How effective is the identification of fallacies really?

When I first learned about fallacies I saw them as strong ammunition against all the nonsense pouring out of the internet, but lately I have learned that understanding fallacies is less helpful than I originally thought.

1. The argument from fallacy. Whenever I try to explain fallacies to people I have to explain this one first because just because an argument is fallacious this does not mean that the argument is wrong.

"Vaccines are safe. Scientific studies say so. Scientific studies are authoritative on this matter."

"Science says so" is the best reason there is to believe something but if I state it this way it seems like an argument from authority.

2. Sometimes fallacious logic is a good heuristic. Dr. Bo says this sometimes and it is true. For instance... Say you are trying on your SWAT team costume you plan to wear for Halloween which includes a plastic but realistic assault rifle. A cop sees you and says, "I am a cop. Freeze and put your hands where I can see them!" You think to yourself, "I am not going to listen to him just because he is an authority figure. He is not right just because he is a cop". You tell the cop, "Please provide stronger evidence that I should listen to you."

So the cop did not provide good logic as to why his instructions should be heeded, but it is still a good heuristic to listen to him. How can something be good logic and bad logic at the same time? Isn't it telling that so many types of bad logic is a good heuristic?

4. Logic is a favorite tool of theists to back up theistic claims. I used to argue with theists constantly. I noticed that they have a lot of arm chair, angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin type of arguments for proof in a creator. They will say things like, "Look at my reasoning, there are no fallacies". Often there are no fallacies but their whole argument rests on poor evidence. Logic is useless unless it is based on evidence.

3. Logic is arcane and weaker than other types of persuasion. I read a book called, "Thank You for Arguing" by Jay Henrichs. He had a list of three different types of persuasion. It goes like this...

1. Appeal to Character
"Trust me because because of my character"
2. Appeal to Emotion
"Trust me because deep down in your heart you know that I am right"
3. Appeal to Logic
"Trust me because what I ask is logical"

He lists logic as weaker than appeals to emotion and appeals to character. I think this is because humans have parts of our brains wired to identify with emotion especially. You can have no education at all and still understand emotion. This is why there are songs about emotions and not about logic. Most people are uninitiated with logic. Using logic to persuade them to not kill all the sharks in the ocean would be as effective as arguing using calculus. This is strange because the argument from emotion is the one which logic warns agains the most, especially in a place like a court of law. Jay Henrichs argues that any fallacy can be used in oratory as long as no one catches or cares that a fallacy has been committed. In fact, avoiding the use of all fallacies can put you at a disadvantage, especially in the political arena.

So I should have a specific question after all of that explication. How should I see the strength of logic as a tool of persuasion?

Let's take your questions/points one at a time:

1) I see this all the time where people attempt to find fallacies in arguments in order to convince others (and perhaps themselves) that the conclusions are wrong. They also often get the fallacies wrong in that virtually all informal fallacies have exceptions. If you just try to memorize the fallacies without understanding them, you will fall into this trap and your reasoning list likely to be worse as a result. Your appeal to science is a good example of this. Neophytes in the land of fallacies don't see a difference between the scientific consensus, expert opinion, and "it's true because X said so."

2) Stereotyping is the best example of this. We all do it all the time, and could not function (reasonably) without doing it. This is what Tversky and Kahneman refer to as system 1 vs system 2 thinking. In most cases, the fast, automatic thinking (system 1) is fine and gets us through life efficiently and reliably (reliable enough). However, when it comes to argumentation, we need to use system 2, the slow, deliberate thinking and do away with as many fallacies as possible. So in short, fallacies might also be good heuristics, but there is no place for this in argumentation.

3) Henrichs is referring to the idea coined by Aristotle: Logos, Pathos, and Ethos (see pathosethoslogos.com/ for a short and sweet explanation). I often encourage us Spock like rationalists to use a little emotion in debates and win hearts, not just minds. Humans are NOT purely rational creatures. As long as the emotion SUPPORTS the logic and does not contradict it, it is fine to use.

Logic is only one tool in the persuasion tool kit, and certainly NOT the greatest. But it is the greatest in the critical thinking tool kit. Persuasion is a different game that goes by different rules.

Hey Jacob,

You wrote, "When I first learned about fallacies I saw them as strong ammunition against all the nonsense pouring out of the internet..."

