety of ignoratio elenchi.

E.g., it’s likely social security may run into financial difficulties around the year 2018, to avoid these difficulties it’s imperative that we get rid of social security.

6. Accident: applying a general rule to a case to which the rule should not apply.

E.g., The second amendment to the Constitution says that “the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed”–which part of “shall not be infringed” do gun-control advocates not understand?  Gun control, such as background checks against terrorist watch lists, obviously violates the constitutional right to bear arms.

7. Ad baculum: threatening directly or indirectly an opponent in order to get her or him to affirm your conclusion.

E.g., I’m sure the class will find my ultra-liberal arguments against the Iraq war persuasive, after all, your grade is on the line.

II. Fallacies of weak induction (evidence, insufficient evidence):

As common as fallacies of relevance, fallacies of induction (or fallacies of weak induction, fallacies of insufficient evidence) take various forms.  These differ from fallacies of relevance in that the premises are relevant to the conclusion, they just don’t offer enough evidence for the conclusion.

1. Causal fallacies. There are four common varieties of causal fallacy.

  • Oversimplified cause: Underestimating the complexity of causes that bring about some event or fact by selectively picking out one of them and asserting that it is the only or the most important cause.

E.g., since the Bush tax cuts went into effect, unemployment is down, revenues are up, new home starts have begun rebounding, one can only conclude the tax cuts have worked as planned!

  • Post hoc ergo propter hoc: claiming that simply because one fact follows another that the preceding event or fact is the cause.

E.g., since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there have been no major terrorist attacks inside the United States.  You’d have to be a fool not to see a connection.  The war in Iraq has terrorists on the run.

  • Non causa pro causa: claiming that two events or facts are causally linked simply by virtue of correlation.

E.g., one sees a surprising correlation between areas of low barometric pressure and negative attitudes toward Major league baseball.   Low pressure discourages fandom for Major league baseball.

  • Gambler’s fallacy: alleging a causal link between otherwise distinct events which are joined by a causally irrelevant factor, such as a night of gambling.

E.g., In the time I’ve been playing craps, I’ve lost 70% of the time.  If I continue playing, the odds are that my luck will even out.

2. Argumentum ad verecundiam (Appeal to unqualified authority): Appeal to an overtly biased or otherwise unqualified person in support of one’s position in an argument.

E.g., Michael Crichton, science fiction author, as written a work of fiction on the subject of “global warming hysteria.”  In view of Crichton’s expertise, and the hundreds of footnotes and several appendices in his recent work of fiction, it’s evident that scientific claims of global warming are not what they seem.

3. Slippery slope: alleging that accepting the conclusion of an opponent’s argument will invariably lead to an increasing series of dastardly consequences.

E.g., Allowing the government to advocate social policy through the tax system will inevitably result in their intrusion into every area of moral choice with the tax system.  Our private liberty will be at risk.

4. Weak analogy: overstating the importance of similarities between two otherwise different events, or  claiming a likeness between two circumstances or events which does not hold.

E.g., following World War II the allies occupied Germany for many years.  We still have troops there now, as a matter of fact.  We should not therefore be surprised that we still have troops in Iraq, it’s only been five years, after all.

5. Hasty generalization: drawing a conclusion from an inadequate or unrepresentative sample.

E.g., those people who work for PETA have no regard for the problems of racial minorities.  I once in college met a few of them who said animals’ rights mattered at least as much as human rights.

6. Argumentum ad ignorantiam: claiming that the absence of a clear answer to a question implies either an affirmative or negative answer (and not simply ignorance about the right answer).

E.g., no one has ever shown that there isn’t an Atlantis, as a result, it must be true that there is one.

III. Fallacies of ambiguity or presumption:

1. Equivocation: drawing an inference on the basis of an incorrect semantic analysis of a term.

E.g., Stealing means to gain by means other than earning, since the Catholic Church favors welfare programs for the poor, they favor stealing.

2. Composition: reasoning from the characteristics of the parts to the characteristics of the whole.

E.g., I don’t understand why the Cubs aren’t a more competitive baseball team–each of the players is an outstanding athlete–that should make for an outstanding team.

3. Division: reasoning from the characteristics of the whole to the characteristics of the constituent parts.

E.g., The American relay team was the fastest at the Worlds.  They beat the Jamaican team handily.  Since Speedy McGee was a member of the team, speedy McGee can outrun any member of the Jamaican team.

