A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar yet weaker proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:
- Person A has position X.
- Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially-similar position Y. Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
- Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.
- Quoting an opponent's words out of context – i.e. choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).
- Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments – thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.
- Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
- Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
- Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
Straw man arguments often arise in public debates such as a (hypothetical) prohibition debate:
- Person A: We should liberalise the laws on beer.
- Person B: No, any society with unrestricted access to intoxicants loses its work ethic and goes only for immediate gratification.
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