FALLACIES

IN
LEGAL REASONING
(A to H)

Group 2
Baquiran, Maria Vanessa
Clemente, Lisa Marie
Colipano, Aprille
Lascoña, Ma. Lourdes
Merrera, Karna Lowell
Robles, Rhamelyn
Rodelas, Julian
Sarmiento, Majesca
Umali, Manuel Erven

Legal Technique and Logic

Saturday 02:00 – 04:00 pm
Atty. Fabie
 FORMAL FALLACIES

FORMAL FALLACIES – (or deductive fallacies) occur when the conclusion doesn’t follow
the premise.
 Often referred to as non-sequiturs or conclusions that have nothing to do with initial
claims.
 are those that may be identified through mere inspection of the form and structure of
an argument.
 Found only in deductive arguments that have identifiable forms.

Logical Form:
All A are B
All C are not A
Therefore, all C are not B.

Example:
All dogs are mammals.
All cats are not dogs.
Therefore, all cats are not mammals.

 Fallacy of illicit major

Regardless of the content of the argument, as long as its form violates the rules of logic,
the argument commits a formal fallacy.

INFORMAL FALLACIES

Informal fallacies - are those that can be detected only through analysis of the content of the
argument.

Example:
It’s just right to give this student a passing mark. You see, she is troubled by serious f
amily problems at present.
Her family can’t afford her education; It’s her aunt who pays her tuition fee. If she fails
in M-101, she might not be supported anymore by her aunt.

Simplified form:
All students with serious family problems should not be given a failing mark.
Q is a student with serious family problems. Therefore Q should not be given a failing mark.

Logical Form:
All A are B
All C are A
Therefore, all C are B.

This form is valid, but the argument is not logical because of its content. The various informal
fallacies accomplish their purpose of misleading or illogically persuading people to believe or
accept something in so many different ways.

Three Categories of informal Fallacies:

1. Fallacies of ambiguity
 Committed because of a misuse of language
 Contain ambiguous or vague language which is deliberately used to mislead people

2. Fallacies of irrelevant evidence

 Have a problem with the connection of the premise and conclusion
 Occur because the premises are not logically relevant to the conclusion
 Misleading because the premises are physiologically relevant, so the conclusion may
seem to follow from the premises although it does not follow logically

3. Fallacies of insufficient evidence

 Have problem with the connection of the premise and conclusion
 Occur because the premises fail to provide evidence strong enough to support the
conclusion
 Although the premises have some relevance to the conclusion, they are not sufficient to
cause a reasonable person to accept

FALLACIES OF AMBIGUITY

Equivocation - This fallacy consists in leading an opponent to an unwarranted conclusion by

using a term in its different senses and making it appear to have only one meaning.

Examples:
Gambling should be legalized because it is something we can’t avoid. It is
an integral part of human experience; people gamble every time they get in
their cars or decide to get married.

Note: The first use of “gambling” in this argument for legalized gambling refers to games
of chance and/or the use of gaming devices, whereas the second refers to the risk feature
of life itself. What the argument tries to do is to direct people into thinking that gambling
is something unavoidable, and that being the case, it should be legal. But that conclusion
does not follow since what is being argued to be legal is not the same sense of gambling
which people naturally do.
 Congressmen can create or abolish laws. The law of supply and demand
is law. Therefore, congressmen can abolish the law of supply and
demand.

Note: this argument also commits the fallacy of equivocation since the term law has been
used in two different senses. In the first premise, it refers to “rule binding in a particular
community or society”; while in the second premise, it refers to “general principle
deduced from facts.” Lumping these two meanings of “law” into a single line of
reasoning will lead to such absurd conclusion as the one above.

Due to the vulnerability of language to being interpreted in multiple ways, it is important for the
court to always go back to the context in which the language in the law has been formulated. The
problem of linguistic ambiguity in the law can be avoided by such approach.

FALLACY OF AMPHIBOLY

Definition: - This fallacy consists in presenting a claim or argument whose meaning can be
interpreted in two or more ways due to its grammatical construction.

Fallacy of Amphiboly vs. Fallacy of Equivocation

Fallacy of Amphiboly Fallacy of Equivocation

- ambiguity comes comes from the way the - ambiguity comes from changing
sentence is construed meanings of the word
- double meaning lies not in the word but
in the syntax or grammatical construction

- “Taxes, fees and other charges were -“Law is a set of rules that must be
recorded as paid by the BIR ” followed by the people.
All elected officials must rule the country
- “Don’t let hate kill you off- let your based on what the law provides.
friends help you.” Therefore, all elected officials must be
followed by the people.”

 A statement is amphibolous when its meaning is indeterminate because of the loose or

awkward way in which its word are combined.
  An amphibolous statement may be true in one interpretation and false in another. When it
is stated as premise with the interpretation that makes it true, and a conclusion is drawn
from it on interpretation that makes it false, then the fallacy of amphiboly has been
committed.

