The Great Straw Man

[DrFaroohk]

According to wikipedia, this is an example of a strawman tactic:

"Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate:

Person A: We should liberalize the laws on beer.

Person B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.

The proposal was to relax laws on beer. Person B has exaggerated this to a position harder to defend, i.e., "unrestricted access to intoxicants".
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My issue is this - say I'm Person B. I know DAMN WELL that person A is actually on the way to arguing that all intoxicants should be legalized. However, this discussion is just about beer - not crack and heroine. shouldn't I still be allowed to just shut down his point early so as to stay on point? Even though he hasn't technically said it yet, he was going to.

Is it still a strawman in that case?

I've found some of them follow this pattern as well:

Person A: We should liberate the laws on beer.

B: No. If you liberate all the intoxicants, it'll ruin our country's work ethic.

A: No you're WRONG! That's a straw man fallacy! I didn't say all intoxicants!

B: You didn't say it, yet. But it is widely known that your argument is about liberating all intoxicants, not just beer.

A: Yeah, but I DIDN'T say it yet in this argument! Therefore, you're using strawman fallacy, and you're whole argument is WRONG!

Then the crowd cheers for Person A and boos B off the stage.

Person A: So as I said, beer should be liberated, and so should all intoxicants!

Then the crowd cheers for Person A again.

[HYHYBT]

Is the *actual argument presented* in favor of all intoxicants? Not what you imagine (or "know") they're really aiming at eventually, but what's actually been presented.

But your example seems more slippery slope than straw man. Claiming mind-reading abilities is an unsound debate method, and even if the argument they use for beer really CAN be used for other intoxicants as well, that's irrelevant unless it's actually being used that way. I'd tend to call it irrelevant anyway: if there are reasons to outlaw crack and heroin that do not equally apply to beer, then crack and heroin can be banned *on those grounds* when they are up for discussion; no need to bring them in now.

And in your imagined conversation, had you stuck to the topic yourself, you'd still have been there to object when "and so should other intoxicants" was added.

I see this all the time in arguments over gay marriage. Someone will almost invariably claim that if you let two men marry, then you also have to allow legal marriage for polygamy, incest, bestiality, etc. Even if the argument presented for gay marriage could be used in those other cases, there are other grounds for disallowing them ("who" and "how many" being different questions, it being impossible to create a kinship where one already exists, animals not having the capacity to understand nor the right to sign contracts, etc.)

[Andara Bledin]

Slippery Slope is a subset of Strawman.

The idea of a strawman argument is for the person presenting it to present a position that is not being argued that is then easier to defeat.

There is an excellent description at Fallacy Files that describes the slippery slope concept and why it's used:

As the "straw man" metaphor suggests, the counterfeit position attacked in a Straw Man argument is typically weaker than the opponent's actual position, just as a straw man is easier to defeat than a flesh-and-blood one. Of course, this is no accident, but is part of what makes the fallacy tempting to commit, especially to a desperate debater who is losing an argument. Thus, it is no surprise that arguers seldom misstate their opponent's position so as to make it stronger. Of course, if there is an obvious way to make a debating opponent's position stronger, then one is up against an incompetent debater. Debaters usually try to take the strongest position they can, so that any change is likely to be for the worse. However, attacking a logically stronger position than that taken by the opponent is a sign of strength, whereas attacking a straw man is a sign of weakness.

A common straw man is an extreme position. Extreme positions are more difficult to defend because they make fewer allowances for exceptions, or counter-examples. Consider the statement forms:

* All P are Q.
* Most P are Q.
* Many P are Q.
* Some P are Q.
* Some P are not Q.
* Many P are not Q.
* Most P are not Q.
* No P are Q.

The extremes are "All P are Q" and "No P are Q". These are easiest to refute, since all it takes is a single counter-example to refute a universal proposition. Moreover, the world being such as it is, unless P and Q are connected definitionally, such propositions are usually false. The other propositions are progressively harder to refute until you get to the middle two: "Some P are Q" and "Some P are not Q". To refute these requires one to prove the extremes: "No P are Q" or "All P are Q", respectively. So, extremists are those who take positions starting with "all" or "no". For instance, the extremists in the abortion debate are those who argue that no abortions are permissible, or that all abortions are.

Therefore, Straw Man arguments often attack a political party or movement at its extremes, where it is weakest. For example, it is a straw man to portray the anti-abortion position as the claim that all abortions, with no exceptions, are wrong. It is also a straw man to attack abortion rights as the position that no abortions should ever be restricted, bar none. Such straw men are often part of the process of "demonization", and we might well call the subfallacy of the straw man which attacks an extreme position instead of the more moderate position held by the opponent, the "Straw Demon".

Other examples on that page list other forms of the strawman as used to try to shift the goalposts of a debate.

^-.-^