This seems to me the heart of your concern. I do not view identification of fallacies as ammunition against the nonsense, but more like a shield that protects your mind and that of others. You are right, logic, unfortunately, is not the most effective form of persuasion. It may not help you change the minds of others. But logic and critical thinking do seem to be our best means of getting at the truth and avoiding errors.

I struggled this last election with whether I should employ rhetoric to convince people to vote for Hillary or if I should adhere to only logical arguments. I knew that I might convince more people if I employed rhetoric. But it seemed to me to be disrespectful to both them and myself. If I employ rhetoric to convince people I'm treating them as if they do not respect truth. I would have been treating them merely as means of getting a vote and not as a rational thoughtful person that deserves my best argument.

A few notes. There's an equivocation with the word `authority'. When we say that some appeals to authority are good and some are bad we are using `authority' in the sense of expert. Cops are an authority in the sense of `someone with power or a right to give orders'. Cops have legal authority over civilians in many cases. They may not need to provide logical grounds for their orders. If the authority/expert is a disinterested expert, in the field we are interested in, that represents the consensus view in that field, then we are justified in accepting their opinion (though we can always look at their evidence.)

Theists have a ton of arguments. But their argument has to be sound in order to establish their conclusion. To be sound the argument must be both valid and all the premises must be true. If an argument contains no fallacies this does not necessarily mean that the argument is sound. If it's invalid it will contain a formal fallacy. But if it's valid it may contain a false premise. I personally have not come across a sound theistic argument. I have come across valid ones, but no sound ones.

I guess my response is this then: logic and critical thinking is protection for you first of all. By employing only good reasoning to convince others, you extend that protection to them, and really display a higher level of respect for your fellow man. It's not as effective at persuasion, but persuasion through erroneous reasoning is cheap and, to my mind, disrespectful.

Peter Abelard: "Logic has made me hated among men."

You raise a number of important issues with regards to logic, and the two answers I read make great observations too. Perhaps to reiterate what they say, logic is not primarily a tool of "persuasion" but a tool of reasoning and discovery (of implications, not new facts of course.) Before we persuade others, we should do our best to be correct in the first place! Take the beam out of our own eyes....

Logic helps us to analyze theories and understand dependencies between ideas, what is implied by what and what needs what type of evidence. It usually cannot evaluate the truth of an isolated claim, but it can help determine if it's consistent with other ones. It doesn't give you facts so much as where you should look for them.

I worked in statistics, and in my experience the barrier that most people have to its understanding is not math skills, which is often no more than elementary arithmetic, but rather failure to understand the logic involved. Often one is going up against someone's wishful thinking as well, and I still don't know the best way to counteract that...

As to theism, if the arguments are valid but you believe the conclusions are false, than you must believe some premise is false. Which ones and why? Or perhaps some things are ambiguous? Personally, I've found these and many other philosophical arguments baffling, but I doubt abandoning logic for some other form of analysis would help much.

Thank you and the respondents for discussing this today!

I still love logic and the studying of logical fallacies. Each one is like a puzzle. Some are easy to understand like the argument from authority, and others are more difficult like the moralistic and naturalistic fallacies. Some are require an understanding of statistics like the ecological fallacy. Some sound like Harry Potter spells like Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc. Some I still don't get like the existential fallacy. But thats the fun in it. Fallacies would be boring if they were as easy as simple arithmetic. The fact that all informal fallacies have exceptions just means they need to be understood with more subtlety to be truly understood. When an argument appears to be fallacious you have to go through a mental checklist before writing the argument as truly bad. An argument might be factually right but logically wrong. It might be logically fallacious but a good mental shortcut. In many cases fallacious reasoning it completely normal. Imagine going to a strip club and your wife says, "Don't go to strip clubs because this hurts my feelings". An argument from emotion! I see the fallacy of special pleading a lot. It is politically correct for women to make fun of men but not vice versa.

When I point out a fallacy used by someone else it invariably ends with the other person either not understanding me, because few understand fallacies, or they disagree that their argument was a fallacy. Sometimes the other person really is wrong and other times it is a matter of perspective. If you accuse a theist of "magical thinking" he will say that this is not magical in his worldview.

Sometimes people people accuse me of making fallacious arguments. Sometimes they are right. It takes some effort to formulate an argument which does not commit one of the hundreds of fallacies out there. This usually means I need to restructure it into a more logically sound argument, which is good practice.