Question

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The Dudeman

Question about sources

Is it fallacious reasoning to reject a source as evidence for an argument because of a dislike or distrust of the source, without looking at the validity of the source?

For example, if I were to cite an article by the New York Times to further my argument, is it fallacious for the other person to reject the New York Times because they either dislike the paper or feel that the paper is biased, but without questioning the validity or truthfulness of the article?

Example (all of this is made up. I know nothing about this issue):

P1: Felons should not be allowed to vote. If we can't trust them to be on the streets, then we can't trust them to choose our leaders.

P2: I disagree. An article by the New York Times suggests that not only would felons probably not sway any elections in the long run, but most of them probably would opt out of voting anyway.

P1: The New York Times is biased, therefore your argument is invalid.
asked on Friday, Oct 21, 2016 12:34:29 AM by The Dudeman

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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This can be a the Genetic Fallacy - Basing the truth claim of an argument on the origin of its claims or premises. I say can be because considering the source is not only reasonable, but important.

For example, if someone tells you that they heard from Alex Jones that President Obama was actually and illegal alien... from Mars, you would be out of your mind to even consider investigating the claim based on the source. But in your example, the New York Times, while perhaps biased, is a reasonable news source and should not be dismissed based on the source.

If you are making an argument based on opinion rather than facts, then the source does matter. This applies to your example. The New York Times is not being used as a source for facts, but for opinion. This is a reasonable way to support your argument.

I wouldn't call your example an argument; it is more of an opinion backed by evidence... but even P2 is a strange response to P1. Because of this, the response "The New York Times is biased, therefore your argument is invalid." really makes no sense.

Let's rework this into an argument where we can see the genetic fallacy:

P1: The New York Times suggests that felons being allowed to vote would have very little effect on any election outcome.
P2: The New York Times is biased.
C: Therefore, felons should not be allowed to vote.

And here is an example that is not fallacious based on simply not trusting the source:

P1: The New York Times suggests that felons being allowed to vote would have very little effect on any election outcome.
P2: The New York Times is biased.
C: Therefore, I am not convinced that felons should be allowed to vote.

So to recap, there are three elements that we need to consider for this type of argument to decide if it is fallacious or not:

1) The quality of the source
2) The claim being made (opinion or fact)
3) The objection to the argument (claiming it is false / not accepting it as true)
answered on Friday, Oct 21, 2016 06:49:38 AM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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