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College of Liberal Arts
Department of Philosophy

False Dilemma

When you reason from an either-or position and you haven't considered all relevant possibilities you commit the fallacy of false dilemma.

Examples:

  1. America: Love it or leave it.
  2. Death is nothing to fear. It is either annihilation or migration.
  3. Be my friend or be my enemy.
  4. Are you a Republican or a Democrat?
  5. If you're not going to heaven, you must be going to you-know-where.
  6. Good students will study and learn without the threat of an exam, and bad students won't study and learn even with the threat of an exam. So, exams serve no purpose
  7. Since there is nothing good on TV tonight, I will just have to get drunk.
  8. Obviously great mathematicians are born, and not made. John had all the best opportunities and is only mediocre at math. But Kara was good at math from the beginning.
  9. On the quad, I see the jocks in one corner, the rebels in another, and the intellectual set in yet another. Which one of these groups do you hang out with?
  10. You ask how I can know that you're struggling financially?  It's simple: in a capitalist economy, you either win big or you lose big, and I know you're not one of the big winners.