What logical fallacies are being used in this situation?
Historical archive only. New interaction is disabled.
Original Question
This seems to be a common occurrence now with the upcoming elections . It goes like this:
1. None of my friends and family support candidate X, so " no one " supports X.
Which then leads to:
2. Because "no one" supports Candidate X, if they win, it was because the election was rigged.
I think there's multiple logical fallacies involved but I'm not sure what they are. And it's unfortunate that so many people do this line of thinking when it comes to politics.
1. None of my friends and family support candidate X, so " no one " supports X.
Which then leads to:
2. Because "no one" supports Candidate X, if they win, it was because the election was rigged.
I think there's multiple logical fallacies involved but I'm not sure what they are. And it's unfortunate that so many people do this line of thinking when it comes to politics.
Answers
3Yep. Basically hasty generalization, combined with a good bit of good old-fashioned narrow-mindedness.
I would just add that this can also be a biased sample fallacy, using only family and friends if one's family and friends have the same political leanings. Otherwise, hasty generalization fallacy fits nicely as well.
None of my friends and family support candidate X, so "no one" supports X.
That would be a hasty generalization fallacy as the person takes a very limited sample (their friends and family) and fallacious asserts that nobody supports the candidate based on the fact that their family and friends don't support that candidate.
As for the second argument where they conclude that if the candidate wins the election was rigged, this is not a fallacious argument but rather an argument that contains a factual error (the error being that nobody supports the candidate).
Master Logical Fallacies Online
Take the Virversity course and sharpen your reasoning skills with structured lessons.
View Online Course