Pretty much all of us are in the business of persuasion, right? You might be trying to get your friend to let you borrow her car. Or you could be crafting the perfect email that will persuade your boss to let you off an hour early. Or maybe you are just trying to get your coworkers or family to eat at the restaurant you prefer. Persuasion is at the root of nearly all human communication.
Sometimes we do it right. And sometimes we don’t. Today we’ll be talking about one thing we should avoid in our presentations. It’s called false dilemma. And even though it might get us results, its unethical persuasion.
What is False Dilemma?
Sometimes called either-or fallacy, false dilemma traps your audience into making a hasty choice. Richard Nordquist of the ThoughtCo. defines it like this, “the false dilemma is a fallacy of oversimplification that offers a limited number of options (usually two) when in reality more options are available.”
In his YouTube series, “Better Argument,” John Corvino gives a great example. He says, “Imagine a politician who says, ‘Either we raise taxes or we learn to live with crumbling roads.’ Now, maybe those are the only two options, but probably not. Maybe we could spend less on prisons and more on other infrastructure. Maybe we could reduce bloated government salaries. The point is, there are other options worth considering.” When a speaker tries to boil down some complex issue to two simple choices or when she eliminates all the possible options, you’ve probably got a false dilemma on your hands.
Why It’s a Problem
The Lumen Learning Course on “Ethics in Public Speaking” reminds us that “Every time you plan to speak to an audience—whether it is at a formal speaking event or an impromptu pitch at your workplace—you have ethical responsibilities to fulfill.” False dilemma is a problem because it doesn’t present the audience with the full picture of the problem or the full range of choices. In some ways, it’s deceptive omission.
Think about how you would feel if you knew someone was keeping important information from you in order to force you towards a certain action or outcome. I’m guessing your opinion of them would be severely diminished and you’d have trouble trusting them again, right?
False dilemma breaks the important relationship of trust between a speaker and his or her audience. When the audience is faced with a false dilemma, some of them will feel pressured to make a choice they don’t want to make or aren’t ready to make. As speakers, we need to be committed to giving our audience all the information they need to make informed choices. And we need to respect the time it takes them to do so.
Watch out for this persuasive fallacy when you speak because a false dilemma in a presentation can quickly destroy what you are working so hard to build. Respect. Trust. Credibility. Connection.
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