Legal Glossary

Rhetoric:  in our usage, "rhetoric" is language used primarily to persuade or influence beliefs or attitudes rather than to prove logically.

Rhetorical devices:  rhetorical devices are used to influence beliefs or attitudes through the associations, connotations, and implications of words, sentences, or more extended passages.  Rhetorical devices may be used to enhance the persuasive force of arguments, they do not add to the logical force of arguments.

Slanter:  a linguistic device used to affect opinions, attitudes, or behavior without argumentation.  Slanters rely heavily on the suggestive power of words and phrases to convey and evoke favorable and unfavorable images.

Euphemism:  an agreeble or inoffensive expression that is substituted for an expression that may offend the hearer or suggest something unpleasant.

Dysphemism:  a word or phrase used to produce a negative effect on a reader's or listener's attitude about something or to tone down the positive associations the thing may have.

Rhetorical comparison:  a comparison used to express or influence attitudes or affect behavior; such comparisons often make use of images with positive or negative emotional associations. 

Rhetorical definition:  a definition used to convey or evoke an attitude about the defined term and its denotation; such defintions often make use of images with positive or negative emotional associations.

Rhetorical explanations:  an explanation intended to influence attitudes or affect behavior, such explanations often make use of images with postive or negative emotional associations. 

Stereotype:  an oversimplified generalization about the members of a class.

Innuendo:  an insinuation of something deprecatory.

Loaded question:  a question that rests on one or more unwarranted or unjustified assumptions.

Weaseler:  an expression used to protect a claim from criticism by weakening it.

Downplayer:  an expression used to play down or disminish the importance of a claim.

Horse laugh:  a pattern of fallacious reasoning in which ridicule is disguised as a reason for rejecting a claim.

Hyperbole:  extravagant overstatement.

Proof surrogate:  an expression used to suggest that there is evidence or authority for a claim without actually saying that there is.

"Argument" from outrage:  consists in inflammatory words [or thoughts] followed by a "conclusion" of some sort. 

Scapegoating:  placing the blame for some bad affect on a person or group of people who are not really responsible for it, but who provide an easy target for animosity.

Scare tactics:  trying to scare someone into accepting or rejecting a claim.  A common form includes merely describing a frightening scenario rather than offering evidence that some activity will cause it.

"Argument" by force:  a scare tactic to threaten a person.

"Argument" from pity:  feeling sorry for someone drives us to a position on an unrelated matter.

"Argument" from envy:  finding fault with a person because of envy.

Apple polishing:  a pattern of fallacious reasoning in which flattery is disguised as a reason for accepting a claim.

Guilt trip:  trying to get someone to accept a claim by making him or her feel guilty for not accepting it.

Wishful thinking:  accepting a claim because you want it to be true, or rejecting it because you don't want it to be true.

Peer pressure argument:  a pattten of fallacious reasoning in which we refuse to accept another's argument because there is something about the person we don't like or of which disapprove.  A form of ad hominem.

Group think fallacy:  fallacy that occurs when someone lets identification with a group take the the place of reason and deliberation when arriving at a position on an issue.

Nationalism:  a powerful and often fierce emotional attachment to one's country that can lead a person to blind endorsement of any policy or practice of that country.  ("My country, right or wrong!")  It is a subdivision of the group think fallacy.

Rationalizing:  using a false pretext in order to satisfy our desires or interests.

"Argument" from popularity:  when we urge someone to accept a claim (or fall prey to someone's doing it to us) simply on the grounds that all or most or some substantial number of people (other than authorities or experts, of course) believe it. 

"Argument" from common practice:  consists in trying to justify or defend an action or practice (as distinguished from an assertion or claim) on the grounds that it is common.

"Argument" from tradition:  doing things because that's the way things have always been done, and they believe things because that's what people have always believed.

Relativism:  the view that two different cultures can be correct in their differing opinions on the same factual issue.

Subjectivism:  the assumption that what is true for one person is not necessarily true for another.

"Two wrongs make a right":  this pattern of fallacious reasoning:  "It's acceptable for A to do X to B because B would do X to A," said where A's doing X to B is not necessary to prevent B's doing X to A.