Some of typical grammatical errors that render a claim ambiguous:

A. Unclear pronoun reference:
“ Mr. X questioned the police officer what crime he violated. ” (As to who violated the crime
Mr. X or Police officer)
B. Elliptical construction, where words are omitted but supposedly understood”
“Fire when ready” (“You are” is understood, as in “fire when you are ready”)
C. Unclear Modifier:
“Last night I caught a murderer in my coat and tie.” (whether he caught the murderer in his
coat and tie or he used coat and tie when he caught the murderer.)
D. Careless use of only:
“The landlady will accept lady borders only during summer.” (whether the landlady will
accept lady borders ONLY or accept lady borders DURING SUMMER ONLY)
E. Careless use of all:
“All of the prizes awarded to the candidates amount to one million pesos.” (whether the total
amount of one million pesos was awarded to each candidate or distributed to all candidates.)

IMPROPER ACCENT

Also known as
 Fallacy of Accent
 Misleading Accent
 Emphasis of Accent
 Fallacy of Prosody

Definitions
 The meaning of a word or set of words may be drastically changed by the way they are
spoken, without changing the words themselves.
 It is a type of ambiguity that arises when the meaning of a sentence is changed by
placing an unusual prosodic stress.
 In a written passage, it is left unclear which word the emphasis was supposed to fall
on.
EXAMPLES

I didn’t take the test yesterday. (Somebody else did.)

I didn’t take the test yesterday. (I did not take it.)
I didn’t take the test yesterday. (I did something else with it.)
I didn’t take the test yesterday. (I took a different one.)
I didn’t take the test yesterday. (I took something else.)
I didn’t take the test yesterday. ( I took it some other day.)

 First coined by Aristotle, who pointed out that a word with one spelling could have
different pronunciation and different meaning, which effectively created multiple words.
 Fallacy of Accent, known as Fallacy of Emphasis, is one of the original fallacies
described by Aristotle, the first philosopher to systematically categorize and describe
logical errors like in the table below.

ACCENT 1 MEANING 1 ACCENT 2 MEANING 2

Accent An emphasis on a Accent To emphasize a
word word
Increase The act of becoming Increase To become greater
larger
Insult A disrespectful Insult To speak
statement disrespectfully
Invalid An ill person Invalid (Of an argument)
faulty
Record A log of events Record To keep track of
events
Resent Sent something Resent To hate
again

VICIOUS ABSTRACTION

 Vicious: False or inverts the meaning of the original fact

 Vicious Abstraction: Altering the logic or meaning of a statement by using vague or

abstract terms.

 How do we commit this fallacy:

1. When vague words are misused
2. Quoting out of context, which distorts the statement’s meaning
3. Misquotation, where paraphrasing omits or alters vital detail
Example:

An employee’s claim that she/he is overworked

The above statement is vague. What does it mean to be overworked?

If we want to argue by counter evidence that the employee is not overworked, we should know
the employee’s deliverables or scope of work including the number of hours of work.

How do we avoid this fallacy?

 If there are vague terms in the premises or a particular term contains a vague
word/statement, we should decode the vagueness or specify the unspecified so we can
support or counter the argument or the claim and assess whether the evidence or counter
evidence we might have weakens or refutes the claim.

 Fallacy of Composition

 This fallacy consists in wrongly inferring that what holds true of the individuals
automatically holds true of the group made up of those individuals.

In committing this fallacy, one asserts that:

- the attributes of an individual member are necessarily the same as to the attributes of the
collection of those members; or
- the properties of parts of a thing are necessarily the same as the properties of the thing as a
whole

 In this fallacy, there is confusion between the “distributive” and the “collective” use of
general terms, which may be inferred in the following examples.

Examples of fallacy on attributes of an individual member are not necessarily the same with the
attributes as collection of members:

A lawyer earns more than a secretary, therefore all lawyers earn more than all secretaries.

Note: Indeed lawyers earn more than secretaries, distributively; but collectively, secretaries earn
more than lawyers because there are a lot more secretaries in the world than lawyers.

Roger Federer and Martina Hingis are two of the best tennis players in the world, so if these two
Swiss players team up, they’d make one of the best mixed double teams.

Note: Indeed the two players are very difficult to defeat when they play individually, but it does
not follow that they will also be very difficult to defeat when they play together as a team. The
skills and strategies in double matches in tennis are different from those in singles categories.
Examples of fallacy on properties of parts of a thing are not necessarily the same with the
properties as a whole:

Parts of a painting, that is, its components (canvass, paint, frame, etc.) are relatively cheap, the
paintings as a whole must also be relatively cheap

Note: It is not necessarily the case, for some paintings, much so if they are made by renowned
artists, are very expensive in spite of the fact that their components are relatively cheap.

Hydrogen and oxygen are said to be combustible materials, so water must be a dangerous
substance.

FALLACY OF DIVISION

 Wrongly assuming that what is true in general is true in particular

 Reverse of fallacy of composition
 Makes unwarranted assumption that a characteristic of a whole is therefore a characteristic
of each part
 Also known as false division, faulty deduction, division fallacy

Logical Form
A is part of B
B has property X
Therefore, A has property X.

Examples
Maroon University recognizes the role of student activism in their student’s growth and
development.
Gladys and Aprille are students of Maroon University.
Therefore, Gladys and Aprille are student activists.

In Wakanda, Bureau of Equipment is one of the most corrupt agencies of the government.
Lakas and Ganda works in Bureau of Equipment.
Therefore, Lakas and Ganda are corrupt government employees.