Strawman fallacy

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I've been accused of making this fallacy on here.

I have some questions.


1. If I interpret and believe a person is making an argument certain way is it the strawman fallacy if I never intentionally misrepresented someone's argument?

2. Is it a strawman if someone states something and use their reasoning to draw out a conclusion they didn't think of to prove their argument or statement fallacious? Example, I'm told I must accept life is not fair. My response is that if that is so then shouldn't you accept welfare and socialism. You see these things as unfair. Or, if someone says I should get a job any damned job and no job should be beneath you. And, let's say I respond by asking are you saying that not even being a hitman should be beneath me? Are you asking me to be a murderer? And, then I'm told I'm making a strawman. How is it a strawman?

Life isn’t fair.

Socialism certainly wouldn’t benefit me too much. It might benefit some.

I’m not for “picking a job, any job.”

I don’t personally care if you go on public assistance.....but you’re not on public assistance, anyway.....

This line of thought would get me, personally, nowhere.

The "Straw Man Fallacy" is when you state A, then I make a distorted version of A, B, and then proceed to argue against B, beat the crap out of B, but never lay a glove on your actual proposition A (only defeated its weak distorted version B). Bait and switch, so to speak. Sub a statement for another statement and argue against THAT (usually more ridiculous) statement.

You opine that we should make laws limiting the magazine size of privately owned automatic rifles to prevent Colorado style mass shootings. And I respond by screaming "you cant grab guns from the American people! The first thing every dictatorship does is to disarm its people!".

You propose limiting the number of bullets consumer guns can fire, but I take that, distort it, exaggerate it, and turn it into a proposal for the government to seize everyone's guns, and then proceed to argue against THAT instead of against what you actually said.

So the question is...is that what you are doing?

If the person is stating something A, and you honestly interpret it as B, and argue against B, then you're not intentionally using a "strawman argument". So you can honestly respond to the accusation of using that argument by simply asking the person "how have I distorted your argument?". I might well be that the other person is either being dishonest, or that they are being honestly fuzzy headed themselves.

Is your "hitman" argument a "strawman"?

Those folks whom you end up debating probably want you to "get off your ass and get a job". And the kind of job they envision is honest, if low status, work.

Being a hitman is illegal, like shoplifting, and selling nickel bags of crack on the street. So thats not what your opponents had in mind. So from their pov you're making a strawman argument. I suppose you could say that its up to them to tack the word "legal" onto the word "job" when they tell you to "get a job". But still "legal" and "honest" are kinda implied. So yes it IS a kind of strawman argument.

NP, I've looked up the strawman fallacy. When one makes the strawman fallacy does their have to be intent involved or does it not matter if intent was involved or not?

Based upon your response to the get any damn job scenario. It sounds like I took it to literal and misunderstood. Since I simply misunderstood due to my taking it and interpreting it to literally did I still commit the strawman fallacy even if it was unintentional?

In your second paragraph you probably hit the nail on the head. Like many autistics you probably took the other person too literally.

Intent matters to the extant that the other person cant accuse you of dishonesty if you honestly mistunderstand what theyre arguing.

But I dont see how that makes any practical difference when you're debating strangers on the Net (or debating anyone anywhere).

You cant very well go around saying "i am not a liar, I am just an honest idiot, so please accommodate me because I am autistic!".


Dont know what to tell you, but to just roll with it. Respond with "maybe a hitman is a bad example, but selling crack on the street maybe a better example."

Your fallacy here is that you're taking your opponent's general statement that *life is not fair* and arguing that it should be interpreted to mean *specific things in life must be accepted, because they're not fair*.

That's a misrepresentation of your opponent's argument.

Expanding on your fallacy ...

You: "you must accept crime, because you said *life is not fair*
You: "you must accept crowded busses, because you said *life is not fair*
You: "you must accept mean bosses, because you said "life is not fair".

Your opponent is merely arguing *life is not fair* in a general way, not acceptance of unfairness in any specific way.

Likely, your opponent does not want you to accept unfairness, despite believing *life is not fair*.


Your fallacy here is you clearly misrepresent "job" (legal job in the context) with a criminal job.

OK. Your maybe your opponent never said the type of job.

However, unless you're gonna demand explicit, detailed lawyer-speak, then you have to make reasonable assumptions.

According to the Internet:

A straw man fallacy occurs when someone takes another person's argument or point, distorts it or exaggerates it in some kind of extreme way, and then attacks the extreme distortion, as if that is really the claim the first person is making.

The key words here are distortion and exaggeration.

