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Straw man

A straw man is a form of argument and an informal fallacy based on giving the
impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument
that was not presented by that opponent.[1] One who engages in this fallacy is said to
be "attacking a straw man".

The typical straw man argument creates the illusion of having completely refuted or
defeated an opponent's proposition through the covert replacement of it with a
different proposition (i.e., "stand up a straw man") and the subsequent refutation of
that false argument ("knock down a straw man") instead of the opponent's
proposition.[2][3] Straw man arguments have been used throughout history in
polemical debate, particularly regarding highly charged emotional subjects.

Straw man tactics in the United Kingdom may also be known as an Aunt Sally, after
a pub game of the same name, where patrons threw sticks or battens at a post to
knock off a skittle balanced on top.[4][5]

A straw man
Contents
History
Structure
Examples
Contemporary work
Steelmanning
See also
References
External links

History
As a fallacy, the identification and name of straw man arguments are of relatively recent date, although Aristotle makes remarks
that suggest a similar concern;[6] Douglas Walton identified "the first inclusion of it we can find in a textbook as an informal
fallacy" in Stuart Chase's Guides to Straight Thinking from 1956 (p. 40).[6][7] However, Hamblin's classic text Fallacies (1970)
neither mentions it as a distinct type, nor even as a historical term.[6][7]

The term's origins are a matter of debate, though the usage of the term in rhetoric suggests a human figure made of straw that is
easy to knock down or destroy—such as a military training dummy, scarecrow, or effigy.[8] A common but false etymology is
that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe to signal their willingness to be a false witness.[9]
The Online Etymology Dictionary states that the term “man of straw” can be traced back to 1620 as “an easily refuted imaginary
opponent in an argument.”[10]

Structure
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:

1. Person 1 asserts proposition X.


2. Person 2 argues against a superficially similar proposition Y, falsely,
as if an argument against Y were an argument against X.
This reasoning is a fallacy of relevance: it fails to address the proposition in
question by misrepresenting the opposing position.

For example:

Quoting an opponent's words out of context—i.e., choosing


quotations that misrepresent the opponent's intentions (see fallacy of
quoting out of context).[3]
Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender,
then denying that person's arguments—thus giving the appearance U.S. President William McKinley has
that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has
shot a cannon (labeled McKinley's
been defeated.[2]
Letter) which has involved a "straw
Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this
man" and its constructors (Carl
oversimplified version.
Schurz, Oswald Garrison Villard,
Exaggerating (sometimes grossly exaggerating) an opponent's
argument, then attacking this exaggerated version. Richard Olney) in a great explosion.
Caption: "SMASHED!", Harper's
Weekly, September 22, 1900
Examples
Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate:

A: We should relax the laws on beer.


B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate
gratification.
The original proposal was to relax laws on beer. Person B has misconstrued/misrepresented this proposal by responding to it as if
it had been something like "(we should have) unrestricted access to intoxicants." It is a logical fallacy because Person A never
advocated allowing said unrestricted access to intoxicants (this is also a slippery slope argument).

In a 1977 appeal of a U.S. bank robbery conviction, a prosecuting attorney said in his closing argument:[11]

I submit to you that if you can't take this evidence and find these defendants guilty on this evidence then we might
as well open all the banks and say, "Come on and get the money, boys," because we'll never be able to convict
them.

This was a straw man designed to alarm the appeal judges; the chance that the precedent set by one case would literally make it
impossible to convict any bank robbers is remote.

An example often given of a straw man is US President Richard Nixon's 1952 "Checkers speech."[12][13] When campaigning for
vice president in 1952, Nixon was accused of having illegally appropriated $18,000 in campaign funds for his personal use. In a
televised response, based on an earlier politician's Fala speech, he spoke about another gift, a dog he had been given by a
supporter:[12][13]

It was a little cocker spaniel dog, in a crate he had sent all the way from Texas, black and white, spotted, and our
little girl Tricia, six years old, named it Checkers. And, you know, the kids, like all kids, loved the dog, and I just
want to say this right now, that, regardless of what they say about it, we are going to keep it.
This was a straw man response; his critics had never criticized the dog as a gift or suggested he return it. This argument was
successful at distracting many people from the funds and portraying his critics as nitpicking and heartless. Nixon received an
outpouring of public support and remained on the ticket. He and Eisenhower were elected by a landslide.

