[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.