False Cause Fallacy

A false cause is a type of informal fallacy that arises when one assigns as the cause those facts that merely preceded or accompanied the effect when in fact there is no good evidence of a logical connection or causal relation. Hence, an arguer commits the fallacy of false cause when he labels something as the cause of something else on the basis of insufficient or unrepresentative evidence. Let us consider the example below.

Example 1

Statistics show that nearly every heroin user started by using marijuana. It is reasonable to conclude, then, that marijuana leads to the harder drug.

As we can see in the example above, the arguer claims that the majority of the heroin users tried marijuana before using heroin. This might be true; however, the arguer concludes that smoking marijuana will necessarily lead to the use of harder drugs, such as heroin. The conclusion is obviously illogical or fallacious because there is no strong proof or evidence that the use of marijuana will necessarily lead to the use of harder drugs.

Let us consider another example of the fallacy of false cause.

Example 2

Last night I was so angry at my brother that I wished he was dead. And now he is in the hospital. God, if only I had not thought that. It is all my fault. I will never feel hatred again, not of everyone!

If we analyze the example above, it is clear that it is a fallacious argument. Even though the person in the example simply regrets having had ill feelings toward his brother, we cannot logically conclude that his act of wishing his brother dead is the cause of his brother getting sick. Indeed, there is no good reason to believe in this case that wishing it so has caused it to be so.

The last example below will further illustrate the fallacy of false cause.

Example 3

I blame the television media for the epidemic of hijackings, kidnappings, and other acts of terrorism. If we would stop televising terrorist acts, they would stop.

In this example, the arguer is implying that televising terrorist acts causes more terrorist acts simply because it will encourage terrorists to do so. While it might be true that televising terrorist acts may contribute to terrorism by giving the terrorists the attention they seek for their cause, reason tells us that we cannot ultimately attribute the act of televising terrorist acts to the rise of terrorism. As a matter of fact, terrorism will not cease if the media stops televising terrorist acts.

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