Name
of Program: A newspaper article entitled “Vote Count
Leader in Kenya Faces U.S. With Tough Choices.”
Time
and Day of Viewing:
March 8, 2013.
Logical
fallacy: Causation.
Paraphrase
of quote of the logical fallacy: The author notes that the
comments by officials in the U.S government on the elections in Kenya
indicating the U.S government’s displeasure with certain candidates standing
for the presidency did influence the supporters of those candidates to even
rally more behind them(Gentleman 1).
Explain (Why this is a logical fallacy?)
In the fallacy of causation, one argues that because
event A precedes event B then A is the cause of B. It is a fallacy since not
all cases where an event A precedes event B will yield to an analysis that A is
the cause of B. In the paraphrased statement, the author argues that the
comment by American officials on Kenyan elections suggesting their displeasure
with certain candidates is the reason why those candidates got so many of their
supporters to stand behind them. Alternatively, the argument is that that
comment by U.S government officials was responsible for the relative better
performance of those candidates. There could be several reasons to suppose that
the author made a mistake in linking the statement and the eventual outcome of
the Kenyan elections.
For instance, the author has ignored the fact that
the said Kenyan leaders could as well be popular people in that country in
their own right. Accepting a causal relationship between their eventual
election and what the U.S government could have said about his election can
only be valid if the initial popularity of those politicians is taken into
account. International journalists covering the politics of another country
often fail to recognize that people do not share the same values as obtains in
their home countries.
Work Cited
Gettleman, Jeffrey. “Vote Count Leader in Kenya Faces U.S. With Tough Choices.” The New York
Times 8 March 2013.
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