4. Petitio Principii (begging the question): assuming the conclusion to be demonstrated as one of the premises.  There are at least two distinct varieties: (1) the repetition of the premises in the conclusion.  This usually invovles slight verbal changes which mask the fact that the premises and conclusion say the same thing.  For instance,

E.g., Abortion is unconstitutional because it traduces the principles of the constitution.

Begging the question also happens when (2) one assumes some key and disputed premise:

E.g., Abortion is unconstitutional because the constitution does not mention it.

5. False Dichotomy or False Dilemma: arguing that only two alternatives are possible, and concluding that since one is untenable, the other must be correct.

E.g., One can either support the current administration’s policies, or one can embrace socialism.

6. Amphiboly: drawing an inference on the basis of an incorrect grammatical analysis.  I can’t be certain I’ve ever seen an actual case of this in an argument.  Here is a famous example:

E.g., This morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas, how he got there I’ll never know!

7. Complex Question: deviously asking two questions disguised as one such that one cannot answer one with answering the other.

E.g., Mr. Clinton, why didn’t you do more to stop Al Qeda?

27 thoughts on “What’s a non sequitur?”

  1. Could recommend any sites offering simple easy-to-understand examples of the informal fallacies? The thought just occurred to me you may insert the type of fallacy the writer is using within your comments – that would be outstanding – but because my internet connection is so slow resulting in slow page to page movements, I am sending this email just in case my thought is incorrect,  instead of checking first – sorry for any inconvenience –  

  2. Lots of errors in this article. Would it be a fallacy to say that, due to numerous spelling and other errors, the reliability of the article is questionable?

  3. I suppose if you find errors relating to the description of fallacies then no, it wouldn’t be a fallacy to question the reliability of this page. But maybe you wouldn’t mind sharing, however, for the benefit of our gullible readers.

  4. After a quick view, here are some paragraphs to support Mr. Weaver's accusation:
    "Yet another term for a logical trick is sophism". A sophism is not a logical trick, not at all. Think of "petitio principii" (aka begging the question): there's nothing "logically" wrong with p therefore p.

    "After all, the whole point of argument is proof–if your proof fails, you don't earn your conclusion". I would disagree about that: first of all, the whole point of "argumentation" (that is, the process) is smth, whereas an "argument" is that smth in question; secondly, and most important, the whole point of argumentation is not proof – if one had proof, it would appeal to it by prooving instead of arguing. Argumentation occurs precisely where proof is unavailable. Suppose we have two apples, and we disagree about which one is weightier: would we engage in argumentation if right beside us we would have a weighting machine?

  5. Thanks argumentics, but I think it's fairly obvious we're using terms somewhat differently here.  I use "proof" for instance, in the sense of "oh, yeah, well prove it to me."  This sense of proof falls far below the sense you employ.

    On the other point, sophism is just another word for fallacy.  Of course we can quibble about the description.  There's nothing formally wrong with pp, but of course, there's a lot that's informally, as it were, wrong with it. 

    Keep in mind also that logical, as in "logical trick" is used in a broader sense than you're allowing–this includes "informal" reasoning, broadly construed.

    Thanks for the comment,

    jc

  6. I was involved in a discussion recently that included at least one Vietnam Vet. During the course of the discussion, he made his pronouncements about what to do to get US troops out of Iraq. Then he mentioned that, in order to keep the peace, we should "send in the Anola Gay."
    I was shocked by both his pronouncements and the blithe reference to atom-bombing a population, and I argued to that effect.  Casually dropping a bomb on a population in order to not have to worry about insurgency any more, knowing what it did to Japan seemed like a simplistically amoral thing to do.
    His reply [which I have edited for more civil consumption] was that, since I was not a Vet and didn't have experience on the ground with war, that none of anything I could say would trump anything he would say.
    So here is my question: is his argument circumstantial ad hominem or some sort of appeal to authority?

  7. I've meant to come back to this page and address whether you've seen Amphiboly before.  My guess is that you have, but the example that is so often given (the pajama one) is more about ambiguity or equivocation than incorrect grammatical analysis.
     
    Perhaps "grammatical analysis" is an inaccurate description of the fallacy, since this would place the error on the reader committing an inaccurate reading of a grammatically ambiguous structure rather than on a speaker intending to deflect by deliberately stating something that could be true with either reading.
     
