May 19, 2002

12:52 PM

Fallacy WatchIn a recent column, law professor Alan Dershowitz appears to be arguing against a petition which calls for universities to divest themselves from holdings in companies which do business with Israel. While Dershowitz may be correct that the petition is part of a "foolish and immoral campaign for divestiture", his column provides almost no evidence for this conclusion. A great site and an interesting article on the state of discourse in the media these days.
posted by onegoodmove (5 comments total)

Not to argue issue of disinvestment (which is a total failyre by the way, as announced by the president of Harvard), but when the writer says this: "However, what judge would accept the argument that one defendent should be let off just because other, even worse ones, roam free?" then I have to wonder if all whites are set free or have considerably lesser jail time than blacks, is that moral? appealing to legal training and precedent?
I am not sure why this site is dedicated to shoiwng falsehood in logic. China has little in the way of human rights; we deal massively with them--great market; Cuba has small market and few human rights--we boycott them. Is this not to be considered in the logic of things? Do we thus boycott Israel for lack of human rights but cozy up to Saudi Arabia?
posted by Postroad at 2:57 PM on May 19, 2002

"Noam Chomsky" is a rigid set of ideas the repudiation of which is not Ad hominem, it is a rejection of an easily anticipated rigid set of ideas.
posted by semmi at 8:06 PM on May 19, 2002

semmi the examples given were classic Ad hominem what in the world are you talking about. Curtis makes no judgment on the conclusions drawn just the fallacies found in the argument. One does both others and themselves a disservice by not making the strongest arguments they can for their point of view. Whether the conclusion is true or not is simply not the question being discussed in the article.
posted by onegoodmove at 10:41 PM on May 19, 2002

As long as we're talking logical fallacies here...I don't recall Chomsky ever maintaining that O.J. was innocent. That's more than I can say for Dershowitz.
posted by Optamystic at 10:55 PM on May 19, 2002

OJ is innocent isn't he?
posted by niceness at 7:18 AM on May 20, 2002