Red Herring

Alias:

• Ignoratio Elenchi
  Translation:
  "Ignorance of refutation", Latin
• Irrelevant Thesis

Etymology:

The name of this fallacy comes from the sport of fox hunting in which a dried, smoked herring, which is red in color, is dragged across the trail of the fox to throw the hounds off the scent. Thus, a "red herring" argument is one which distracts the audience from the issue in question through the introduction of some irrelevancy. This frequently occurs during debates when there is an at least implicit topic, yet it is easy to lose track of it. By extension, it applies to any argument in which the premisses are logically irrelevant to the conclusion.

Exposition:

This is the most general fallacy of irrelevance. Any argument in which the premisses are logically unrelated to the conclusion commits this fallacy.

History:

This fallacy is often known by the Latin name "ignoratio elenchi", or "ignorance of refutation". The ignorance involved is either ignorance of the conclusion to be refuted—even deliberately ignoring it—or ignorance of what constitutes a refutation, so that the attempt misses the mark. This explanation goes back to Aristotle's On Sophistical Refutations, the focus of which is fallacious refutations in debate. As with all of Aristotle's original fallacies, its application has widened to all arguments.

Of course, fallacies of ambiguity involve irrelevance, in that the premisses are logically irrelevant to the conclusion, but this fact is disguised by ambiguous language. However, Aristotle classifies Ignoratio Elenchi as language-independent, though he does say:

One might, with some violence, bring this fallacy into the group of fallacies dependent on language as well.

But this would make Ignoratio Elenchi so wide that just about every fallacy—with the exception of Begging the Question—would be a subfallacy of it. This is too wide to be useful, so I will follow Aristotle in restricting it to non-linguistic fallacies, excluding those disguised by ambiguity or vagueness.

Exposure:

Logical relevance is itself a vague and ambiguous notion. It is ambiguous in that different types of reasoning involve distinct types of relevance. It is vague in that there is little agreement among logicians about even deductive relevance, with logicians divided into different camps, so-called "relevance" logicians arguing for a more restrictive notion of logical relevance than so-called "classical" logicians.

Another ambiguity of the term "relevance" is that logical relevance can be confused with psychological relevance. The fact that two ideas are logically related may be one reason why one makes you think of the other, but there are other reasons, and the stream of consciousness often includes associations between ideas that are not at all logically related. Moreover, not all logical relations are obvious, so that a logical relationship may not cause a psychological relationship at all.

Because it is the most general fallacy of irrelevance, most fallacious arguments will be identified as some more specific type of irrelevancy.

Ignoratio elenchi

De la Wikipedia, enciclopedia liberă

Ignoratio elenchi (cunoscut şi sub denumirea de argument irelevant sau concluzie irelevantă sau teză irelevantă) este eroarea logică în care se prezintă un argument care în sine poate sa fie valid dar care dovedeşte sau susţine validitatea unei afirmaţii diferite de cea care trebuia să fie dovedită sau susţinută.

Heringul roşu

Similar argumentului irelevant, heringul roşu este un argument dat în replică, dar care ignoră problema reală - devenind astfel irelevant. Acest gen de argument este de obicei folosit pentru a distrage atenţia de la subiectul discuţiei.

Tu quoque

Din latinescul „şi tu” este un alt argument folosit pentru a distrage atenţia de la subiectul discuţiei. Este afirmat ca un sfat sau argument trebuie sa fie fals pur şi simplu pentru că persoana care a prezentat sfatul nu-l respectă nici el însuşi. Tu quoque este frecvent întâlnit în combinaţie cu un argument ad hominem. În limbaj oral, tu quoque se mai numeşte „ba pe a mă-tii”.

Exemple

• Admit că politica fiscală a premierului este populară, dar suspectez că el are o relaţie extraconjugală cu o femeie pe care o plăteşte să păstreze liniştea. Presa ar trebui să investigheze.

Adeversarul politic al premierului incearcă să deraieze discuţia despre politica fiscală. Se observă că dacă discuţia ar fi despre integritatea morală a premierului atunci argumentul este valid.

• Poţi să afirmi că pedeapsa capitală este ineficientă în combaterea crimei, dar ce parere ai despre victimele crimelor? Cum crezi că se vor simţi rudele victimei văzând criminalul fiului lor ca fiind ţinut în închisoare pe cheltuaiala lor? Este just ca ei să contribuie la hrana şi adăpostul criminalului propriului lor fiu?

Se observa distragerea atenţiei de la discuţia legată de abrogarea pedepsei capitale la cea a suferinţei rudelor victimei sau a folosirii banilor contribuabililor de către stat.