Red herring:  See smokescreen.

Smokescreen:  an irrelevant topic or consideraion introduced into a discussion to divert attention from the original issue.

Ad hominem fallacy:  attempting to rebut a source's argument or claim or position, etc., on the basis of considerations that logically apply to the source rather than to the argument or claim or position.

Personal attack ad hominem fallacy:  a pattern of fallacious reasoning in which we refuse to accept another's argument because there is something about the person we don't like or of which we disapprove.  A form of ad hominem.

Inconsistency ad hominem:  a pattern of fallacious reasoning of the sort, "I reject your claim because you act inconsistently with it yourself." or "You can't make that claim now because you have in the past rejected it."

Circumstantial ad hominem:  attempting to discredit a person's claim by referring to the person's circumstances.

Poisoning the well:  attempting to discredit in advance what a person might claim by relating unfavorable information about the person.

Genetic fallacy:  rejecting a claim in support of a general claim.

Positive ad hominem fallacy:  is committed if we rebut a person on the basis of considerations that, logically, apply to the person rather than to his or her claims. 

Straw man:  a type of fallacious reasoning in which someone ignores an opponent's actual position and presents in its place a distorted, exaggerated, or misrepresented version of that position.

False dilemma:  this pattern of fallacious reasoning:  "X is true because either X is true or Y is true, and Y isn't," said when X and Y could both be false.

Perfectionist fallacy:  concluding that a policy or proposal is bad simply because it does not accompolish its goal to perfection.

Line-drawing fallacy:  the fallacy of insisting that a line must be drawn at some precise point when infact it is not necessary that such a line be drawn.

Slippery slope:  a form of fallacious reasoning in which it is assumed that some event must inevitably follow from some other, but in which no argument is made for the inevitability.

Misplacing the burden of proof:  requiring the wrong side of an issue to make its case.

Initial plausibility:  the more a claim coincides with our background information, the greater its initial plausibility.  The general rule that most often governs the placement of the burden of proof is simply this:  The less initial plausibility a claim has, the greater the burden of proof we place on someone who asserts that claim.

Affirmative/negative:  the burden of proof falls automatically on those supporting the affirmative side of an issue rather than on those supporting the negative side.

Appeal to ignorance:  the view that an absence of evidence against a claim counts as evidence for that claim.

Begging the question:  an argument whose conclusion restates a point made in the premises or clearly assumed by the premises.  Although such an argument is technically valid, anyone who doubts the conclusion of a question-begging argument would have to doubt the premises, too.

Premises:  the claim or claims in an argument that provide the reasons for believing the conclusion.

Conclusion:  in an argument, the claim that is argued for.

Independent premises:  premises that do not depend on one another as support for the conclusion.  If the assumption that a premise is false does not cancel the support another premise provides for a conclusion, the premeises are independent.

Dependent premises:  premises that depend on one another as support for their conclusion.  If the assumption that a premise is false cancels the support another provides for a conclusion, the premises are dependent.

Good argument:  an argument offered in support of a general claim.

Valid argument:  an argument that has this characteristic:  On the assumption that the premises are true, it is impossible for the conclusion to be false.

Sound argument:  a valid argument whose premises are true.

Strong argument:  an argument that has this characteristic:  On the assumption that the premises are true, the conclusions is unlikely to be false.

Deductive arguments:  an argument that is either valid or intended by its author to be so.

Inductive arguments:  an valid argument whose premises are intended to provide some support, but less than conclusive support, for the conclusion.

Categorical logic:  a system of logic basedon the relations of inclusion and exclusion among classes ("categories").  This branch of logic specifies the logical relationships among claims that can be expressed in the forms "All Xs are Ys," "No Xs are Ys," "Some Xs are Ys," and "Some Xs are not Ys."  Developed by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C.E.,  categorical logic is also known as Aristotelian or traditional logic.

Categorical claim:  any standard-form categorical claim or any claim that means the same as some standard-form categorical claim.  SEE STANDARD-FORM CATEGORICAL CLAIM.

