False Dilemma · 3:48am Dec 16th, 2012
Once, on a different forum, I had a debate with a moderator about the merits of Pascal's Wager. To prove his point he used an argumentum ad populum and an appeal to authority. Guess what's coming up next!
False Dilemma
There isn't a hard and fast rule to false dilemma like the last two fallacies, but it's still pretty easy to spot. This logical fallacy occurs when someone proposes two choices or outcomes to a situation when, in fact, many more exist. Dilemma implies two questions, so if three or more choices are given when more exist, don't refer to the fallacy as a dilemma. It'll just make you look silly. (The correct term would be a "fallacy of many questions" or "complex question fallacy".)
Example A:
Lojika McPhallussy: Is it raining or sunny outside?
Ida Praposar: Neither. It is snowing.
Example B-1:
Lojika McPhallussy: Do you support the Democrats? or are you a Fascist?
Example B-2:
Lojika McPhallussy: Do you support the Republicans? or are you a Communist?
Example C:
Lojika McPhallussy: What do you believe in, evolution or Creationism?
Ida Praposar: Actually, I believe that we congealed from the phlegm of a careless storm god and willed ourselves into existence.
A false dilemma is sometimes an attempt to limit another person's choices to an undesirable choice and a choice that the person committing the fallacy wants you to make. See examples B-1 and B-2. Sometimes, there is really no attempt to sway another person's opinion, and a false dilemma is just a failure to include all the possible choices or outcomes, as in Example A and C.
My favourite example of a false dilemma is Pascal's Wager. If you don't know what that is, basically a few hundred years ago a French mathematician proposed that belief in God is more pragmatic than disbelief.
It can be summarized as this:
Either God does or does not exist.
If you believe in God, and God exists, when you die you will receive an infinite reward.
If you do not believe in God, and God exists, when you die you will receive infinite punishment.
If God does not exist, whether or not you believe in Him, you will receive little to nothing.
Thus, if you believe in God you will receive either an infinite reward or nothing, and if you do not believe in God, you will either receive an infinite punishment or nothing.
Therefore it is better to believe in God.
The main fallacy lies in the hard binary where either God does or does not exist. The dilemma excludes the possibility of a god, or gods other than the one in this scenario, or maybe even a god that only partially exists. There is also another dilemma in the outcome of either infinite reward for belief and infinite punishment for disbelief. This second dilemma excludes the possibility of actions other than belief being rewarded or punished and also excludes the possibility of varying degrees of punishment or reward for different kinds of belief and disbelief. Perhaps God is fine with nonbelievers but hates people who wear suede shoes.
Here, the fallacy is being used to create a situation where it would be favourable to engage in one activity and unfavourable not to engage in that activity. The narrow scope of the argument excludes all the other possibilities outside of the four proposed outcomes (existence of God+belief=infinite reward, existence of God-belief=infinite punishment, nonexistence of God+belief=nothing, nonexistence of God-belief=nothing), and uses this exclusion in an attempt to sway the argument.
Omission can make you wrong. Remember that, dead math guys.
I prefer false dichotomy, but only because it's such a good word.
I believe the more fitting counter is the "Argument from inconsistent revelations" than a false dilemma. Interesting stuff, though. But, in keeping in line with the topic: Pascal's Wager is not an apt argument for belief, no more than the ontological, cosmological, or teleological arguments are adequate proofs for the existence of god.
This is relevant to my interests!