in the end, even though a both‐and solution is reached and supposed “ethnic diversity” is added to the South Park flag, it is obviously questionable whether such an addition is good, let alone right, for the townsfolk.
An argument from inappropriate authority is a fallacy that sounds like what it is, incorrectly drawing a conclusion from premises based upon a non‐credible, non‐qualified, or illegitimate authority figure. The best way to avoid this fallacy altogether is to become an authority concerning some matter yourself by getting all of the relevant facts, understanding issues, doing research, checking and double‐checking your sources, dialoguing with people, having your ideas challenged, defending your position, being open to revise your position, and the like. However, since we can't become authorities on everything, we need to rely upon others. In “Do the Handicapped Go to Hell?” Fr. Maxi claims that Kyle (who is Jewish) and Timmy (who is limited in his verbal communication) will both go to hell if they don't confess their sins and, apparently, accept Christ as their savior. At first glance, the boys' conclusion that Kyle and Timmy will go to hell if they don't confess and convert seems not to be a case of the fallacy of appeal to inappropriate authority. After all, Fr. Maxi is an authority of the Church. However, if one investigates Church doctrine, one can see that no human being – pope, priest, or layperson – can make pronouncements about who will go to hell or who won't go to hell.
In an ad hominem fallacy someone concludes that a person's claims or arguments are false or not worth listening to because of premises that concern an attack on the actions, personality, or ideology of the person putting forward the claim or argument. In other words, instead of focusing on the person's issue, claims, or argument, one attacks the person (ad hominem is Latin for to the man). This strategy of discrediting a person's argument by discrediting the person is common. But notice, the person and the person's arguments are two distinct things, and they are not logically related to one another. For example, in “Butt Out” a cartoon Rob Reiner puts forward an argument for why kids in South Park should not smoke, and he goes on a campaign to get a law enacted to ban smoking in the town. However, not only is he portrayed as having a junk food vice but he also wants to deceptively use the boys to get the law passed. Now, even if Reiner does have a junk food problem, and even if he does something immoral in trying to get the boys to help him, what does this have to do with the arguments concerning whether kids should smoke or whether laws against smoking should be passed in South Park? The answer is, absolutely nothing! Yet, we could be led to the conclusion that no law should be set up in South Park against smoking based upon premises that portray Reiner's apparent hypocrisy and deviance. Again, Reiner's hypocrisy and deviance have nothing to do with the arguments for or against smoking.
“The Defense Rests”
At least part of the appeal of South Park has to do with pointing out the flaws in our thinking, and no one is free from blame. We all occasionally forget to check if all of our premises are true, or believe that a conclusion follows from premises when it doesn't. But the biggest logical problem we have has to do with our staunchly held emotional beliefs, the ones that we just can't let go of no matter what evidence and arguments are presented to us. Often times, this logical problem turns into a factual problem, and people suffer as a result. Some people are almost phobic in their fear of letting go of some belief.
In “All About the Mormons,” Stan yells at the Mormons for believing in their religion without any proof, and they smile and explain that it is a matter of faith. Without insulting the Mormons, or any religion for that matter, in that moment Stan is hinting at part of what a rational, adult critical thinker should constantly do. As you read the chapters in this book, I ask you to be mindful of claims, arguments, deductive arguments versus inductive arguments, good versus bad arguments, and fallacies that are spoken about by the authors. And, hopefully, the authors have avoided fallacies and bad arguments in putting forward their own positions! With this logic lesson in mind, you can be the judge of that.
For pop culture resources and philosophical resources related to this chapter please visit the website for this book: https://introducingphilosophythroughpopculture.com.
Note
1 1 For more extensive discussions of logic, see Watson, J.C. and Arp, R. (2015). Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well , 2e. London: Bloomsbury ; Bassham, G., Irwin, W., Nardone, H., and Wallace, J.M. (2018). Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction , 6e. New York: McGraw‐Hill ; Hurley, P.J. and Watson, L. (2017). A Concise Introduction to Logic , 13e. New York: Cengage .
3 Wikiality, Truthiness, and Gut Thinking: Doing Philosophy Colbert Style
David Kyle Johnson
Summary
When Stephen Colbert hosted The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, everyone thought he was playing a character. He even admitted as much when he began hosting The Late Show on CBS. But how can we know for sure? After all, when Jordan Klepper started hosting The Opposition, everyone thought he was playing a conservative “Alex Jones” type character, but then Jordan said that he wasn't. Instead it was his liberal persona on The Daily Show that was the character. Indeed, Alex Jones's lawyers have argued, in court, that he's playing a character on his show. So who can tell? It turns out, the philosopher can. By using philosophy, and a little something called the principle of charity, we can examine what Stephen Colbert said on The Colbert Report and determine that he must have been playing a character. The ideas he espoused – like relativism, truthiness, gut thinking, and an unrestricted right to one's opinion – are so clearly absurd, he must be kidding. And in revealing this, we will be learning how to do philosophy.
Every night on my show, The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut … I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument.
– Stephen Colbert
White House Correspondents Dinner April 29, 2006
Stephen Colbert became the host of CBS's The Late Show in 2015, but his previous gig (2005–2014) was hosting The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. (Pronounce that “Cole‐bear Re‐pore,” so that both “t”s are silent.) He was kind of a hard nut to crack in those days. Colbert is an Irish Catholic born in Washington D.C. and raised as the youngest of 11 children in South Carolina. On The Colbert Report he (supposedly) played a character – an Irish Catholic born in Washington D.C. and raised as the youngest of 11 children in South Carolina. You read that right. The descriptions are exactly the same.
Now you might think this means that he wasn't really playing a character, but there is one major difference between the Colbert that hosts The Late Show, and the Colbert that hosted The Colbert Report: their political views. For example, while Late‐Show‐Colbert spent most of his monologues during the Trump presidency trashing Trump and the Republicans, Report‐Colbert endlessly spouted right‐wing talking points and defended politically conservative ideologies. For example, in an interview about global warming, Colbert asked CNN News Anchor Anderson Cooper “What's wrong with the ice melting … maybe now Greenland will actually turn green.”1 And in doing so, he was not repeating but actually anticipating something that would eventually be said by right‐wing radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh.2
Now, again, conventional wisdom holds that Report‐Colbert was a character, and that when
