An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments by Ali Almossawi

Author:Ali Almossawi [Almossawi, Ali]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Philosophy/Logic: Logical Fallacies
Publisher: The Experiment
Published: 2014-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

Informal Fallacy › Ambiguity › Equivocation › Redefinition › No True Scotsman

Genetic Fallacy

A genetic fallacy is committed when an argument is either devalued or defended solely because of its origins. In fact, an argument’s history or the origins of the person making it have no effect whatsoever on its validity. As T. Edward Damer points out, when one is emotionally attached to an idea’s origins, it is not always easy to disregard those feelings when evaluating the argument’s merit [Damer].

Consider the following argument: “Of course he supports the union workers on strike; he is, after all, from the same village.” Here, the argument supporting the workers is not being evaluated based on its merits; rather, because the person behind it happens to come from the same village as the protesters, we are led to infer that his position is worthless. Here is another example: “As men and women living in the twenty-first century, we cannot continue to hold these Bronze Age beliefs.” Why not, one might ask. Are we to dismiss all ideas that originated in the Bronze Age simply because they came about at that time?

Conversely, one may also invoke the genetic fallacy in a positive sense, by saying, for example, “Jack’s views on art cannot be contested; he comes from a long line of eminent artists.” Here, the evidence used for the inference is as lacking as in the previous examples.

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