Christopher Tindale presents, as an example, the following passage from a draft of a bill (HCR 74) considered by the Louisiana
State Legislature in 2001:[7]

Whereas, the writings of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, promoted the justification of racism, and his
books On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man postulate a hierarchy of superior and inferior races. . . .

Therefore, be it resolved that the legislature of Louisiana does hereby deplore all instances and all ideologies of
racism, does hereby reject the core concepts of Darwinist ideology that certain races and classes of humans are
inherently superior to others, and does hereby condemn the extent to which these philosophies have been used to
justify and approve racist practices.

Tindale comments that "the portrait painted of Darwinian ideology is a caricature, one not borne out by any objective survey of
the works cited." The fact that similar misrepresentations of Darwinian thinking have been used to justify and approve racist
practices is beside the point: the position that the legislation is attacking and dismissing is a straw man. In subsequent debate, this
error was recognized, and the eventual bill omitted all mention of Darwin and Darwinist ideology.[7] Darwin passionately
opposed slavery and worked to intellectually confront the notions of "scientific racism" that were used to justify it.[14]

Contemporary work
In 2006, Robert Talisse and Scott Aikin expanded the application and use of the straw man fallacy beyond that of previous
rhetorical scholars, arguing that the straw man fallacy can take two forms: the original form that misrepresents the opponent's
position, which they call the representative form; and a new form they call the selection form.

The selection form focuses on a partial and weaker (and easier to refute) representation of the opponent's position. Then the easier
refutation of this weaker position is claimed to refute the opponent's complete position. They point out the similarity of the
selection form to the fallacy of hasty generalization, in which the refutation of an opposing position that is weaker than the
opponent's is claimed as a refutation of all opposing arguments. Because they have found significantly increased use of the
selection form in modern political argumentation, they view its identification as an important new tool for the improvement of
public discourse.[15]

Aikin and Casey expanded on this model in 2010, introducing a third form. Referring to the "representative form" as the classic
straw man, and the "selection form" as the weak man, a third form is called the hollow man. A hollow man argument is one that is
a complete fabrication, where both the viewpoint and the opponent expressing it do not in fact exist, or at the very least the arguer
has never encountered them. Such arguments frequently take the form of vague phrasing such as "some say," "someone out there
thinks" or similar weasel words, or it might attribute a non-existent argument to a broad movement in general, rather than an
individual or organization.[16][17]

A variation on the selection form, or "weak man" argument, that combines with an ad hominem and fallacy of composition is nut
picking, a neologism coined by Kevin Drum.[18] A combination of "nut" (i.e., insane person) and "cherry picking", nut picking
refers to intentionally seeking out extremely fringe, non-representative statements or individuals from members of an opposing
group and parading these as evidence of that entire group's incompetence or irrationality.[16]

Steelmanning
The steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the exact opposite of the straw man argument. The idea is to find the best form of
the opponent's argument to test opposing opinions.[19][20]

See also
Aunt Sally Fallacy of quoting out of context
Ad hominem List of fallacies
Devil's advocate Media manipulation
Cherry picking (fallacy) Pooh-pooh
Cognitive bias Red herring
Concern troll Tilting at windmills
Cratylism