    Connecticut AG Richard Blumenthal's references to his service "in Vietnam" or "during the Vietnam Era", etc. are fairly good examples of amphiboly.

  8. Hi Sigo,

    Seems like amphiboly might occur in the listener and be set up by the arguer (out of ignorance or inattention or deceit).  I have limited knowledge of the Blumenthal issue, but it seems like he might have said "in Vietnam" deceitfully.  I don't know why he would do this.  These things are pretty easy to check.

    In general, however, I think the difference between amphiboly and equivocation is syntax versus word ambiguity. Ambiguous syntax = amphiboly is how I’ve always read it. So they’re both problems of ambiguity, just in different places.

  9. As for the first of your two comments here, seems to me he has wrongly questioned your moral authority on the atomic bomb.  He has also wrongly inferred that an atomic bomb would solve the issue, but that's another point.  So I think he's challenged an argument from authority (personal military experience in this case) when that isn't relevant to the question.  That would be relevant, I think, if you insisted that we prolong the war with more suffering and dying of ground forces.

  10. "In Latin, a dead language in nearly every respect save portentous phrases like salva veritate and names of important philosophical notions…"
     
    For reference, although Latin is a dead language, it is still used to identify living things, from animal and plant species to bacteria and viruses.  Latin is also used to name parts of those organisms, like bones, muscles, etc.  Latin may be dead, but it lives within the walls of medicine and law, if only to prevent the common man from understanding proceedure and/or practice.

  11. I for one was never convinced that argumentum ad baculum was a true fallacy, since the objective is not to change your opponent’s opinion or that of anyone who’s listening but merely to shut them up. It’s just a form of blackmail, not a true appeal to fear. Consider the difference between

    “If you don’t agree with me that John should have been convicted, you’re going to get fired”

    and

    “If you don’t agree with me that John should have been convicted, you could be his next victim.”

    The latter is fairly insidious and leads the listener to a false conclusion. The former is just a blunt club that instructs the listener to toe the line without thinking. As Lawrence J. Peter said, “A man convinced against his will is not convinced.”

  12. Latin may be dead, but it lives within the walls of medicine and law….

    Okay, really old stuff, but…. I have to tell you, if Latin can be said to “live” within the confines of law, it’s hardly a life worth living – abused, mispronounced, misunderstood…. It does make for occasional amusing stories, though, such as the new court reporter who transcribed a court’s adjournment “sine die” as “court is adjourned until a sunny day.”

  13. Aaron that is brilliant–in Michigan that may never happen again, so there.

    In all seriousness, Red, whether anything is a true fallacy or not naturally depends on the theory of fallacy one employs.

  14. It’s been a really long time since I revisited this page. Thanks again for reply to my Vet/Iraq question. I think I may have found a better label for the type of fallacy these guys were using: a type of Special Pleading … but I’m not entirely sure.

    This Vet and my friend, Robert presented an argument that amounted to: if you haven’t been in a war situation first hand, you are not qualified to argue [that indiscriminately sending atomic bombs is a horrific thing to do] or [that being a vet somehow endowed you with an understanding of human affairs and societal/anthropological complexities of human affairs which is unassailable or unimpeachable by us non-vets].

    I’ve done some poking around about special pleading,, but most everything seems to refer to “moving the goal posts” and the arguers exempting themselves from a standard they are applying to everyone else.

    In this case, the ‘exemption’ part of that doesn’t seem to apply.

    My suspicion, then, is that this is an inside-out brand of special pleading (as ‘iron-man is to ‘straw-man’) that assumes that a particular perspective is sufficient to adjudicate any moral decision to the exclusion of others.

    Whaddaya think?

  15. Here’s a famous quote the last part of which became a widepsread amphiboly. See, you have seen an actual case!

    “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” – Barack Obama

  16. My questions:

    Ad hominem abusive: you say that not all personal attacks are fallacious. Using the “Al-Gore has said human-caused global warming example must be taken seriously”, what would be an example of where some personal attacks are not fallacious?

    Ad hominem tu quoque: Why is pointing out hypocrisy a fallacy? Is it because it is not related to the argument? When would it be beneficial to the argument to point out hypocrisy?

