Fallacious but true? Re: Re[2]: [percy-l] homosexuality, redux
Ken Armstrong
armstron at ohiou.edu
Mon Sep 22 15:49:54 EDT 2003
At 09:28 PM 9/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> Some may say that I'm presenting a slippery slope argument, but just
>because an argument is fallacious, doesn't mean that it is untrue. For
>example, some argued (fallaciously) that if we permit a woman to abort her
>child (due to incest or rape), we open the door for abortion as a way of
>birth control (and that is what happened--last I heard was that 96% of
>abortions had nothing to do with incest or rape).
David,
Though I get farther and farther away from my grad school philosophy
minor, I'm sure hoping that if an argument (not it's conclusion) is
fallacious, it is not "true." Off the top of my head, I can't speak to
the example you give because I don't know what made the original argument
fallacious. But it seems to me that if the argument is faulty (any
argument), it is not a good argument. It doesn't stand. Period. If the
conclusion, illogic of the argument notwithstanding, is true, it is true
because it is the legitimate conclusion to a different, if unstated, good
argument. Emotionally charged issues, I think, attract bad arguments. Which
is not to imply anything except the necessity for caution in analyzing
them, as ends never justify means, etc.
Ken A
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