Appeal to Pity
Ad Misericordiam
Category: Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings) → Distracting Appeals

An Appeal to Pity is a fallacy in which a person substitutes a claim intended to create pity for evidence in an argument. The form of the "argument" is as follows:

1. P is presented, with the intent to create pity.
2. Therefore claim C is true.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because pity does not serve as evidence for a claim. This is extremely clear in the following case: "You must accept that 1+1=46, after all I'm dying..." While you may pity me because I am dying, it would hardly make my claim true.

This fallacy differs from the Appeal to the Consequences of a Belief (ACB). In the ACB fallacy, a person is using the effects of a belief as a substitute for evidence. In the Appeal to Pity, it is the feelings of pity or sympathy that are substituted for evidence.

It must be noted that there are cases in which claims that actually serve as evidence also evoke a feeling of pity. In such cases, the feeling of pity is still not evidence. The following is an example of a case in which a claim evokes pity and also serves as legitimate evidence:

Professor: "You missed the midterm, Bill."
Bill: "I know. I think you should let me take the makeup."
Professor: "Why?"
Bill: "I was hit by a truck on the way to the midterm. Since I had to go to the emergency room with a broken leg, I think I am entitled to a makeup."
Professor: "I'm sorry about the leg, Bill. Of course you can make it up."

The above example does not involve a fallacy. While the professor does feel sorry for Bill, she is justified in accepting Bill's claim that he deserves a makeup. After all getting run over by a truck would be a legitimate excuse for missing a test.

Gambler's Fallacy

The Gambler's Fallacy is committed when a person assumes that a departure from what occurs on average or in the long term will be corrected in the short term. The form of the fallacy is as follows:

1. X has happened.
2. X departs from what is expected to occur on average or over the long term.
3. Therefore, X will come to an end soon.

There are two common ways this fallacy is committed. In both cases a person is assuming that some result must be "due" simply because what has previously happened departs from what would be expected on average or over the long term.

The first involves events whose probabilities of occurring are independent of one another. For example, one toss of a fair (two sides, non‐loaded) coin does not affect the next toss of the coin. So, each time the coin is tossed there is (ideally) a 50% chance of it landing heads and a 50% chance of it landing tails. Suppose that a person tosses a coin 6 times and gets a head each time. If he concludes that the next toss will be tails because tails "is due", then he will have committed the Gambler's Fallacy. This is because the results of previous tosses have no bearing on the outcome of the 7th toss. It has a 50% chance of being heads and a 50% chance of being tails, just like any other toss.

The second involves cases whose probabilities of occurring are not independent of one another. For example, suppose that a boxer has won 50% of his fights over the past two years. Suppose that after several fights he has won 50% of his matches this year, that he his lost his last six fights and he has six left. If a person believed that he would win his next six fights because he has used up his losses and is "due" for a victory, then he would have committed the Gambler's Fallacy. After all, the person would be ignoring the fact that the results of one match can influence the results of the next one. For example, the boxer might have been injured in one match which would lower his chances of winning his last six fights.

It should be noted that not all predictions about what is likely to occur are fallacious. If a person has good evidence for his predictions, then they will be reasonable to accept. For example, if a person tosses a fair coin and gets nine heads in a row it would be reasonable for him to conclude that he will probably not get another nine in a row again. This reasoning would not be fallacious as long as he believed his conclusion because of an understanding of the laws of probability. In this case, if he concluded that he would not get another nine heads in a row because the odds of getting nine heads in a row are lower than getting fewer than nine heads in a row, then his reasoning would be good and his conclusion would be justified. Hence, determining whether or not the Gambler’s Fallacy is being committed often requires some basic understanding of the laws of probability.

Relativist Fallacy
AKA The Subjectivist Fallacy

The Relativist Fallacy is committed when a person rejects a claim by asserting that the claim might be true for others but is not for him/her. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Claim X is presented.
2. Person A asserts that X may be true for others but is not true for him/her.
3. Therefore A is justified in rejecting X.