References
1. Downes, Stephen. "The Logical Fallacies" (https://web.archive.org/web/20160303181716/http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/
skelton/Teaching/General%20Readings/Logical%20Falllacies.htm#_Toc495459590). Archived from the original
(http://web.uvic.ca/psyc/skelton/Teaching/General%20Readings/Logical%20Falllacies.htm#_Toc495459590) on
2016-03-03. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
2. Pirie, Madsen (2007). How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic. UK: Continuum International
Publishing Group. pp. 155–157. ISBN 978-0-8264-9894-6.
3. "The Straw Man Fallacy" (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html). fallacyfiles.org. Retrieved 12 October 2007.
4. Dennis V. Lindley (2006). Understanding Uncertainty (https://books.google.com/books?id=z0ArJ_CDnssC&pg=P
A80). John Wiley & Sons. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-470-04383-7. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
5. A. W. Sparkes (1991). Talking Philosophy: A Wordbook (https://books.google.com/books?id=2NkOAAAAQAAJ&p
g=PA104). Routledge. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-415-04223-9. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
6. Douglas Walton, "The straw man fallacy (http://www.dougwalton.ca/papers%20in%20pdf/96straw.pdf)". In Logic
and Argumentation, ed. Johan van Bentham, Frans H. van Eemeren, Rob Grootendorst and Frank Veltman.
Amsterdam, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, North-Holland, 1996. pp. 115-128
7. Christopher W. Tindale (2007). Fallacies and Argument Appraisal. Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–28.
ISBN 978-0-521-84208-2.
8. Damer, T. Edward (1995). Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments. Wadsworth.
pp. 157–159.
9. Brewer, E. Cobham (1898). "Man of Straw (A)" (http://www.bartleby.com/81/10919.html). Dictionary of Phrase
and Fable. Retrieved 13 May 2009.
10. "Origin of the term "straw man" " (https://etymonline.com/word/straw%20man).
11. Bosanac, Paul (2009). Litigation Logic: A Practical Guide to Effective Argument (https://books.google.com/book
s?id=OtH9LNfDIH4C&pg=PA393). American Bar Association. p. 393. ISBN 1616327103.
12. Waicukauski, Ronald J.; Paul Mark Sandler; JoAnne A. Epps (2001). The Winning Argument (https://books.googl
e.com/books?id=JyjMncdipPIC&pg=PA61). American Bar Association. pp. 60–61. ISBN 1570739382. Retrieved
2016-02-25.
13. Rottenberg, Annette T.; Donna Haisty Winchell (2011). The Structure of Argument (https://books.google.com/boo
ks?id=gO-OchRgkIYC&pg=PA315). MacMillan. pp. 315–316. ISBN 0312650698. Retrieved 2016-02-25.
14. Adrian Desmond and James Moore [2009] 'Darwin's Sacred Cause: How a Hatred of Slavery Shaped Darwin's
Views on Human Evolution' Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. Talisse, Robert; Aikin, Scott (September 2006). "Two Forms of the Straw Man" (https://www.academia.edu/65436
3/Two_Forms_of_the_Straw_Man). Argumentation. Kluwer Academic Publishers. 20 (3): 345–352.
doi:10.1007/s10503-006-9017-8 (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10503-006-9017-8). ISSN 1572-8374 (https://www.
worldcat.org/issn/1572-8374).
16. Aikin, Scott; Casey, John (March 2011). "Straw Men, Weak Men, and Hollow Men" (https://www.academia.edu/26
09857/Straw_Men_Weak_Men_and_Hollow_Men). Argumentation. Springer Netherlands. 25 (1): 87–105.
doi:10.1007/s10503-010-9199-y (https://doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10503-010-9199-y). ISSN 1572-8374 (https://www.
worldcat.org/issn/1572-8374).
17. Douglas Walton (26 August 2013). Methods of Argumentation. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-
43519-3.
18. Kevin Drum (August 11, 2006). "Nutpicking". The Washington Monthly.
19. Friedersdorf, Conor (26 June 2017). "The Highest Form of Disagreement" (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar
chive/2017/06/the-highest-form-of-disagreement/531597/). The Atlantic.
20. Messinger, Chana (7 December 2012). "Knocking Down a Steel Man: How to Argue Better" (https://themerelyrea
l.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/steelmanning/). The Merely Real (blog).

External links
Straw Man Arguments: How to Recognize, How to Counter, and When to Use Them Yourself (https://effectiviolog
y.com/straw-man-arguments-recognize-counter-use/): a discussion of straw man arguments and their usage in
debates.
The Straw Man Fallacy (http://www.fallacyfiles.org/strawman.html) at the Fallacy Files
Straw Man (https://web.archive.org/web/20131122130810/http://www.drury.edu/ess/Logic/Informal/Strawman.htm
l), more examples of straw man arguments

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