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Argumentum ad Baculum
Abstract: The argumentum
ad baculum is based upon the appeal to force or threat in order to bring
about the acceptance of a conclusion. The fallacy is explained here in both its
fallacious and its nonfallacious forms with illustrative examples.
The traditional Argumentum ad
Baculum (fear of force): the fallacy committed when one appeals to
force or the threat of force to bring about the acceptance of a conclusion.
- The ad baculum derives its strength from an appeal to human
timidity or fear and is traditionally a fallacy when the threat by
an illegitimate authority is not semantically or logically related to the
consequential claim being made. Not all ad baculum
arguments are fallacious.
Fallacious Version: The ad baculum
fallacy occurs whenever an irrelevant threat of some kind is employed to
induce agreement with the purported conclusion of an argument.
Fallacious Example: St. Bernard's call to the Second Crusade
(which ended tragically):
“[T]he living God has charged me to announce to you that He
will punish them who shall not have defended Him against His enemies.
Fly then to arms … ‘Cursed be he who does not
stain his sword with
blood!’”
The implicit argument is if you do not help defend the Christian world
against God's enemies, God will condemn you to suffer eternal punishment.
So your well-being depends on fighting God's enemies.
The threat of force is an incentive to act as if the conclusion is true,
but the threat of force is not a reason for the truth of the conclusion.
The truth of a statement is independent of the threat of force.
In effect St. Bernard is claiming the call to arms is justifiable not
because it's true but because of the unfortunate consequences which he
thinks will ensue if one does not act as though it were true.
Nonfallacious Version: The nonfallacious ad
baculum argument provides an appropriate or legitimately related
relevant threat as a reason for a conclusion.
Nonfallacious Example:
“The American Automobile Association warned filling gas
tanks with a blend of 15 percent ethanol could damage cars and void
warranties. … [U]sing the new ‘E15’ blend might
either void warranties or warranties might not cover fuel-related
claims.”
The argument is that since 15 percent ethanol gasoline might damage autos
and void warranties, the EPA should halt sales. No fallacy occurs in this
implied argument since the threat of harm to automobile engines is patently
causally relevant to the issue of using the ethanol-blended fuel.
- The traditional schema of the argumentum ad baculum
fallacy can be structured with either a conditional or a disjunctive
premise. The typical
conditional form of the traditional ad baculum schema is as
follows:
Traditional Ad Baculum
Schema
If statement p argument a is accepted, or
action Z is done, then logically irrelevant event E
will happen.
Event E is harmful, dangerous, or threatening.
∴ Statement p, argument a, or action Z
is not acceptable.
However, most traditional informal logicians state this scheme in terms of
practical or beneficial reasoning with a conclusion of this argument
stated with a modal verb (such as “should” or “ought”
in a nonmoral, prudential sense of the term):
Traditional Ad Baculum
Practical Schema
If statement p argument a is accepted, or
action Z is done, then logically irrelevant event E
will happen.
Event E is harmful, dangerous, or threatening.
Statement p, argument a, or action Z
should be rejected.
Practical or prudential reasoning concludes with a statement expressing an
the intention to complete an action or a subsequent effect.
- The ad baculum contains implicitly or explicitly a threat.
Behind this threat is often the belief that in the end, “Might makes
right.”
Threats, per se, however, are not fallacies when expressed as
categorical expressions of behavioral intent because statements considered
by themselves, are not arguments.
For example, the following oft-used example is not a fallacy:
“[A robber] points his gun at a victim and threatens, ‘Your
money or your life.’”
As Charles Hamblin famously wrote in support of the traditional or standard
view of fallacies:
“A fallacy is a fallacious argument. Someone who merely
makes false statements, however absurd, is innocent of fallacy unless
the statements constitute or express an arguments.” [emphasis
original]
A fallacy, whether informal or formal, is viewed as an incorrect argument or
as an error in reasoning.
- In What Sense is the Argumentum ad Baculum a
Fallacy?
The appeal to force uses threats to effect an action rather than reasons to prove
a statement. As a practical or pragmatic argument, the ad baculum
is not an argument in the logical sense of the term even though it is considered
one of the traditional informal fallacies discussed in introductory logic and
argumentation textbooks.
- Since the use argumentum ad baculum is not intended to
prove the truth of a statement but instead is intended to get an agent to do
something, many logicians point out that no logical argument is present.
- Rather than being a process of reasoning, the ad baculum
is process of emotional coercion.
- Brief examples of ad baculum fallacies:
Chairman of the Board: “All those opposed to my arguments
for the opening of a new department, signify by saying, ‘I
resign.’”
The Department of Transportation needs to reconsider the
speed limit proposals on interstate highways for the simple
reason that if they do not, their departmental budget for
Department of Transportation will be cut by 25%.
