'Authorities can also be used to bully opponents by suggesting that in failing to agree with some venerated source they must themselves be weak-minded. The "founding fathers" of the US constitution are often used in this way.' The Declaration of Independence (lithograph). Photograph: Museum of the City of New York/Corbis
Everybody knows that attack is the best form of defence. And what's true for war is also true for argument. Why devise artful persuasive tactics when all you need do is find the weakness in your opponent and exploit it?
It is vital then to know something about the fallacies – the linguistic equivocations, distorted appeals and misleading deductions that may be used to win arguments by means foul rather than fair. If you can identify these, point them out to your audience and make plain their implications, you not only inure yourself from their toxicity, you also undermine the character of your opponent, cast doubt on even their most sound arguments and demonstrate your own decency, rationality and clear-headedness.
The authority fallacy
A lot of fallacious forms of argument cluster around the use of "authorities". It is often necessary in argument to make use of some kind of authority – if only because we want to refer to facts and findings. But authorities can also be used as a way to bully opponents by suggesting that in failing to agree with some venerated source they must themselves be weak-minded, ignorant or wildly and dangerously at odds with common standards. The "founding fathers" of the US constitution are often used in this way. In the UK we regularly hear solemn citations of what "the British people" think, feel and believe. The implication is that to depart from their wisdom is to have lost touch with reality (perhaps even to be in thrall to foreign-born "cultural Marxists").
The "limits of debate" fallacy
An increasingly common variant of such a tactic takes the form of a self-designated umpire who joins in with online disputes by asserting their authority to police the limits of debate. They declare that if they (a typical, reasonable and fair-minded person) find something hard to understand then it must be wrong or mere sophistry; that if they find something too extreme it must be completely insane; that if they feel someone has gone too far then they must have. The "concern troll" is a seemingly benign manifestation of this fallacy and one to be watchful for.
The "unseen danger" fallacy
Commonly found in the more fevered corners of political ideology are the various fallacies of danger – those forms of argument that seek to stave off decision by conjuring up all manner of horrors that precipitate change might lead to (or, conversely, the disasters that delay will engender). The 19th-century political thinker and reformer Jeremy Bentham called this "the hobgoblin argument" since it warns of mythical horrors lurking unseen by all but the one kind enough to point them out to us. Thus we are told that same-sex marriage will lead to bestiality and incest, or that anything other than full austerity economics will force us to relive the nightmares of inter-war Weimar.
Bentham (perhaps foreseeing internet messageboards) believed that this was a deception "generally accompanied by personalities of the vituperative kind". This claim confirmed by the ceaseless use of fallacies of danger in arguments even vaguely related to Islam where it is often blended with apocalyptic fantasies that seem to bring great enjoyment to their dreamer.
Fallacy of unripe time
But one should be alert for a milder and thus more effective variant which often hides behind the seeming reasonableness of what Francis Cornford jokingly called the "principle of unripe time". Someone seems to agree with what you propose but urges that now is not the right time, that we pause in order to be sure, await more evidence lest we make mistakes in haste. Make no mistake indeed – this is but a more devious form taken by the hobgoblin.
Begging questions and euphemism
Another class of fallacies are those which (often but not always intentionally) sow confusion. These include the many ways of seeming to say a lot while saying nothing, of avoiding answers by question-begging and of obscuring things by giving them nicer sounding names (like "collateral damage"). A particularly destructive source of confusion is the use of generalities. We often hear how "government" is incapable of doing anything as if "government" were a specific, singular and easily identified bogeyman rather than a vast and varied collection of agencies doing very different things in very different ways with varying degrees of success. See also uses of "religion", "the market" and "the left".
The fallacy fallacy
Comment sections are often full not only of bad grammar and spelling but also all sorts of dubious reasoning: red herrings, bizarre analogies, ludicrous generalisations, ad hominem attacks, straw-men and of course a lot of emotion-laden bile. The exposure of fallacious arguments is a kind of disinfectant for this grubby part of the public sphere, cleansing our arguments and making them usable.
But like any cleansing agent it can be dangerous if applied indiscriminately. The denunciation of fallacies can itself become fallacious.
Ceaseless attack on authorities risks undermining any and all authority until it is impossible for anyone to refer to any prior facts or findings. Combined with fallacies of danger this gives birth to fallacies of mistrust for which anybody who makes any claim to knowledge or expertise is suspicious, most likely self-serving and a "producer interest". Thus we bar the lawyers from speaking about legal aid, the doctors from commenting on healthcare and the teachers from holding opinions about teaching.
Similarly, while generalities can mislead, without them it is impossible to say much about public affairs. The person who demands that you always be more specific and give nothing but particular examples is not taking part in the argument but trying to close it down.
In these respects, fallacy hunting is a conservative strategy. It gives the advantage to those who want only to cast doubt on new claims and criticisms rather than propose their own alternatives. Fallacies dog contemporary public discourse. But this has given birth to the dogged fallacy spotter. We must have good and clear arguments. But we must also be careful lest the purification of argument leads to its erasure.