Logical fallacies are essentially a list of argumentative tactics which are 'solved' as being non-arguments. I think most people have heard of the concept, and are probably familiar with some of the individual fallacies (whether they know them by that name or not). These days the term "straw man" is pretty common, many people will have heard "ad hominem" at some point, and so on.
To be clear, I'm not talking about formal fallacies, like those used in discrete logic, but informal fallacies. I think the idea of having a canon of these (a lot of websites claim to have a "complete list" of them is ridiculous, and just the idea of them is really odd to me in the first place.
I remember first becoming familiar with the idea of logical fallacies around the 2016-2018 Anti-SJW era on YouTube and the Internet at large. A lot of Ben Shapiro types liked to use them as part of their arsenal of "facts and logic." When I looked into it, even then, it seemed ridiculous to me. How can the range of human argumentative skills be boiled down to a list of the 'good' strategies and the 'bad' strategies? How can one person in an argument cite their little book of fallacies and say "uh, sorry man, you just used petitio principii, this argument's over!" I think the whole concept is just kind of ridiculous. I don't trust the general academic community (or wherever the plurality of informal fallacies come from) to decide what arguments are without merit. If someone feels that way, and isn't just trying to win the debate for the sake of winning a debate, then what they say is always valid. There isn't always one truth, and I think using an academic lens and banishing certain thought (especially with a throwaway line like "that's a logical fallacy" without any explanation) is troubling.
Obviously, it goes without saying that someone actually citing a logical fallacy in a normal argument between friends will be seen as a nerd, but that goes without saying.
After stewing on this topic for a couple months, part of me was starting to think what I wrote above was kind of ridiculous or meaningless. But, something that has rejuvenated my dislike of the concept is some discussion I heard surrounding the famous "slippery slope" fallacy. I truly believe that it's a legitimate arguing point in a (as my friend put it) "weird fucked up antidemocratic republic" where "precedent is kinda all we have." With things like Roe v. Wade's overturning (which was out of the question only a few years ago), and now justices like are Clarence Thomas seemingly pushing things even further with his hopes of eventually ending or lessening the rights to contraception, same-sex marriage, and interracial marriage.
In a Canadian political discussion, I saw the proposed idea of making respecting someone's (especially a trans person's) pronouns required, meaning that misgendering someone would be a crime. Canada also already has hate speech criminalized. In the United States, both of these things are legal, which may seem like a bad thing at the surface. I mean, I support trans people, several of my closest friends are trans and I try my best to be respectful of them. Through my "slippery slope" way of thinking, though, expanding limitations on the First Amendment right to freedom of speech is catastrophic. I mean, imagine a world where the U.S. government is the one that has the right to choose what is hate speech. We already know the Republicans have a stranglehold over a lot of the states' legislatures, and I've heard several Conservatives refer to "cis" as being a slur for non-trans people. Do we really want to open that can of worms?
Basically, I think we should simply keep what is hateful up to individuals. If someone is being racist, or homophobic, or transphobic, or whatever, just call them out. Don't associate with them. Things like that. That sort of thing really should not be centralized. I will say, as one final note, that I do support making hate
I'm curious to know if anyone else has thought much about this topic, or feels similarly about this, or has (NON-FALLACY, of course) rebuttals to my argument.
Email me about it at laymanpang (at) mailfence (dot) com.