Informal Logic Fallacies C – focus on specific general or part-whole relationships (the sum is great than its parts)

Group C – Accident/Exception

• This occurs when accidental factors are overlooked while arguing that a general rule should be applied – when should a general rule NOT be applied

• E.g. Lying is wrong. When Liz lied to her mother about how her hair looked, she acted immorally despite wanting to protect her mother from the ugly facts

Group C – Hasty Generalization

1. This occurs when an argument overlooks certain features when connecting to the general/whole argument

2. E.g. Matt was allowed to hand in his assignment late because he had surgery the day before. So everyone else should be able to hand in their assignment late

3. Sufficient evidence/reason must be provided in order to make an argument cogent

4. An argument cannot generalize based on limited data/exception to a general rule

Group C - Composition

• This occurs when the whole may not be greater than the sum of its parts, but it can certainly be different

• E.g. The brain may have features of consciousness, but individual neurons do not

• Each part of the body has a function, but this does not mean that the body has a function as a whole

• Parts of the argument may not match parts of the whole

Group C - Decomposition

• This occurs when a feature of the whole argument is erroneously applied to parts of the argument

• E.g. Suppose that, in total, more gasoline is consumed by cars than by trucks. We could not use this to conclude that a particular car uses more gasoline than a particular truck.

• This attributes a feature of the whole to the parts