How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 62

Conditional or questionable fallacies
Broken window fallacy
An argument which disregards lost opportunity costs (typically non-obvious, difficult to determine or
otherwise hidden) associated with destroying property of others, or other ways of externalizing costs
onto others. For example, an argument that states breaking a window generates income for a window
fitter, but disregards the fact that the money spent on the new window cannot now be spent on new
shoes.
Definist fallacy
Involves the confusion between two notions by defining one in terms of the other.
Naturalistic fallacy
Attempts to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a definition of the term "good" in terms of
e ither one or more claims about natural properties (sometimes also taken to mean the appeal to
nature)citation needed or God's will.
Slippery slope (thin edge of the wedge, camel's nose, domino theory)
The common fallacy that "one thing inevitably leads to another , asserting that a relatively small first
step inevitably leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant impact/event that
should not happen, thus the first step should not happen. " E.g., "If you two go and drink coffee
together, one thing will lead to another, and soon enough you'll be pregnant and end up spending your
life on welfare living in the projects," or "If we cut and run in Iraq or Afghanistan, pretty soon all of
southwest Asia will be run by Al-Qaeda." While this fallacy is a popular one, it is, in its essence, an
appeal to probability fallacy. (e.g if person x does y then z would (probably) occur, leading to q,
leading to w, leading to e.)
The slippery slope is used when a person implies that if someone does one thing (A), it will inevitably
lead to a domino effect of negative things that, in the end will result in something terrible. In other
words, “A” is not so bad, but A leads to B and B leads to C and C is horrible! Imagine a mother
lecturing her teenage daughter: “OK, maybe there is nothing wrong with a kiss, but remember where
kissing leads and where that leads and that. Before you know it you’ll be the mother of an unwanted
baby! Your young life will be ruined forever!”

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