[SOUND]
Oh. Hello.
Oh. Hey, how's it going? It's good to hear from you.
How's college? Yeah, you enjoying your classes? Uh-huh.
How's your Finance Class going. What do you mean you're not taking any
Finance classes? What are you talking about? I thought you were a Finance
Major. You dropped your Finance Major? Well what
are you going to major in? What do you mean you don't know.
Well how could you drop your Finance Major? Look, I'm paying a lot of money
for you to go to college. Look, either, either, you major in
Finance or you're going to major in something where you can't make a living.
Now, you think I'm going to pay for you to go to college so that you can study
something that isn't going to make you a living? What do you mean that's a false
dichotomy? What's a false dichotomy? What are you talking about? Today's lecture is
about false dichotomies. An argument by false dichotomy is an
argument for a particular conclusion that proceeds by claiming that the only
alternative to that conclusion is something even more obviously
unacceptable, more distasteful, more repellent than that conclusion is itself.
So for instance, in the bit that you just saw, I was arguing with my child by false
dichotomy. I was telling my child that either they
had to major in Finance or they were going to major in something where they
couldn't make a living at it. But why are those two the only
alternatives. See, if those two are the only
alternatives, then You could understand why that would be an effective argument
that they should major in finance. If the only alternative to majoring in
finance was majoring in something that you couldn't make a living at, then it
seems like majoring in finance is as good an option as they can pursue.
Certainly better than studying something that they can't make a living at doing.
But why are those the only 2 options? Why can't they make a living at doing
anything else but studying finance? I didn't explain that in my conversation
with my child. There are other examples of false
dichotomy arguments that are sometimes used in determining public policy.
So, for instance. A few years ago, there was a debate about
whether American citizens should object to the Federal governments policy of
listening in on private phone conversations, without securing a warrant
first. Well, 1 cable news host is reported, as
having said, better that they collect our private data, than our body parts.
What he meant was, it's better that the federal government should be listening in
on our phone calls, in order to prevent terrorist acts from taking place, than
that the federal government should, sh, sit back, allow terrorist acts to take
place, and then collect our body parts after they've taken place.
Okay, well the cable news host might have been right about that.
Better for the federal government to be listening in than to allow terrorist acts
to take place, and be collecting our body parts.
But why are those the only two options? That's another example of a false
dichotomy argument, an argument that defends a particular conclusion, in that
case, the conclusion that it's okay for the federal government to listen in on
our private phone conversations. And it defends that conclusion by
claiming that the only alternative to that conclusion is something even more
obviously unacceptable, something even more repellant or distasteful than that
conclusion. In this case, the federal government
sitting back. Allowing terrorist acts to take place and
then collecting our body parts afterwards.
There are many other examples of false dichotomy arguments in the popular press.
And we'll consider some of them in the exercises that follow.