Straw man

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A straw man argument is a logical fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "set up a straw man" or "set up a straw-man argument" is to create a position that is easy to refute, then attribute that position to the opponent. A straw-man argument can be a successful rhetorical technique (that is, it may succeed in persuading people) but it is in fact a misleading fallacy, because the opponent's actual argument has not been refuted.

Its name is derived from the practice of using straw men in combat training. In such training, a scarecrow is made in the image of the enemy with the single intent of attacking it.^[1] It is occasionally called a straw dog fallacy,^[2] scarecrow argument, or wooden dummy argument.

[edit] Setup of a straw man

One can set up a straw man in the following ways:

1. Present a misrepresentation of the opponent's position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
2. Quote an opponent's words out of context -- i.e., choose quotations that are not representative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy).
3. Present someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, refute that person's arguments, and pretend that every upholder of that position, and thus the position itself, has been defeated.
4. Invent a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs that are criticized, and pretend that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplify a person's argument into a simple analogy, which can then be attacked.

Some logic textbooks define the straw man fallacy only as a misrepresented argument. It is now common, however, to use the term to refer to all of these tactics. The straw-man technique is also used as a form of media manipulation.

However, carefully presenting and refuting a weakened form of an opponent's argument is not always itself a fallacy. Instead, it restricts the scope of the opponent's argument, either to where the argument is no longer relevant or as a step of a proof by exhaustion.

[edit] Examples

An example of a straw man fallacy:

1. Person A: I don't think children should run into the busy streets.

   Person B: I think that it would be foolish to lock children up all day.

By insinuating that Person A's argument is far more draconian than it is, Person B has side-stepped the issue. Here the "straw man" that person B has set up is the premise that "The only way to stop children running into the busy streets is to keep them inside all day".

Another example of the fallacy is based around a common argument about the link between traffic congestion and the number and width of roads on which commuters drive.

An example of the straw man fallacy in the form of an argument map. This fallacy appeared on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio programme Counterpoint [1]

In the example to the left, the strongest reason in favour of the lemma "If more roads were built, then that would encourage people to take more trips by car", is the premise "Building more roads will encourage people to use less public transport and drive more often when commuting from A to B". But instead of objecting to the strongest reason in favour, the objector sets up a straw man in the premise "Building more roads will encourage people to take more joy rides". This is a very weak reason that the objector easily demolishes (through use of misdirection) and by doing so attempts to wholly discredit the argument put forward.

[edit] References

1. ^ Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved on October 9, 2006.
2. ^ Informal Fallacies. Retrieved on October 9, 2006.

[edit] See also

• Devil's advocate, another device used in discussions
• Contextomy (i.e., quoting out of context)

[edit] External links

• Examples of False Positioning (Humbug! Online)

• Nizkor: Straw man

• Chick.com: "Big Daddy?"[2] (the antagonist in this article's argument is a -very- weak straw man)