By: steve-wang
The False Dichotomy fallacy is when someone presents the choices or solution to a situation as only two when they are more. An example of me using the False Dichotomy Fallacy is, I spent a long time deciding what to eat with someone. I ran out of patience and presented them with two solutions we just eat something random from the nearby convenience store or we just skip the meal. I wanted to get this over as soon as possible and this helped by limiting the choices the other person to choose from. However, in actuality, that person could have chosen to eat something else entirely but I purposely did not propose that as a choice. Someone else also used the False Dichotomy Fallacy on me. They once said, I could study hard now or fail the test. At that time, there was still a few days before the test and the test was quite simple. I could have studied later or not study at all and I could probably have just not studied and still passed the test. However, I do understand that they were probably trying to get me to score a high score. Even though the False Dichotomy Fallacy is a fallacy, it can be useful when giving a very moving argument/speech, simplifying complex issues, and by suppressing arguments that are undesirable to the speaker. It is also very simple to use. Just come up with two arguments and says you can choose this or that. It is important to make sure that our preferred answer sounds much more attractive than the other presented alternative. Knowing this, we must be careful not to fall for these traps in the future so that we do not get distracted from our original goal or argument and get swept up by our emotions.