Standard form categorical claim:  any claim that results from putting words or phrases that name classes in the blanks of one of the following structures:  "All ______", "No ______ are ________", "Some _______ are ________", and "Some _______ are not _______."

Terms:  a word or an expression that refers to or denotes something.

Subject term:  the noun or noun phrase that refers to the first class mentioned in a standard form categorical claim.

Predicate term:  the noun or noun phrase that refers to use second class mentioned in a standard-form categorical claim.

Venn diagram:  a graphic means of representing a categorical claim or categorical syllogism by assigning classes to overlapping circles.  Invented by English mathematician John Venn (1834 - 1923).

Affirmative claims:  a claim that includes one class or part of one class within another:  A- and I-claims.

Negative claims:  a claim that excludes one class or part of one class from another:  E- and O-claims.

Square of opposition:  a table of the logical relationships between two categorical claims that have the same subject and predicate terms.

Contrary claims:  two claims that could not both be true at the same time but could both be false at the same time.

Subcontrary claims:  two claims that can be both be true at the same time but cannot both be false at the the same time.

Contradictory claims:  two claims that are exact opposites--that is, they could not both be both be true at the same time and could not both be false at the same time.

Complementary term:  a term is complementary to another term if and only if it refers to everything that the first term does not refer to.

Obverse:  the obverse of a categorical claim is that is directly across from it in the square of opposition, with the predicate term changed to its complementary term.

Syllogism:  a deductive argument with two premises.

Categorical syllogism:  a two-premise deductive argument in which every claim is categorical and each of three terms appears in two of the claims--for example, all soldiers are martinets and no martinets are diplomats, so no soldiers are diplomats.

Sample:  that part of a class referred to in the premises of a generalizing argument.

Target:  in the conclusion of an inductive generalization, the members of an entire class of things is said to have a property or feature.  This class is the "target" or "target class."  In the conclusion of an analogical argument, one or more individual things is said to have a property or feature.  The thing or things is the "target"  or "target item."

Target class:  the population, or class, referred to in the conclusion of a generalizing argument.

Target population: 

Feature in question:  in relevant-difference reasoning, one item is said to have a feature ("the feature in question") that other similar items lack, and there is said to be only one other relevant difference ("the difference in question") between the item that has the feature in question and the other items that don't have the feature in question.

Property: 

Inductive generalizations:  an argument offered in support of a general claim.

Analogical arguments:  an argument in which something that is said to hold true of a sample of a certain class is claimed also to hold true of another member of the class.

Arguments from analogy:  an argument in which something that is said to hold true of a sample of a certain class is claimed also to hold true of another member of the class.

Representative:  a sample that possesses all relevant features of a target population and possesses them in proportion that are similar to those of the target population.

Biased sample:  a sample that is not representative.

Error margin:  a range of possibilities, specifically, a range of percentage points within which the conclusion of a statistical inductive generalization falls, usually given as "plus or minus" a certain number of points.

Confidence level:  see statistical significance.

Sample size:  one of the variables that can affect the size of the error margin or the confidence level of certain inductive arguments.

Fallacy of hasty conclusion:  a fallacy of inductive arguments that occurs when conclusions are drawn from a sample that is too small.

Fallacy of hasty generalization:  a generalization based on a sample too small to be representative.

Fallacy of appeal to anecdotal evidence:  a definition that specifies (1) the type of thing the defined term applies to and (2) the difference between that thing and other things of the same type.

Law of large numbers:  a rule stating that the larger the number of chance-determined, repetitious events considered, the closer the alternatives will approach predictable ratios.  Example:  The more times you flip a coin, the closer the results will approach 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails.

Predictable ratio:  the ratio that results of a series of events can be expected to have given the antecedent conditions of the series.  Examples:  The predictable ratio of a fair coin flip is 50 percent heads and 50 percent tails; the predictable ratio of sevens coming up when a pair of dice is rolled is 1 in 6, or just under 17 percent.

Gambler's fallacy:  the belief that recent past events in a series can influence the outcome of the next event in the series.  This reasoning is fallacious when the events have a predictable ratio of results, as is the case in flipping a coin, where the predictable ratio of heads to tails is 50-50.

