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Switching a hard to defend position for a more easily defended (but superficially similar) one when the former position is challenged.
It's useful to visualize the type of medieval castle for which the fallacy is named. The bailey (weak argument) is a lightly fortified field containing useful and valuable things like smithies and stables. The motte is a heavily fortified tower on a hill. The lord and his men would defend the bailey if they could, but would retreat into the motte if things got hairy. And when the attackers left, they would go back down into the bailey and restore that. In the same way, a person can switch between arguments. It's something of a reverse form of the strawman fallacy, where rather than misrepresenting their opponent with a weak argument, the arguer (temporarily) replaces their own argument with a stronger one.
It's useful to visualize the type of medieval castle for which the fallacy is named. The bailey (weak argument) is a lightly fortified field containing useful and valuable things like smithies and stables. The motte is a heavily fortified tower on a hill. The lord and his men would defend the bailey if they could, but would retreat into the motte if things got hairy. And when the attackers left, they would go back down into the bailey and restore that. In the same way, a person can switch between arguments. It's something of a reverse form of the strawman fallacy, where rather than misrepresenting their opponent with a weak argument, the arguer (temporarily) replaces their own argument with a stronger one.
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Switching a hard to defend position position, often a very extreme one, for a more easily defended (but superficially similar) one when the former position is challenged.
It's useful to visualize the type of medieval castle for which the fallacy is named. The bailey (weak argument) is a lightly fortified field containing useful and valuable things like smithies and stables. The motte is a heavily fortified tower on a hill. The lord and his men would defend the bailey if they could, but would retreat into the motte if things got hairy. And when the attackers left, they would go back down into the bailey and restore that. In the same way, a person can switch between arguments. It's something of a reverse form of the strawman fallacy, where rather thanmisrepresenting dumbing down their opponent with a weak argument, opponent's positions to make them easier to argue against, the arguer (temporarily) replaces is dumbing down their own argument with a stronger one.
disagreeable positions to make those who disagree seem unreasonable.
It's useful to visualize the type of medieval castle for which the fallacy is named. The bailey (weak argument) is a lightly fortified field containing useful and valuable things like smithies and stables. The motte is a heavily fortified tower on a hill. The lord and his men would defend the bailey if they could, but would retreat into the motte if things got hairy. And when the attackers left, they would go back down into the bailey and restore that. In the same way, a person can switch between arguments. It's something of a reverse form of the strawman fallacy, where rather than
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Removed made-up term.
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Also called an inappropriate or hasty generalization or the No Limits Fallacy, this fallacy happens when someone takes one or more non-exhaustive examples from a group that have a property, and making a generalization that everything in that group has that property.
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Also called an inappropriate or hasty generalization or the No Limits Fallacy, generalization, this fallacy happens when someone takes one or more non-exhaustive examples from a group that have a property, and making a generalization that everything in that group has that property.
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For example: let's say a faculty member at a school says that building a new expensive science building would improve student performance. Another faculty member counters that most of the money would be better spent hiring better science teachers and starting new student support programs. The former faculty member says "look, all I'm saying is we need to update those old classrooms." The problem is that they weren't originally saying that, they had a specific proposal, and, when that proposal was attacked, made it seem like they were just raising awareness for the issue.
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For example: let's say a faculty member at a school says that building a new expensive science building would improve student performance. Another faculty member counters that most of the money would be better spent hiring better science teachers and starting new student support programs. The former faculty member says "look, all I'm saying is we need to update those old classrooms." The problem is that they weren't originally saying that, they had a specific (and costly) proposal, and, when that proposal was attacked, made it seem like they were just raising awareness for the issue. issue.
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another name for it
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The opposite is called the Steelman, where one argues against the ''best'' possible version of an opponent's position. It has a brother called the "weakman fallacy" where an opponent who holds the worst possible version of an argument (or is just bad at debating) is selected to represent an entire world view.
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The opposite is called the Steelman, where one argues against the ''best'' possible version of an opponent's position. It has a brother called the "weakman fallacy" or "nutpicking" where an opponent who holds the worst possible version of an argument (or is just bad at debating) is selected to represent an entire world view.
