The Language of Argument

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C H A P T E R 1 7 ■ R e f u t a t i o n

the government collect our telephone records, but it is better than having

them collect our body parts.” Let’s hope there is a third option! Opponents

of the government collecting phone records, of course, think that there is

another way to avoid having to collect body parts. But then they sometimes

add, “Either you are opposed to the government collecting phone records

or you don’t care about civil rights.” This is just a false dichotomy on the

other side. Those who favor the government collecting phone records do

care about civil rights, even though they favor some intrusions (which they

see as minor intrusions) on those rights in order to fight terrorism.

False dichotomies like these are parodied by Stephen Colbert when he

says, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists,” “Either you’re

for the war [in Iraq] or you hate America,” and his best, “George W. Bush:

great president or the greatest president?” The trick here is obviously to

give you some choice, so that you end up committed to the option that you

choose, but your choices are limited to ones that Colbert gives you.

After listing his dichotomy, Colbert usually adds, “It’s that simple!” The best

response is to recognize that these issues are usually not simple at all. These

tricks work partly because many people long for simple choices or they fail to

notice any third option. Whenever someone tells you that you have only two

alternatives, you should look carefully for other possibilities. And whenever

your choice among the options seems obvious, you should ask whether the

rejected options have been set up as straw men rather than characterized fairly.

Do the following arguments attack straw men? Why or why not?

1. Anyone who thinks that the United States should not have sent troops to
   Iraq must think that the suffering Saddam Hussein inflicted on his own
   citizens doesn’t matter much.


2. Anyone who thinks that the United States should have sent troops to Iraq
   must think that they will only be there for a short time.


3. Humans could not have been created in the image of God, because God is
   not a physical being, and only physical beings can have images.


4. Atheists think that God does not exist, so everything is permitted. But
   even atheists must admit that I would not be permitted to kill them! So
   atheism is nonsense.


5. The theory of evolution says that humans are no different from apes, but
   humans are clearly smarter than apes, so the theory of evolution must be
   wrong.


6. Stephen Colbert again: “Evolutionists’ main claim is that one day we decided
   to stop being monkeys and turned ourselves into humans. Well, if that’s true,
   why aren’t more monkeys escaping from zoos? Think about it. They could
   turn into humans, then disguise themselves as janitors and walk out of their
   cages. But I guess evolution doesn’t have an answer for that one.”^1

Exercise V

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