Hovik Keleshyan
English 104
Professor Joseph
Essay #1
Words are one of the most powerful tools that humans have at their disposal. They can be used to convince people to do or not do something. How we use these words greatly impacts their influence, but sometimes when we are trying to persuade someone we commit logical fallacies. There are many different kinds of fallacies and sometimes you can have multiple fallacies in one claim. Four of the most common fallacies, which we will be discussing are, attributing guilt by association, begging the question, jumping to conclusion, and slippery slope. We will talk about what the fallacies mean and why they are effective in persuading people. Fallacies are flaws in logic and by being able to identify fallacies you will be able to make better decisions. (Weber)
Attributing guilt by association- According to T. Edward Damer, a philosopher and author of “Attacking Faulty Reasoning.” This fallacy occurs when someone associates two things together just because they share something in common. This association is usually something that people would not want to be associated with in any way. This fallacy is very powerful because people are easily persuaded by their emotions. This fallacy can be used to deceive someone into believing something that is not true because people don’t do not want to be associated with certain things. (Gilooly) For example if you were in an argument with a close friend, he may say something like, “Well if you agree with this person you’re an idiot because that guy is an idiot.” If you believed that the person he is referencing was an idiot you would probably end up changing your opinion. People tend to fall into this trap because humans don’t want to be compared to certain types of things; they fear being inferior, evil, or unfair. It is very important for humans to feel accepted by their peers and we don’t like being negatively associated with something that would ruin the image of us. This...