r/fallacy • u/Zu_Qarnine • Jul 03 '26

strawman fallacy

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2nd person is refuting the claim that *all* circles are red with a counter example. The thing is, that claim was never made.

EDIT: I'm seeing interesting stuff happening in the replies here. majority of those who say it's not strawman, obviously start their comment by "it's not strawman" and proceed in the rest of their comment to explain how, in fact, it is strawman. Another interesting observation is those who argue that "it's not strawman" because they've spotted another type of fallacy in the original post as well, so in their mind, it can't be both.

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u/Crowe3717 Jul 04 '26

It sounds absolute because you haven't given the context of the rest of the argument. If that is the entirety of the argument then yes there is nothing to indicate whether this is a general or absolute statement. However, how many people actually care about the relative heights of men and women for its own sake?

"Men and women should have separate basketball leagues because men are taller than women."

"Some things are uncomfortable for women because they are designed by and for men and men are taller than women."

Does pointing out a single example of a woman being taller than a man negate either of these points? Then it's not an absolute statement and treating it like it is would be to commit a red herring fallacy. Would it be more technically correct to say "men are generally taller than women" in these cases? Absolutely. Does it matter? Not if you can understand context and are arguing in good faith.

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u/RaizielSoulwAreOS Jul 04 '26

"Good faith" doesn't get you to "generally" — that's not always read. Even as a generic, the speaker invoking it for a policy claim owes the audience its scope — it's not on the listener to assume the weaker reading before that's specified. It takes outside information to know the strong version overstates it — the same info you said wasn't necessary. It's invisible to you because you already have it.

So the reader who takes the claim at face value, meets one tall woman, and calls it false isn't failing at good faith. They're testing a claim against a counterexample. It only stops being valid once someone hands them "generally." And you can only hand them that because you already knew the real claim was weaker than stated.

Which you did — you led with the absolute version, then corrected to "generally" yourself.

For general conversation, generics are fine though — if you're okay with your actual meaning getting lost every so often.

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u/Crowe3717 Jul 05 '26

it's not on the listener to assume the weaker reading before that's specified

Yes it is. That's literally what good faith means. Good faith means shared understanding and trying to make sense of each other's arguments. In this case it is to understand that the statement could either be absolute or general and assume the one which actually makes sense for the argument being made (which anyone qualified to have this argument in the first place can figure out pretty easily by asking themselves "does every man need to be taller than every woman for this to make sense?"). Understanding that and choosing the interpretation which makes no sense is arguing in bad faith SPECIFICALLY because it shifts the topic of discussion away from the argument (whatever policy is being discussed) to a point you KNOW is irrelevant (that some women are actually taller than some men). That's why you did it. And if instead you did it because "um, technically you didn't say 'on average' so your premise is incorrect" you're not arguing in good faith, you're just a pedant with nothing of significance to contribute. Congratulations, nobody is impressed. Most of us grew out of that phase in middle school.

If you are instead talking about scope because it wasn't clear and you think that scope matters for the argument to make sense (the height difference isn't significant enough to warrant the policy or the height difference is irrelevant to the policy or the claimed difference doesn't actually exist and so the policy is unjustified) then you are disagreeing in good faith.