“I'm sure you can support the proposal to diversify into
the fast food industry because if I receive any opposition
on this initiative, I will personally see that you are
transferred to the janitorial division of this corporation.”
Sir Walter Scott, the novelist, opposed the legislative measure of
electing representatives to Parliament by stating;
“[I]t was part of wisdom not to put such
things into their heads. The measure, if it succeeded, would
lead to new demands and open a door to innovations of which
none could calculate the extent or foresee the
consequences.”
“On October 10, 1971, Secretary of State William P. Rogers
cautioned foreign ministers that Congress might force the
United States reduce its financial contributions to the
United Nations if Nationalist China is expelled.”
As a logical argument, Secretary Rogers' caution is fallacious; as
a political maneuver no argument is being adduced.
- Since many threats involve emotional responses, they
can overlap with the emotional appeal of the ad populum fallacy.
The appeal to the fear of not being accepted as part of a
group can often be analyzed as either the ad baculum
or the ad populum.
- Non-fallacious examples of the ad baculum: the appeal appeal to
force is relevant when the threat or the force is semantically, logically
or causally related to the conclusion.
- For example, the environmental group Greenpeace argued that the large
underground nuclear tests at Amchitka Island off Alaska in the 1960's and
early 1970's could result in earthquakes, tsunamis, and resultant radiation
leaks. Hence, these environmentalists opposed nuclear weapon testing.
Since the threats listed were logically relevant possible consequences of
the Nuclear Weapons Testing Program, the Greenpeace argument is not fallacious.
The possible occurrence of these consequences is not decisional or prescriptive
but is probabilistically causal; hence, no fallacy occurs.
Similarly, when environmental groups objected to the use of thermonuclear
weapons for in situ recovery of oil from the Athabasca
tar sands and
objected to the use of such explosions against ground troops, the
excavation of a new Panama canal, and the development of a harbor in
Australia
on the grounds of the dangers of radioactive contamination, such implied
implied threats are relevant and causally connected to the proposed
thermonuclear explosions. Consequently, such arguments would not commit
the ad baculum fallacy.
- Threats presented simply as alternative statements are not arguments
and so are not fallacies. E.g., The statements …
“It is necessary to sleep at least eight hours or
your work will suffer” or
“If you do not sleep at least eight hours, then your
work will suffer.”
or even …
“If the American nuclear arsenal is drastically
reduced, then the U.S. cannot offer extended deterrence for Japan.”
would not be fallacious for two reasons:
(1) Disjunctive or conditional statements, considered
in themselves, are not arguments.
(2) The connection between the two clauses suggest a causal
or decisional relation of relevancy — not a semantic or logical relation.
It is unfortunate that many logic sources identify simple disjunctive
expressions such as this one as fallacious.
- Undecidable Cases: In some controversies the relevancy of the
threat cannot be directly determined from the the argument itself, and so such
arguments cannot be reliably assessed without knowing the context of the
argument.
For example, consider whether or not you consider the following arguments
fallacies:
- Consider first the following argument that research on certain
types of viruses should not be published:
(1) Publication of research for the creation of
avian A/H5N1 influenza viruses with the capacity for airborne
transmission between mammals without recombination in an intermediate
host constitutes a risk for human pandemic influenza.
(2) Human pandemic influenza signifies the death
of millions.
∴ Research for the creation of avian A/H5N1 influenza
viruses with the capacity for airborne transmission between mammals
without recombination in an intermediate host should not be published.
Analysis: In the summer of 2011 Dutch researchers from
the Erasmus Medical Center created an airborne H5N1 avian flu
virus and estimated the virus could kill 59% of the people it
infects.
The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity
recommended that the Research should not be published with
experimental details because of the “unusually high magnitude
of risk” of someone transforming the virus causing
“a pandemic of significant proportions.”
But many scientists thought the potential threat from terrorists creating
a deadly H5N1 virus was greatly exaggerated because the virus could
not be easily transmitted among people. So in this case the potential
benefit for public health outweighed concerns of terrorists
unleashing a pandemic and the paper was published.
Since the threat of a pandemic, whether serious or greatly exaggerated,
is directly relevant to the publication of the research, this example
argument would not be considered fallacious.
- Here is second example of an implied threat:
“China has threatened to restrict drug exports to the U.S.
following President Trump's accusation that the regime withheld
news of the [COVID-19] virus, which surfaced in Wuhan last
December.”
Analysis: This passage is a descriptive report of a threat
by China which is not logically relevant to the U.S. accusation of
withholding information which would be useful for the prevention of
future cases. So although the report of an fallacy is not a fallacy
per se. The structure of the implicit argument is
as follows:
If the U.S. continues to accuse China of withholding
coronavirus information, then China will restrict drug imports to the
U.S.
