John Leo's logical fallacies in "In Defense of Lies"

John Leo's "In Defense of Lies" ultimately makes a poor argument for his point, which is that facts and fiction are routinely mixed by lies in our society and that this lying is made acceptable by intellectually dishonest defenses. He uses inductive reasoning to make his ultimate point but fails in that attempt due to his non-sequiturs, ad hominem attacks against individuals and circular argument, along with improperly used "expert testimony," distorted quotations and homemade statistics that do not logically support his argument. The article succeeds in proving that there are some disturbing incidents of dishonesty but fails in proving Leo's ultimate argument.

Good or Poor Argument

John Leo's "In Defense of Lies" is ultimately a poor argument for the issue that he seems to define, which is that facts and fiction are routinely mixed by lies in our society and that this lying is made acceptable by intellectually dishonest defenses. Although Leo gives some disturbing examples of lying and defense of lying, his article is not persuasive enough to make his case or win his argument, mostly because he overreaches and makes sweeping generalizations that are not necessarily supported by his examples.

c. Fallacies

A serious fallacy in Leo's article is the non-sequitur -- the argument in which the conclusion does not necessarily follow the premises. For example, Leo speaks of the writer who falsely wrote about the oppression of the poor in Central America but whose lies were excused because she supposedly did it for a good cause and won a Nobel Prize. From that, he says, "This cynical attitude is strong these days on campus, where postmodern theory erodes basic truthfulness by holding that facts and truth don't really exist." He then tries to support that argument by quoting Two University of Pennsylvania professors who claim, "We are all engaged in writing a kind of propaganda. Rather than believe in the absolute truth of what we are writing, we must believe in the moral or political positions we are taking with it." According to Leo, this means that "Feelings and political stances count. Facts and truth don't." The non-sequitur is his conclusion that there is a cynical attitude on campus, with postmodern theory eroding basic truthfulness. That conclusion does not necessarily follow from his example of the dishonest Nobel Prize winner or the two university professors. This is a sweeping condemnation of universities that is not warranted by the examples he cites.

At times, Leo also uses ad hominem arguments by dodging the question and instead attacking the character of, for example Edmund Morris, by saying that his defense of Reagan is no surprise because his biography of Reagan is filled with fabrications. Here, Morris is saying it is no surprise that Morris is defending a liar because Morris is also a liar. He also uses an ad hominem attack against Esquire and its writer, Tom Junod, saying that they were probably exploiting the idea that fact and fiction are easily mixed and that readers probably do not know the difference. Here, Leo does not accept the writer's explanation of his reason for deliberately writing and then revealing a false profile of Michael Stipe; rather, Leo says that the writer and the magazine were probably exploiting the fact that lying is so easy and people are so easy to fool. Leo also seems to use a circular argument by presenting an arguable point to support his argument. For example, Leo makes that sweeping generalization that there is a cynical attitude on campus, with postmodern theory eroding basic truthfulness, which is arguable. Then he uses that arguable point to prove his ultimate point that lying is widespread and is made acceptable by further lying. Leo is basically saying, "Lying is widespread; therefore, lying is widespread."

d. Evidence

Leo's evidence of seriously dishonest incidents and seriously dishonest defense of those incidents would be very good if his only point was to prove that some dishonesty and dishonest defense does