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Fallacy Paper

Decent Essays

Fallacies are committed in every state, in every city and in every neighborhood. No race or gender is impervious to committing a fallacy. So, what is a fallacy? Patrick J. Hurley defines a fallacy as, “A defect in an argument that consists in something other than false premises alone.” These defects result in misconception in an argument. Many times they are accidental, other times they are committed on purpose. However, either way, fallacies can be very persuasive to the casual reader or listener. One in particular, the false cause fallacy, is used quite often in today’s society. Hurley states that, “The fallacy of false cause occurs whenever the link between premises and conclusion depends on some imagined causal connection …show more content…

A remedy society knows as “trial and error.” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) use fallacies in almost all of their advertisements. In fact, ‘Veggie Love,’ a super bowl video ad by PETA, claims that vegetarians have better sex. In the video, gorgeous women dressed in lingerie are groping broccoli, asparagus and even a licking a pumpkin. This video commits the false cause fallacy because it expresses that people are having great sex because they are vegetarians. In addition, if a person wants to have great sex, they need to become a vegetarian. It is also possible that an argument commit more than one fallacy at a time. This video also commits the hasty generalization fallacy, because it states that if you eat vegetables you will have great sex with gorgeous women, therefore the obvious conclusion is that all vegetarians have great sex! To tell these two different types of fallacies apart a reader or listener must know what defines these two types of fallacies. Because ‘Veggie Love’ focuses on vegetarians and great sex, and PETA claims that there is a causal connection between the two, it can be defined as a false cause fallacy. Because the video also claims that people who eat vegetables have great sex, we can assume that all vegetarians have great sex which can be defined as

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