  17. Thanks for your questions, Ash, and I apologize for getting to them so slowly. Here are my replies.

    1. A classic case where a personal attack is not fallacious is when some person is offering testimony as an expert. Questioning their expertise may seem like a personal attack–e.g., didn’t you plagiarize several articles?–but it’s directed at whether they are credible reporters. A related case: sometimes people make arguments directed at someone’s character–the person’s badness in other words is the point of the argument. These arguments look like ad hominem cases, but they’re not, because the point is their badness, not that their badness means some other information is wrong (as in the fallacious cases).

    2. Hypocrisy is a special case of ad hominem. As such, it’s sometimes wrong and sometimes not (for reasons just cited in the previous example). So, for instance, say you oppose the building of some kind of oil pipeline, yet you use gasoline in your car. Someone might point out that this is hypocrisy. It is, in a sense, probably hypocritical. But the hypocrisy is not necessarily relevant to your opposition to the pipeline. That argument may have nothing to do with your use of gas.

    Hypocrisy is relevant when you want to show that someone’s argument is, for example, impractical. The hypocrisy would show that it’s too hard to complete some task a person advocates. Another reason to use a non-fallacious tu quoque would be to show that a person is not sincere in making an argument. The lack of sincerity may have no bearing on the argument itself, but we do expect people to be sincere in arguing for the things they do. Finally, it may show that a person is not a competent arguer–they don’t know enough to realize their own hypocrisy for instance.

    I hope I’ve answered your questions. If not, feel free to ask again.

  18. The conception of the fallacy-caller as a referee is perennially tempting but, to my mind, fundamentally erroneous (fallacious, if you like). If I may reproduce here a couple of paragraphs from the materials that I give to my students:

    To attribute an informal fallacy to an argument is to make an objection to it. A fallacy attribution is therefore a species of counter-argument. The informal logician who makes such an attribution is therefore entering, whether actually or ideally, into an argumentative dialogue with the original claimant (“actually” in the case that her comments are communicated to the original claimant; “ideally” in the case that they are not). In metaphorical terms, the informal logician is not a referee, endowed with the authority to pronounce plays fair or foul, but merely a player whose understanding of the rules of the game enables him or her to articulate a case for the claim that some play is fair or foul.

    Because attributions of informal fallacies are acts in an argumentative dialogue, they can themselves be fallacious. So for every informal fallacy there is a possible meta-fallacy which consists in falsely attributing the primary fallacy. Knowing informal logic does not make one immune to logical error, and any attribution of an informal fallacy to an argument may itself be met with a counter-charge of fallacy—which must itself, of course, also be supported by an argument.

  19. Hi Miles–

    This sounds right to me (and I don’t think–though maybe I’m mistaken–I endorse the view you criticize). The problem with arguing is that everything is arguing–even meta arguing is arguing, just at a meta level. This means that meta arguing is susceptible to the same kind of analysis as regular arguing.

  20. I can’t quite categorize the follow excuse for a syllogism. I think its an Illicit Major:
    God favors America.
    Trump favors America.
    God favors Trump.

    Am I close?

  21. Hi Sigo

    Thanks for asking.

    Sorry it’s taken so long to reply–vacation and all.

    I think the main issue here (and I’ve seen this around Twitter as well) is the meaning of “favor” between what I would take to be the first and second premises. “Favor” to me at least suggests one prefers the object of one’s favor above others. In the case of God’s favor, that includes (I gather) the added benefit of being able to give the object of your favor special, er, favors. Trump, as a mere mortal, doesn’t have that, so this suggests to me it’s a different sense of the term. So God favors America and can shower us with all sorts of delights; Trump favors America but may be mistaken (unlike God) about what is in America’s best interest. So it doesn’t follow then that God favors Trump, unless you add that Trump is like God.

    As for the syllogistic part, the key part of the inference is the transitivity of the favoring, so it’s not a standard syllogism (though perhaps one could retranslate it). I think if you did however you’d lose the key sense of “favor” here. However, a quick scan of it suggests something like an undistributed middle term–though since this isn’t standard form or close to it this wouldn’t really be appropriate. So A likes x; B likes x, so A likes B?? This would make love triangles very strange. Dogs are animals, cats are animals, so dogs are cats? So this suggests the critical feature is the sense of favor in the first premise–it’s expansive and so includes sub-instances of favor, such as Trump’s. I can’t think of an example off the top of my head. Maybe that’s because this is unsalvageable.

    That’s the best I can do here.

    Thanks again for asking.

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