Abe Lincoln

Abe Lincoln is the most successful President in history because he is the most successful President in history.

Which of the following logical fallacies does the author commit upon concluding that Abe Lincoln is the most successful President in history?

A. Equivocation, present in an argument in which the arguer uses an equivocation between terms, or the sliding between two or more different meanings of a single word or phrase that is important to the argument, in order to support a claim.

B. Straw man, present in an argument in which the arguer anticipates, and responds in advance to, a weaker version of the arguments that the opponent might make. The arguer sets up a weak version of the opponent's position so that he or she can score points by knocking it down.

C. Begging the question, present in an argument in which the arguer asks his or her opponent to simply accept a conclusion absent any real evidence; the argument either relies on a premise that says the same thing as the conclusion (commonly referred to as “being circular” or “circular reasoning”), or simply ignores an important (but questionable) assumption that the argument rests on.

D. Missing the point, present in an argument whose premises do support a particular conclusion—but not the conclusion that the arguer actually draws.

E. Red herring, present in an argument in which, partway through the argument, the arguer veers off on a tangent, raising a side issue that distracts the opponent from what is really at stake.