"This is the richest fraternity on the campus, therefore Mr. X who is a member…
2025
"This is the richest fraternity on the campus, therefore Mr. X who is a member of this fraternity must be one of the richest young man on the campus." Which fallacy is involved in this argument?
- A.
Fallacy of division
- B.
Fallacy of irrelevant conclusion
- C.
Red Herring
- D.
Slippery slope
Attempted by 36 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Answer: Fallacy of division.
Why this is correct: The argument takes a property of the whole (the fraternity being the richest) and applies it to an individual member (Mr. X). That transfer from whole to part is the fallacy of division.
Definition: The fallacy of division occurs when someone assumes that what is true of a whole must also be true of each of its parts or members.
Application to the argument: The fraternity is described as the richest on campus (a group property). Concluding that Mr. X, as a member, must therefore be one of the richest students wrongly assumes the group property applies to every individual member.
Counterexample: A university may have the wealthiest alumni association, but individual members might have very different personal incomes; the group’s wealth does not guarantee each member is wealthy.
Why the other named fallacies do not apply: The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion involves deriving a conclusion unrelated to the premises; a red herring is a distracting, irrelevant issue introduced to divert attention; and a slippery slope claims an initial step will cause a chain of catastrophic events. None of these describe the present error, which is attributing a group's characteristic to an individual.