3.1.4: Equivocation

If you went to an electronics store to buy a music system on sale only to discover that the store didn't have the advertised item and that they were now trying to sell you a higher-priced one instead, you might be upset. The store's technique is called bait and switch. In reasoning, too, it is unfair to begin an argument using a word with one sense and then later use it in a different sense. That's equivocating. Equivocation is the illegitimate switching of the meaning of a term during the reasoning. For example, the word discrimination changes meaning without warning in the following passage:

Those noisy people object to racism because they believe it is discrimination. Yet, discrimination is hard to define, and even these people agree that it's okay to choose carefully which tomatoes to buy in the supermarket. They discriminate between the over-ripe, the under-ripe, and the just right. They discriminate between the TV shows they don't want to watch and those they do. Everybody discriminates about something, so what's all this fuss about racism?

The passage begins talking about discrimination in the sense of denying people's rights but then switches to talking about discrimination in the sense of noticing a difference. The conclusion that racism doesn't deserve so much attention doesn't follow at all. Because of the switch in meanings, the reasons for the conclusion are ultimately irrelevant. The speaker was equivocating.

For a second example of equivocation, watch the word critical in the following passage:

Professor Weldman praises critical thinkers, especially for their ability to look closely and not be conned by sloppy reasoning. However, critical thinkers are critical, aren't they? They will attack something even if it doesn't deserve to be attacked. Isn't it irritating to meet someone who is always knocking down everything you say, for no good reason? These critical people don't deserve to be praised, do they? Evidently, then, Professor Weldman praises people who do not deserve to be praised. What a confused person he is. He should take a course in critical thinking himself.

Many people are apt to confuse the two meanings of critical thinker. Does it refer to a picky person or to a perceptive thinker? The title of this book was changed from Critical Thinking to Logical Reasoning for that very reason.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Fill in the blank with one of the phrase below: "Dolores has more money than Barbara, and Barbara has more money than Terri, so Dolores __________ more money than Terri."

1. does not have
2. might have
3. most probably has
4. has

Answer

Answer (c)

Isn't the answer (d)? This question will seem trivial to you if you have properly used your background knowledge about how test questions work, thus discounting the possibility that the two Barbara words might refer to different Barbaras. Wouldn't you have been upset if this were a real test question and the answer was (c) because you were supposed to worry that maybe two different Barbaras were being talked about? Your experience in test taking tells you to assume that Barbara refers to the same person unless there is some reason to believe otherwise, which there isn't in this example. Because we readers do properly make such assumptions, we would accuse a test maker of equivocating if the correct answer were supposed to be (c).