Logical Fallacies
Jose Varela
CSS/330
Mr. Ferracane
April 18, 2004
Logical fallacies are a part of everyday life. Many of us do not even realize their existence or means of use. A logical fallacy is faulty reasoning to an argument that is not only wrong, but sounds so convincing that a number of people who hear it are fooled by this reasoning and believe it to be true. Many times logical fallacies are used during the decision making process either intentionally or unintentionally. People mistake logical fallacies with critical thinking and incorporate these fallacies into their decision making process. . The three fallacies that will be detailed are slippery slope, hasty generalization and questionable cause.
The first logical fallacy is the slippery slope. The slippery slope claims that a relatively harmless act if left unchecked will eventually lead to a disastrous event or once one step is approved this will lead to a chain of events. The reasoning is based on insufficient evidence that one action will lead to another. A group will start the decision making process on a relatively easy problem. However, as the group discusses this problem one step leads to another and by the end of the decision making process, the group is trying to avert a disaster. People tend to make more out the problem then there is. The group fixes the relatively simple problem and some time later decide to take the solution to the next step. If fixing the minor problem were good, then correcting a bigger scope problem would be even better. The group gets back together and decides to enlarge their scope even more and correct what they perceive to be an even larger problem. Based ...