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Chapter 11

In chapter 11 we talked about Fallacy. Fallacy is defined as a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument and/or a failure in reasoning that renders an argument invalid and/or faulty reasoning; misleading or unsound argument.

Therefore, in an article written about the prisoners in a Delaware prison being beaten by correctional officers the supervisor thought the prisoners complaints were a fallacy. She did not believe that the information that the prisoners were giving about being physically and verbally abuse was real even though there was evidence from the prisoners psychiatrists and exams. She thought they were trying to get the correctional officers in trouble and that the information they were providing for this argument were fallacy when in fact it was real.

How would you not know that this information is true? Situations like this are tricky, would you believe the prisoners after who knows what they have done in and outside the prison in the past? Maybe they are tricking you? But wouldn't you feel like an idiot for not believing them when their health is at risk? What do you do?

I think it is hard to distinguish things as a fallacy or not. Some arguments are obviously easier but others I think can become a little bit trickier. But hopefully these ideas and concepts in the book make it a little bit easier to identify a fallacy.

http://www.wboc.com/story/39403332/delaware-lawsuit-claims-inmates-were-beaten-tortured-by-cos

Comments

  1. AnonymousNovember 28, 2018 at 8:56 AM

    I really enjoyed the example you provided because there are many aspects of argumentation that could play into this unique situation. My first thought about the Delaware prison incident was that the prisoners were not believed because of their lack of credibility. An authority figure would likely not believe the convicts that they are supervising, let alone believe that their subordinate coworkers would do something so malicious like this. In reality, a supervisor would be significantly more likely to trust their coworkers over the prisoners that they are working with. Although the factor of credibility is present in who the supervisor would naturally trust, she should have investigated the personal testimonies of the prisoners. This lack of belief was foolish because if a prisoner makes a claim of violence towards them, there is likely proof of these unethical actions by correctional officers. In my opinion, it was a major mistake by the supervisor to immediately disregard this claim from prisoners and assume it to be a fallacy. The supervisor likely did not have grounds to assume this situation as a fallacy because of the lack of pin-pointing exact information or reasons to why this could be a fallacy. Overall, the lack of credibility from prisoners combined with the supervisor’s assumed trust for subordinate coworkers was detrimental to the argument and left prisoners in true danger.

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