Post hoc fallacy, (ergo propter hoc):  reasoning that X caused Y simply because Y occurred after X.

Causal claim:  a statement that says or implies that one thing caused or causes another.

Cause-and-effect claim:  see causal claim.

Hypothesis:  a supposition offered as a starting point for further investigation.

Causal hypotheses:  a statement put forth to explain the cause or effect of something, when the cause or effect has not been conclusively established.

Relevant difference:  a relevant difference is one that is not unreasonable to suppose caused the feature in question.

Common thread:  in common-thread reasoning, multiple occurrences of a feature are said to be united by a single relevant common thread.

Controlled cause-to-effect experiements:  an experiment designed to test whether something is a causal factor for a given effect.  Basically, in such an experiment two groups are essentially alike, except that the members of one group, the experimental group, are exposed to the suspected causal factor, and the members of the other group, the control group, are not.  if the effect is then found to occur with significantly more frequency in the experimental group, the suspected causal agent is considered a causal factor for the effect.

Experimental group:  see controlled cause-to-effect experiment.

Control group:  see controlled cause-to-effect experiment.

Statistically significance:  to say that some finding is statistically significant at a given confidence level--say, .05--is essentially to say that the finding could have arisen by chance in only about five cases out of one hundred.

Nonexperimental cause-to-effect study:  a study designed to test whether something is a causal factor for a given effect.  Such studies are similar to controlled cause-to-effect experiments, except that the members of the experimental group are not exposed to the suspected causal agent by the investigators; instead, exposure has resulted from the actions or circumstances of the individuals themselves.

Nonexperimental effect-to-cause study:  a study designed to test whether something is a causal factorfor a given effect.  Such studies are similar to nonexperimenal cause-to-effect studies, except that the members of the experimental group display the effect, at compared with a control group whose members do not display the effect.  Finding that the suspected cause is significantly more frequent in the experimental group is reason for saying that the suspected causal agent is a causal factor in the population involved.

Circularity:  the property of a "causal" claim where the "cause" merely restates the effect.

Nontestability:  the problem with this assertion, quite obviously, lies in the fact that you cannot test whether it is true.

Excessive vagueness: 

Unnecessary assumptions: 

Conflict with well-established theory: 

Fallacy of confusing explanations and excuses:  mistaking an explanation of something for an attempt to excuse it.

Non-sequiter:  the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion; an inference that does not follow from the premises.

Naturalistic fallacy:  the assumption that one can conclude directly from a fact (what "is") what a rule or a policy should be (an "ought") without a value premise.

Subjectivisim:  the assumption that what is true for one person is not necessarily true for another.

Utilitarianism:  the moral position unified around the basic idea that we should promote happiness as much as possible and weigh actions or derivative principles in terms of their utility in achieving this goal.

Principle of utility:  the basic principle of utilitarianism, to create as much overall happiness and/or to limit unhappiness for as many as possible.

Duty theory (deontologism):  the view that a person should perform an action because it is his or her moral duty to perform it, not because of any consequence that might follow from it.

Hypothetical imperative:  Kant's term for a command that is binding only if one is interested in a certain result, an "if-then" situation.

Categorical:  prescribes an action, not for the sake of some result, buy simply because that action is our moral duty.

Divine command theory:  the view that our moral duty (what's right and wrong) is dictated by God.

Virtue ethics:  the moral position unified around the basic idea that each of us should try to perfect a virtuous character that we exhibit in all actions.

Legal moralism:  the theory that, if an activity is immoral, it should also be illegal.

Harm principle:  the claim that the only way to justify a restriction on a person's freedom is to show that the restriction prevents harm to other people.

Legal paternalism:  the theory that a restriction on a person's freedom can sometimes be justified by showing that it is for that person's own benefit.

Offense principle:  the claim that an action or activity can justifiably be made illegal if it is sufficiently offensive.

Appeal to precedent:  the claim (in law) that a current case is sufficiently similar to a previous case that it should be settled in the same way.

Stare decisis:  "Letting the decision stand."  Going by precedent.