Baculum, Argumentum Ad II/Appeal to Force

Granville Street 1901
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Preface

This fallacy was previously discussed in 2016 from British Philosopher, Pirie.

Tuesday, January 05, 2016 Baculum, Argumentum Ad

PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.

'When reason fails you, appeal to the rod.' (46). Pirie lists Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin as a classic adherent. (47). This fallacious approach uses force as a means of persuasion as the argument would be lost without it. (46).

The threat of force does not have to be in the form of physical violence. (46). This fallacy occurs when 'unpleasant consequences are promised for failing to comply with the speaker's wishes'. (46). The author reasons that irrelevant material is brought into an argument. (46). The argument is largely abandoned and instead, forceful persuasion is used and depended on. There is a 'breakdown and subversion of reason'. (46). 

Baculum, Argumentum Ad II/Appeal to Force

Logically Fallacious

References: {apa} Jason, G. (1987). The nature of the argumentum ad baculum. Philosophia, 17(4), 491–499. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02381067 {/apa}

Cited

argumentum ad baculum (also known as: argument to the cudgel, appeal to the stick) 

Description: When force, coercion, or even a threat of force is used in place of a reason in an attempt to justify a conclusion. 

Logical Form: If you don’t accept X as true, I will hurt you. 

Cited

Jordan: Dad, why do I have to spend my summer at Jesus camp? 

Dad: Because if you don’t, you will spend your entire summer in your room with nothing but your Bible! 

Explanation: Instead of a reason, dad gave Jordan a description of a punishment that would happen. 

Exception: If the force, coercion, or threat of force is not being used as a reason but as a fact or consequence, then it would not be fallacious, especially when a legitimate reason is given with the “threat”, direct or implied.

This fallacy might be used by a person or entity when as Prie noted, reason fails.

The use of this fallacy could occur for several reasons but, non-exhaustively, it could be used as...

1. X provides a sound argument with a true premise (s) and a true conclusion, that is rejected by Y.

2. X provides a less than a sound argument, that is rejected by Y.

X then resorts to the use of fallacy under review.
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A valid deductive argument can have 

False premises and a true conclusion (FT)

False premises and a false conclusion (FF)

True premises and a true conclusion (TT)

However

True premises and a false conclusion (TF) is invalid. Valid arguments with all true premises are called sound arguments. The conclusion also being true.

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 

CONWAY DAVID A. AND RONALD MUNSON (1997) The Elements of Reasoning, Wadsworth Publishing Company, New York.

PIRIE, MADSEN (2006)(2015) How To Win Every Argument, Bloomsbury, London.

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Hollywood Reporter

Cited

Stephen Colbert will be a guest on TBS' Conan on Tuesday night — and Conan O'Brien will also be a guest on CBS' The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. The two late-night hosts will appear on one another's shows, sharing a video chat they conducted earlier in the day.

Throughout my adult life, I have watched late-night talk shows occasionally. However, last night and early this morning, I came across this discussion on television, cited above, which took place on one show and then the other. On one network and then another, simultaneously for a time in the Metropolitan Vancouver market. From both homes.

Not only celebrities are recording programs from home, but so are many people involved in media in this COVID-19 pandemic. We also see this with some pastors preaching from home.

Philosophically, it is a sometimes strange new combination of the public and the private. With future pandemics as significantly possible, this could be a trend...