[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

Sun Oct 3 17:28:56 UTC 2010

> "If you (drink and) drive you might get in a car accident.
> Therefore you should not (drink and) drive."
>
> Is that one also fallacious?  It's still missing a step "you should
> not cause yourself to get into a car accident".  But then, it also is
> different in that there is no third party imposing a punishment.

As you say it is missing a step.

"If you (drink and) drive you might get in a car accident.
*** You should not run the risk of getting in a car accident
Therefore you should not (drink and) drive."

You need to match 'ought to' or 'should', or equivalent meaning word in the 
minor premiss in order to be valid.

Note I put 'run the risk of' to cover your 'might'.    Better still would be

If you (drink and) drive you run the risk of getting in a car accident
You should not run the risk of getting in a car accident
Therefore you should not (drink and) drive.

You need to match the pattern of

If A then B
B should not happen
Therefore A should not happen

The logic is quite simple.  Suppose A happens. Then from the major, B will 
happen.  But from the minor, B should not happen.  Thus if A happens, 
something will happen that should not happen.  Therefore A should not 
happen.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anthony" <wikimail at inbox.org>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

> On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Peter Damian
> <peter.damian at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/08/argumentum-ad-baculum.html
>
> Also, what do you think of the previous example of a non-fallacious 
> argument:
>
> "If you (drink and) drive you might get in a car accident.
> Therefore you should not (drink and) drive."
>
> Is that one also fallacious?  It's still missing a step "you should
> not cause yourself to get into a car accident".  But then, it also is
> different in that there is no third party imposing a punishment.
>
> I dunno, I think the whole article [[argumentum ad baculum]] is just
> piss poor in general.
>
> "If you are not a christian, God will torture you forever.  Therefore,
> Christianity is correct."
>
> Okay, that I can see as a fallacy.  Whether or not that's what meant
> by argumentum ad baculum, I don't yet know (couldn't find a good
> source for what it means).
>
> Would this be a good example of argumentum ad baculum:
>
> "If you think drinking and driving is okay, then you will get into a
> car accident and die.  Therefore drinking and driving is not okay."
> (I note that "you should not get into a car accident and die" is still
> left as an implicit assumption.)
>
> "If x accepts P as true, then Q." is not the same as "If P, then Q".
>
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