Person B has misconstrued/misrepresented this proposal by responding to it as if it had been "unrestricted access to intoxicants". The original proposal was to relax laws on beer. B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate: Alice: I didn't mean taking an extremely hot shower.Īlice noticed the trick and defended herself.But her real argument was not disproved, because she did not say anything about the temperature. And because such an argument is obviously false, Alice might start believing that she is wrong because what Bob said was clearly true. Bob: But hot water may damage your skin.īob attacked the non-existing argument: Taking an extremely hot shower is beneficial.Exaggerating (sometimes grossly) an opponent's argument, then attacking this exaggerated version.Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then denying that person's arguments-thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.Quoting an opponent's words out of context-i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's intentions (see fallacy of quoting out of context).This reasoning is a fallacy of relevance: it fails to address the proposition in question by misrepresenting the opposing position. Person 2 argues against a superficially similar proposition Y, falsely, as if an argument against Y were an argument against X.The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument: Straw man tactics in the United Kingdom may also be known as an Aunt Sally, after a pub game of the same name, where patrons throw sticks or battens at a post to knock off a skittle balanced on top. Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects.
The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having refuted or defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's proposition. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be "attacking a straw man". Caption: "SMASHED!", Harper's Weekly, 22 September 1900Ī straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false one.
President William McKinley has shot a cannon (labeled McKinley's Letter) that has involved a "straw man" and its constructors ( Carl Schurz, Oswald Garrison Villard, Richard Olney) in a great explosion.
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