The U.S. continues to accuse China of withholding
coronavirus information.
∴ China will restrict drug imports to the U.S.
Note that this argument is formally valid — it is an example of
modus ponens:
close ×
Modus Ponens:
An elementary deductive argument form where if a conditional
premise is assumed true and the antecedent of the conditional is also
assumed true, then the consequent of the conditional necessarily follows
as true.
In symbolic logic, Modus Ponens is symbolized
as follows:
p ⊃ q
p
∴ q
For example:
If you are deeply interested in literature, then
you will enjoy literature.
You are deeply interested in literature.
∴ You will enjoy literature.
If p then q.
p.
∴ q.
However, the threat as presented in informal logic commits
the ad baculum fallacy, since the US accusing China of
withholding coronavirus information is not evidentially relevant to
China's restriction of drug imports. The basis of the connection of these
two events is decisional and not semantic on the part of China.
Notes
Traditional Ad Baculum
Disjunctive Schema
Either statement p, argument a, or action
Z is accepted, or logically irrelevant event X will
happen.
Event X is harmful, dangerous, or threatening.
∴ Statement p, argument A, or action Z
is not acceptable.
Again, as with the conditional schema, most informal logicians state a
disjunctive scheme in terms of practical or prudential reasoning with the
conclusion stated with a modal verb (such as “should” or “ought”):
Traditional Ad Baculum Practical
Schema
Either statement p, argument a, or action
Z is accepted, or logically irrelevant event X will
happen.
Event X is harmful, dangerous, or threatening.
Statement p argument A, or action Z
should not be accepted.
Practical reasoning concludes with a statement of action or subsequent
effect. [Lawrence Johnston, A
Short Introduction to the Study of Logic (London: Longmans, Green,
1887), 12-14. ↩
4. The ad baculum is a distinctly different
kind of informal fallacy since, properly speaking, the person or group to whom
the argument is addressed is persuaded by intimidation or threat rather than
by logical reasoning: sometimes this distinction is described in terms of the
difference between abstract or speculative reasoning and practical or prudential
reasoning.
Practical reasoning or prudential reasoning is “an
argument concerned with the rational justification of action by an appeal to
self-interest.” [John Woods, “Threats and Intimidation,”
The Death of Argument (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic,
2004), 68.]
The conclusion of speculative reasoning can produce a belief.
The conclusion of practical reasoning can produce a desire. These two types of
conclusion are often described as two different ways of determining an intention
to act in common sense or folk psychology.↩
5. Some writers restrict the ad baculum to
indirect threats only. E.g., Gary Jason, “The
Nature of the Argumentum Ad Baculum,”
Philosophia 17 no.4 (December 1987), 491.
Others restrict the fallacy to cases where the threat is made
ineffectively or vacuously. E.g., John Woods, “Threats and
Intimidation,” The Death of Argument (Dordrecht: Kluwer
Academic, 2004), 68.↩
8. Or “the appearance of argumentation.” Lilian
Bermejo-Luque, Giving Reasons: A Linguistic-Pragmatic Approach to
Argumentation Theory (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2011), 200
Don S. Levi, “The Fallacy in the Treatment of the
Ad Baculum as a Fallacy,” In Defense of Formal
Logic Argumentation Library vol. 2 (Dordrecht,
Netherlands: Springer, 2000), 29-41. doi: 10.1007/978-94-017-1850-9_3
Also here: Don S. Levi, “The
Fallacy of Treating the Ad Baculum as a Fallacy,” Informal Logic 19 no. 2 & 3 (1999), 145-159.
However, on Pragma-Dialectical theory, threats, per se,
can be fallacies since on that theory the ad baculum is considered
a violation of the freedom rule of critical discussion:
“Parties must not prevent each other from putting forward standpoints or
casting doubt on standpoints.” [Frans H. van Eemeren, “The Disguised
Ad Baculum Fallacy Empirically Investigated. Strategic Maneuvering
with Threats,” Reasonableness and Effectiveness in Argumentative
Discourse: Fifty Contributions to the Development of Pragma-Dialectics Vol.
27 Argumentation Library (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2015), 169-170;
416-417; 813-814.
Van Eemeren points out, however, the conditional nature on fallacies
on this theory: fallacy can only occur in the contexts of resolving differing opinions.
[van Eemeren, Reasonableness and Effectiveness, 169n.]
Consequently, in this case, Pragma-Dialectical theory considers
statements which fail to be an argument to be a fallacy. This view of fallacy is quite
different from the traditional definition of fallacy as being an incorrect
argument.↩
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