One-Sidedness

See Slanting and Suppressed Evidence.

Non Sequitur

When a conclusion is supported only by extremely weak reasons or by irrelevant reasons, the argument is fallacious and is said to be a non sequitur. However, we usually apply the term only when we cannot think of how to label the argument with a more specific fallacy name. Any deductively invalid inference is a non sequitur if it also very weak when assessed by inductive standards.

Example:

Nuclear disarmament is a risk, but everything in life involves a risk. Every time you drive in a car you are taking a risk. If you're willing to drive in a car, you should be willing to have disarmament.

The following is not an example: "If she committed the murder, then there'd be his blood stains on her hands. His blood stains are on her hands. So, she committed the murder." This deductively invalid argument commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent, but it isn't a non sequitur because it has significant inductive strength.

Non Causa Pro Causa

This label is Latin for mistaking the "non-cause for the cause." See False Cause.

No True Scotsman

This error is a kind of ad hoc rescue of one's generalization in which the reasoner re-characterizes the situation solely in order to escape refutation of the generalization.

Example:

Smith: All Scotsmen are loyal and brave.

Jones: But McDougal over there is a Scotsman, and he was arrested by his commanding officer for running from the enemy.

Smith: Well, if that's right, it just shows that McDougal wasn't a TRUE Scotsman.

No Middle Ground

See False Dilemma.

Neglecting a Common Cause

See Common Cause.

Naturalistic

On a broad interpretation of the fallacy, it is said to apply to any attempt to argue from an "is" to an "ought," that is, to argue directly from a list of facts to a claim about what ought to be done.

Example:

Owners of financially successful companies are more successful than poor people in the competition for wealth, power and social status. Therefore, these owners are morally better than poor people, and the poor deserve to be poor.

The fallacy would also occur if one argued from the natural to the moral as follows: since women are naturally capable of bearing and nursing children, they ought to be the primary caregivers of children. There is considerable disagreement among philosophers regarding what sorts of arguments the term "Naturalistic Fallacy" applies to, and even whether it is a fallacy at all.

Name Calling

See Ad Hominem.

Monte Carlo

See Gambler's Fallacy.

Modal

This is the error of treating modal conditionals as if the modality applies only to the consequent of the conditional. "The" modal fallacy is the most well known of the infinitely many errors involving modal concepts, concepts such as necessity, possibility and so forth. A conditional is an if-then proposition. The consequent is the then-part, and the antecedent is the if-part.

Example:

If a proposition is true, then it can not be false. But if a proposition can not be false, then it is not only true but necessarily true. Therefore, if a proposition is true, then it's necessarily true.

The acceptable interpretation of the first premise, requires the modality to apply to the entire conditional in the sense that it really means "It's not possible that if a proposition is true, then it's false." However, the entire inference works only if the first premise is miscontrued as saying "If a proposition is true, then it is necessary that it's not false." To see that the misconstrual is unacceptable, pick a proposition such as "It's raining in Detroit." Let's suppose it actually is raining in Detroit. So, the antecedent of the misconstrual is true, but the consequent isn't, because it says "It is necessary that 'it's raining in Detroit' is not false." This isn't necessary, is it?

Missing the Point

See Irrelevant Conclusion.

Misrepresentation

If the misrepresentation occurs on purpose, then it is an example of lying. If the misrepresentation occurs during a debate in which there is misrepresentation of the opponent's claim, then it would be the cause of a straw man fallacy.

Misplaced Concreteness

Mistakenly supposing that something is a concrete object with independent existence, when it's not.

Example:

There are two footballs lying on the floor of an otherwise empty room. When asked to count all the objects in the room, John says there are three: the two balls plus the group of two.

John mistakenly supposed a group or set of concrete objects is also a concrete object.

Misleading Vividness

When the fallacy of jumping to conclusions is committed due to a special emphasis on an anecdote or other piece of evidence, then the fallacy of misleading vividness has occurred.

Example:

Yes, I read the side of the cigarette pack about smoking being harmful to your health. That's the Surgeon General's opinion, him and all his statistics. But let me tell you about my uncle. Uncle Harry has smoked cigarettes for forty years now and he's never been sick a day in his life. He even won a ski race at Lake Tahoe in his age group last year. You should have seen him zip down the mountain. He smoked a cigarette during the award ceremony, and he had a broad smile on his face. I was really proud. I can still remember the cheering. Cigarette smoking can't be as harmful as people say.

The vivid anecdote is the story about Uncle Harry. Too much emphasis is placed on it and not enough on the statistics from the Surgeon General.

Misconditionalization

See Modal Fallacy.

Many Questions

See Complex Question.

Maldistributed Middle

See Undistributed Middle.

Lying

A fallacy of reasoning that depends on intentionally saying something that is known to be false. If the lying occurs in an argument's premise, then it is an example of the fallacy of questionable premise.

Example:

Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and John Kennedy were assassinated.
They were U.S. presidents.
Therefore, at least three U.S. presidents have been assassinated.

Roosevelt was never assassinated.

Logical

See Formal.

Loaded Language

Loaded language is emotive terminology that expresses value judgments. When used in what appears to be an objective description, the terminology unfortunately can cause the listener to adopt those values when in fact no good reason has been given for doing so. Also called Prejudicial Language.

Example:

[News broadcast] In today's top stories, Senator Smith carelessly cast the deciding vote today to pass both the budget bill and the trailer bill to fund yet another excessive watchdog committee over coastal development.

This broadcast is an editorial posing as a news report.

Line-Drawing

If we improperly reject a vague claim because it's not as precise as we'd like, then we commit the line-drawing fallacy. Being vague is not being hopelessly vague. Also called the Bald Man Fallacy, the Fallacy of the Heap and the Sorites Fallacy.

Example:

Dwayne can never grow bald. Dwayne isn't bald now. Don't you agree that if he loses one hair, that won't make him go from not bald to bald? And if he loses one hair after that, then this one loss, too, won't make him go from not bald to bald. Therefore, no matter how much hair he loses, he can't become bald.

Lack of Proportion

Either exaggerating or downplaying a point that is a crucial step in a piece of reasoning is an example of the Fallacy of Lack of Proportion. It's a mistake of not adopting the proper perspective. An extreme form of downplaying occurs in the Fallacy of Suppressed Evidence.

Example:

Chandra just overheard the terrorists say that they are about to plant the bomb in the basement of the courthouse, after which they'll drive to the airport and get away. But they won't be taking along their cat. The poor cat. The first thing that Chandra and I should do is to call the Humane Society and check the "Cat Wanted" section of the local newspapers to see if we can find a proper home for the cat.