Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics (Jan 2007)

Fallacies in ethical argumentation on abortion

  • Simona Mazilu

Journal volume & issue
Vol. IX, no. 2
pp. 42 – 53

Abstract

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This paper represents a case study of the types of fallacies that may occur in the argumentation stage of an ethical dispute over abortion. The theoretical framework I use is the pragma-dialectical theory of argumentation (van Eemeren and Grootendorst 1992, 2004) which conceives of fallacies as violations of the rules for critical discussion. I will focus on the fallacies resulting from the violation of the relevance rule in two fragments of argumentative texts illustrating opposing positions on abortion. I claim that these fallacies function as winning strategies in the ethical dispute in case.

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