About Strawman Fallacy

Ok this is kind of off topic but it is kind of about debate. So when people usually give examples to support their claim, is it always a strawman or can examples not be a strawman? If so, can anyone explain? Thanks in advance!

Example of strawman (rather poor..):
#1: Rapists should stay in jail for life because they have done a horrible thing.
#2: Yes because them staying in jail would unrape the victim and everyone would be happy?? I would say they stay in jail until they recover mentally.
#1: Should murderers get out of jail too? Just because they stay in jail for a lifetime doesn’t mean it will revive the victim.
#2: That is strawman!

“As the straw man metaphor suggests, the counterfeit position attacked in a Straw Man argument is typically weaker than the opponent’s actual position, just as a straw man is easier to defeat than a flesh-and-blood one. Of course, this is no accident, but is part of what makes the fallacy tempting to commit, especially to a desperate debater who is losing an argument. Thus, it is no surprise that arguers seldom misstate their opponent’s position so as to make it stronger. Of course, if there is an obvious way to make a debating opponent’s position stronger, then one is up against an incompetent debater. Debaters usually try to take the strongest position they can, so that any change is likely to be for the worse. However, attacking a logically stronger position than that taken by the opponent is a sign of strength, whereas attacking a straw man is a sign of weakness.

Attacking a straw man is when you purposefully misrepresent the opponent’s viewpoint and attack that fabricated viewpoint instead of what they actually believe. The fabricated viewpoints can be exaggerated caricatures of the opponent’s actual viewpoint, or even entirely unrelated. It’s one of the best known fallacies on the internet, and as such people tend to jump to it rather easily. Thusly, people are often accused of attacking straw men when they’re really not, especially in cases where someone uses congruence or analogy to elucidate a contradiction in their opponent’s argument or the reason why they disagree.

Example of a straw man attack:

A: I support Healthcare reform.
B: Healthcare reform is socialist. You hate the free market, but it’s the most successful form of economy in the world right now. Why don’t you go back to some failure Communist country?

Speaker B, rather than talking at all about the hypothetical virtues of whatever healthcare reform Speaker A might have been talking about, characterizes Speaker A as a communist and hater of the free market because it is an easier viewpoint to deconstruct and defeat in an argument than discussing the hypothetical healthcare reform.

This is a rather extreme example, but it serves the basic idea.

#1: Rapists should stay in jail for life because they have done a horrible thing.
#2: Yes because them staying in jail would unrape the victim and everyone would be happy?? I would say they stay in jail until they recover mentally.
#1: Should murderers get out of jail too? Just because they stay in jail for a lifetime doesn’t mean it will revive the victim.
#2: That is strawman!

This is not a strawman, it’s an analogy.

This is a rather extreme example, but it serves the basic idea.

Actually, all things considered that’s a pretty mild example. Mostly because it happens all the time in this forum.

I try to follow a basic rule of “don’t assume anything” when debating, to avoid things like strawman arguments. It’s also best to source what you say when you can. It obviously doesn’t work as well for arguments founded entirely on opinion (as things like religious “debates” so often are), but there are statistics for just about everything. A few minutes rooting around on the internet can save you a lot of trouble.

If you don’t source your posts, no matter how “obvious” the post is, you can be sure someone is going to attack it.

Originally posted by Darkruler2005:

#1: Rapists should stay in jail for life because they have done a horrible thing.

#2: Yes because them staying in jail would unrape the victim and everyone would be happy?? I would say they stay in jail until they recover mentally.

#1: Should murderers get out of jail too? Just because they stay in jail for a lifetime doesn’t mean it will revive the victim.

#2: That is strawman!

This is not a strawman, it’s an analogy.

See that is my question… this is one of the examples Wikipedia gave as strawman:

3. “Quoting an opponent’s words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent’s actual intentions”

5. “Oversimplifying an opponent’s argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.”

I figured it would be either of those but I’m not sure…

#1: Rapists should stay in jail for life because they have done a horrible thing.
#2: Yes because them staying in jail would unrape the victim and everyone would be happy?? I would say they stay in jail until they recover mentally.
#1: Should murderers get out of jail too? Just because they stay in jail for a lifetime doesn’t mean it will revive the victim.
#2: That is strawman!

The bolded portion is the strawman. It is a statement that #2 made up on the spot and attributed to #1 with the intention of shooting down #1’s argument. #1 then rephrases the strawman to point out its absurdity.

EDIT: This was at Thatsomegoodname.

It’s neither. Person 1 definitely didn’t “quote out of context”, because he didn’t quote anything in the first place. Neither did he oversimplify the other person’s argument, he simply used another example of a person who goes to jail. Both have done something horrible, both could be argued for to stay in jail for life, or to stay in jail until they “recover mentally”. What person 1 in this case means is that you can’t make a difference between the two, while person 2 thinks there “obviously” is. Which he doesn’t explain and should.

Person 1 made an analogy, and person 2 whipped it away as a strawman while in fact he is being inconsistent if he doesn’t apply the same rules.

Ah ok that makes a lot more sense now thanks everyone =).

So…

If PersonA presents a point, and PersonB uses a strawman… then PersonA says, “You’re using a strawman!” … Is PersonA attacking a strawman himself, since he’s attacking something other than PersonB’s intended point? >.<

Think Person A is saying you cannot prove my argument is illogical with that example because it is a strawman to person B.

then PersonA says, “You’re using a strawman!” … Is PersonA attacking a strawman himself, since he’s attacking something other than PersonB’s intended point?

If Person A ignores any legitimate points Person B has brought up in favour of attacking the fallacy, then yes.

If Person B’s only point is the strawman argument, or Person A also addresses Person B’s other points, then no.

If PersonA presents a point, and PersonB uses a strawman… then PersonA says, “You’re using a strawman!” … Is PersonA attacking a strawman himself, since he’s attacking something other than PersonB’s intended point? >.<

To clarify more, it doesn’t really matter if PersonB (nice and original names, by the way) intends to use a strawman or not. If it is a strawman according to PersonA, and pretty much the rest of the posters, then PersonA can point that out without actually responding to the point. It won’t be a strawman in this case, because PersonB is replying to something PersonA didn’t intend to say, the strawman fully lies with PersonB.

Of course, this is all subjective. PersonB may not agree it’s a strawman. This happens in serious discussion too, people accusing others of using strawman arguments while they aren’t.

Of course, this is all subjective.

Not really. A strawman is just as objective a construct as a prepositional phrase.

This happens in serious discussion too, people accusing others of using strawman arguments while they aren’t.

People mistakenly attributing an improper descriptive word to something doesn’t mean the word is flawed or subjective, it means the people using it don’t fully understand what it means.

Any concept where you can arbitrarily draw lines is subjective. I see no reason to not include strawman arguments. It is a man-made concept, no less. You can’t perfectly prove an argument is a strawman, and you’ll need “experts” to prove it (otherwise the bickering will never stop). Why do some people get to decide what is a strawman objectively if others do not agree while bringing up valid points as to why they do not agree?

Look, there are absolutely cases where it is immediately clear you can attribute strawman to an argument, but that doesn’t mean all of them are.