1. It's a strawman if you argue about B when the person never even said B and they only said A and you changed what the argument and discussion is about. Most people who do this are either just a troll and are looking for an argument so they might be assuming this is what you are doing as well. Sometimes it's unintentional if the person suffered trauma so they get triggered by something written but it is still a strawman regardless. I find that it's not really worth engaging with this person because they are too triggered and too emotional and I won't get anywhere with them because they will just keep twisting what I am saying.

2. You are assuming they are against socialism and welfare. Most people don't like it when you make assumptions about them and assume what their political views are. Even asking what their views are can even offend them too.

Also no one is suggesting you be a hitman or a murderer. I have said stuff online only for someone to say something stupid and inane. I have no idea if they are a troll or just an idiot lol. For example I commented on a video and I wrote based on what I saw in the video that it takes two to cause an accident and some other butthurt stranger got mad at me and said "So if I am waiting at a red light and some idiot isn't paying attention and they hit me, it's my fault?" First of all, the video was not about someone minding their own business and being in a scenario where it would be impossible to avoid the accident. It was about two idiots on the road, one truck intentionally sped up to keep the car from passing him and the car wanting to pass tailgating his ass and still trying to pass him while the semo truck in the other lane is going slower and slower. The semi trucker couldn't do anything because no matter how much he was slowing down to allow the speeder to pass, the truck in the other lane was going slower as well to match the trucker's speed. So both of them created the accident. The semi truck did nothing wrong because there was nothing he could have done.

Another time I wrote how I used to not believe my mom when she would tell me 'I don't like yelling at you kids" and now as a parent I get it now and someone wrote "BS, you don't hit your kids and slam them into things."

See how insane these comments were? Just when did yelling mean hitting your kids and pushing them into walls and furniture? Just someone trying to twist what I wrote and change what I wrote to argue. I told them they were changing what I said and made it into something else than I had written and I blocked them. I have no time to deal with this online nonsense.

So you'll find all the time that people will accuse you (correctly or incorrectly) of using strawman or shoddy/flawed logic in one way or another - then, unironically, go on to use strawman or shoddy/flawed logic because they can either a) see it when it's someone else but not when it's them or b) they're playing for keeps so it's okay if they do it but not okay if you do it.

Steelmanning an argument is, in theory at least, pretty simple. It follows from the dictum that's resurfaced from John Stuart Mill that he who only knows his own side of the argument, no matter how well educated or even how well he can orate or make the case for his side of the argument, doesn't know the whole argument and even his own grasp on his side of the argument is suspect. Steelmanning is colloquially stated as being able to at a minimum being able to say to the person you're debating 'What I think you're saying is...' and having them say 'Yes, that's what I'm saying', or even better 'Wow, you phrased that better than I could'. From there if you still disagree with their argument or feel like they're drawing conclusions from key missing pieces of the puzzle you proceed to outline what it is that the steelmanned version of their argument is missing.

For as straightforward as steelmanning sounds, part of why it doesn't happen as often online as it should is that far more people are playing to win than playing to make sense. It's a bit like establishing truth, while wonderful, can only be done once (particularly if it sweeps through the culture and sets a new standard) but it doesn't establish social pecking order, mating, or dating rights. My problem with that - if by dint of Darwinian evolution we have to have a pecking order established there has to be a better way to do it than mangling reality and perpetual social grifting, otherwise it's questionable just what kind of future our species has when you think about how that kind of politics shakes out with exponential technology and capacities to blow ourselves off the map.

... and do not include the word intention.  It is possible to use a strawman argument without intending to, and without even knowing the definition of a strawman argument.

It is the action that counts, not the intent.

Thank You so much Fnord! This was the answer I was looking for on one of them!

I was confused about this and you cleared up my confusion.

Fnord answered one of my questions and gave me a great answer. Now, I would like to give some commentary to those who call out strawmans.

Wouldn't it be better to say "No, that is not what I'm saying here. Here is what I am saying." Example with the whole Get a Job any damn job.

And, when I respond with "okay, so even be a hitman for hire?"

He should've responded by saying "No, that's not what I was saying. I mean any job that is legal. Ones you can look in the classifieds."

Don't respond with academia BS that means nothing in the scheme of things.

^

I don't know what a strawman is, but I see that term a lot here.

strawman's name is emily litella.

Well... If the person tells you to "get ANY job", and they are thinking "even digging ditches", and you respond with "even being a hitman for hire" the other person will think that you're purposely being wise guy, and are purposely distorting their point. When in fact you maybe honestly thinking that that is what they meant.

So the other person may think that your arguing dishonestly on purpose.

But yes, on purpose, or not, its still a straw man.

But also...a being a professional hit man is a rather skilled job. Not quite a brain surgeon, but its a step up in skill and in pay from most jobs that most folks have. You wouldnt be qualified to be a mob hitman anyway. So even if you put morals and the laws aside it wouldnt be a career option for you anyway.