– Answer 4

4 Fallacious Arguments to Avoid



“Although today women in China are more active in government than is the case in many countries, no woman has ever held the highest executive office in China.”

No woman has ever been president of the United States either, so it is hard to draw any meaningful information from the remark.

“People claim that China developed a secular morality quite early; for example, political documents make no appeal to supernatural authority. But, in fact, they did not have a truly secular morality because, if you read through the biographies of famous scholars, you’ll find some who were quite religious.”

This argument has been used by historians, but sets the bar so high that even the US today could not be said to have a secular culture. Obviously, a large portion of the American public regards moral issues as resolvable only in religious terms. Does this suggest that secular humanism never existed? People are not machines: there will always be a range of debate within any society. What is important is the upper end of the debate, the outer limits of personal choice. When a society—such as early modern China or modern Europe—allows individuals the choice to make moral decisions outside the realm of religion, that is important, even if many people continue to look to religious authorities.

“Scholars hold that intellectuals in early modern China abandoned ceremonial behavior in most aspects of life, tending to favor informality whenever possible, but new research into scholars’ behavior at state ceremonies shows that intellectuals were still quite ceremonious!”

This argument also has been used by professional historians. However, in this case, the counter-example chosen does is not substantiated because ceremonial behavior is by definition ceremonial, in all societies. For example, most people regard California culture as open and tolerant of a wide range of behaviors, but, if you were to visit a military base in California, you would find people following very highly prescribed and sometimes ritualistic behavior. Does this allow us to conclude that Californians are actually quite ritualistic? The bar in such cases is set so high that only a complete lack of ritual behavior could qualify, but there is no society that excludes ritual from its repertoire of practices; therefore, the argument becomes trivial.


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