An association fallacy is an inductive informal fallacy of the type hasty
generalization or red herring which asserts that qualities of one thing are
inherently qualities of another, merely by an irrelevant association. The two
types are sometimes referred to as guilt by association and honor by association.
Association fallacies are a special case of red herring, and can be based on an
appeal to emotion. Form
In notation of first-order logic, this type of fallacy can be expressed as) →),
meaning "if there exists any x in the set S so that a property φ is true for
x, then for all x in S the property φ must be true."
Premise A is a B Premise A is also a C
Conclusion Therefore, all Bs are Cs The fallacy in the argument can be
illustrated through the use of an Euler diagram: "A" satisfies the requirement
that it is part of both sets "B" and "C", but if one represents this as an
Euler diagram, it can clearly be seen that it is possible that a part of set
"B" is not part of set "C", refuting the conclusion that "all Bs are Cs".
Guilt by association = Examples=
Some syllogistic examples of guilt by association:
John is a con artist. John has black hair. Therefore, all people with black
hair are con artists. Hitler conspired to murder millions of
people. Hitler was a vegetarian and owned a dog, Blondi. Therefore,
dog-owning vegetarians will conspire to commit mass murder.
Jane is good at mathematics. Jane is dyslexic. Therefore, all dyslexic people
are good at mathematics. Simon, Karl, Jared, and Brett are all
friends of Josh, and they are all petty criminals. Jill is a friend of Josh;
therefore, Jill is a petty criminal. All dogs have four legs; my cat has four
legs. Therefore, my cat is a dog.. A real-world example of guilt by
association is that, in response to mass shooting incidents in the U.S. and
public speculation that the perpetrators had Asperger's Syndrome, many people
throughout society wrongfully stigmatized and stereotyped people with
the disorder as being potentially violent and having the potential to
become shooters. Especially after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting,
the media and autism-advocacy organizations proffered expert opinions
debunking this myth and attempting to better educate the public about autism
to dissuade the stigmatization. The myth of erroneously linking Asperger's
Syndrome to violence also counts as an example of the logical fallacy of
questionable cause and scapegoating. = Guilt by association as an ad hominem
fallacy= Guilt by association can sometimes also
be a type of ad hominem fallacy, if the argument attacks a person because of the
similarity between the views of someone making an argument and other proponents
of the argument. This form of the argument is as follows:
Source S makes claim C. Group G, which is currently viewed
negatively by the recipient, also makes claim C.
Therefore, source S is viewed by the recipient of the claim as associated to
the group G and inherits how negatively viewed it is.
An example of this fallacy would be "My opponent for office just received an
endorsement from the Puppy Haters Association. Is that the sort of person
you would want to vote for?" Honor by association
The logical inverse of "guilt by association" is honor by association,
where one claims that someone or something must be reputable because of
the people or organizations that are related to it or otherwise support it.
For example: = Examples=
Citizens of Country X won more Nobel Prizes, gold medals, and literary awards
than citizens of Country Y. Therefore, a citizen of Country X is superior to a
citizen of Country Y. In many advertisements, businesses
heavily use the principle of honor by association. For example, an attractive
spokesperson will say that a specific product is good. The attractiveness of
the spokesperson gives the product good associations.
Galileo Gambit A form of the association fallacy often
used by those denying a well-established scientific or historical proposition is
the so-called "Galileo Gambit." The argument goes that since Galileo was
ridiculed in his time but later acknowledged to be right, that since
their non-mainstream views are provoking ridicule and rejection from other
scientists, they will later be recognized as correct too.
This argument gained considerable public attention when it was made by Rick Perry
about global warming skepticism in September 2011. Perry suggested that
scientists stating "here is the fact" did not necessarily imply that this was
so, and that "Galileo got outvoted for a spell." The argument is flawed in that
being ridiculed does not necessarily correlate with being right and that many
people who have been ridiculed in history were, in fact, wrong. Similarly,
Daniel T. Willingham has stated that while they laughed at Galileo, "they
also laughed at the Three Stooges." See also
Notes References
Damer, T. Edward, Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to
Fallacy-free Arguments, Wadsworth, ISBN 978-0-495-09506-4
Fallacies: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Hans V. Hansen and
Robert C. Pinto. Bibliography on Fallacies:
http:www.ditext.combib.html External links
The Fallacy Files Guilt by Association Propagandacritic.com "Transfer
technique" Propagandacritic.com "Testimonial"