In this context, relativism is the view that truth is relative to Z (a person, time, culture, place, etc.). This is not the view that claims will be true at different times or of different people, but the view that a claim could be true for one person and false for another at the same time.

In many cases, when people say "that X is true for me" what they really mean is "I believe X" or "X is true about me." It is important to be quite clear about the distinction between being true about a person and being true for a person. A claim is true about a person if the claim is a statement that describes the person correctly. For example, "Bill has blue eyes" is true of Bill if Bill has blue eyes. To make a claim such as "X is true for Bill" is to say that the claim is true for Bill and that it need not be true for others. For example: "1+1=23 is true for Bill" would mean that, for Bill, 1+1 actually does equal 23, not that he merely believes that 1+1=23 (that would be "It is true of Bill that he believes 1+1=23"). Another example would be "The claim that the earth is flat is true for Bill" would mean that the earth really is flat for Bill (in other words, Bill would be in a different world than the rest of the human race). Since these situations (1+1 being 23 and the earth being flat for Bill) are extremely strange, it certainly seems that truth is not relative to individuals (although beliefs are).

As long as truth is objective (that is, not relative to individuals), then the Relativist Fallacy is a fallacy. If there are cases in which truth is actually relative, then such reasoning need not be fallacious.

Appeal to Fear
Ad Baculum
AKA Scare Tactics, Appeal to Force
Category: Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings) → Distracting Appeals

The Appeal to Fear is a fallacy with the following pattern:

1. Y is presented (a claim that is intended to produce fear).
2. Therefore claim X is true (a claim that is generally, but need not be, related to Y in some manner).

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because creating fear in people does not constitute evidence for a claim.

It is important to distinguish between a rational reason to believe (RRB) (evidence) and a prudential reason to believe(PRB) (motivation). A RRB is evidence that objectively and logically supports the claim. A PRB is a reason to accept the belief because of some external factor (such as fear, a threat, or a benefit or harm that may stem from the belief) that is relevant to what a person values but is not relevant to the truth or falsity of the claim. For example, it might be prudent to not fail the son of your department chairperson because you fear he will make life tough for you. However, this does not provide evidence for the claim that the son deserves to pass the class.

Misleading Vividness
Category: Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings) → Distracting Appeals

Misleading Vividness is a fallacy in which a very small number of particularly dramatic events are taken to outweigh a significant amount of statistical evidence. This sort of "reasoning" has the following form:

1. Dramatic or vivid event X occurs (and is not in accord with the majority of the statistical evidence).
2. Therefore events of type X are likely to occur.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because the mere fact that an event is particularly vivid or dramatic does not make the event more likely to occur, especially in the face of significant statistical evidence.

People often accept this sort of "reasoning" because particularly vivid or dramatic cases tend to make a very strong impression on the human mind. For example, if a person survives a particularly awful plane crash, he might be inclined to believe that air travel is more dangerous than other forms of travel. After all, explosions and people dying around him will have a more significant impact on his mind than will the rather dull statistics that a person is more likely to be struck by lightning than killed in a plane crash.

It should be kept in mind that taking into account the possibility of something dramatic or vivid occurring is not always fallacious. For example, a person might decide to never go sky diving because the effects of an accident can be very, very dramatic. If he knows that, statistically, the chances of the accident are happening are very low but he considers even a small risk to be unacceptable, then he would not be making an error in reasoning.

Ad Hominem Tu Quoque
AKA "You Too Fallacy"
Category: Fallacies of Relevance (Red Herrings) → Ad hominems (Genetic Fallacies)

This fallacy is committed when it is concluded that a person's claim is false because 1) it is inconsistent with something else a person has said or 2) what a person says is inconsistent with her actions. This type of "argument" has the following form:

1. Person A makes claim X.
2. Person B asserts that A's actions or past claims are inconsistent with the truth of claim X.
3. Therefore X is false.

The fact that a person makes inconsistent claims does not make any particular claim he makes false (although of any pair of inconsistent claims only one can be true-but both can be false). Also, the fact that a person's claims are not consistent with his actions might indicate that the person is a hypocrite but this does not prove his claims are false.