Frances Weston 11/20/10 Mr.

Pentrack Critical Reasoning Fallacies in 12 Angry Men

Juror #3: Look, you voted guilty. What side are you on? Juror #11: I don't believe I have to be loyal to one side or the other. I'm simply asking questions(1).

Critical thinking skills are sometimes hard to come by. Critical thinking requires thinking beyond boundaries and without bias. You must be able to express your doubts and ideas without fear, or disregard of any personal issues, and remain level headed. The jurors develop critical thinking skills through a long and combative discussion over the course of the movie Twelve Angry Men, a movie focusing on 12 jurors determining the fate of a 19-year-old boy. During the course of the movie, individual jurors represent different known fallacies, argue them with the other jurors, and show the potential moral consequences of allowing your emotions to get the best of you.

The first example is inconsistency. Fallacies of inconsistency are cases where something inconsistent, self-contradictory or self-defeating, is presented (2). In 12 Angry Men, the Bigot dismisses the defendants testimony based on his belief you can't trust anything they say, yet he accepts the testimony of an

eyewitness who belongs to the same ethnic group. A second example of inconsistency is when the angry juror thinks all the evidence about the case can be thrown out because a woman saw the boy commit the crime. This is inconsistent because a single witness usually does not prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. The second example is a red herring fallacy. The basic idea of a red herring fallacy is to win an argument by leading attention away from the argument and to another topic. In 12 Angry Men, the angry juror stubbornly questions the witnesss testimony, by arguing whether or not she had her glasses on. The question is simply irrelevant because a person who needs glasses, as she did, would never testify to have seen anything if her glasses were not on.

The third example is false alternative fallacy. This fallacy assumes that only one alternative exists in a given situation, when in fact, other and usually more fundamental alternatives also exist (3). An example of this is when the housepainter juror states that motive is crucial for the case. If you dont have a motive, wheres your case. This is a false alternative because the law proves motive is not the main aspect in a murder case. Its important but not essential.

The next fallacy is argument from ignorance. Arguments from ignorance infer that a proposition is true from the fact that it is not known to be false (4). This fallacy happens when one of the jurors states that the boy must be guilty

because nobody proved otherwise. This is an argument from ignorance because it makes a strong assumption based on no proven facts.

The last example is false analogy. False analogies are elaborate, point-bypoint comparisons that are not correct. This occurs when a juror proclaims that one of the witnesses in the trial just made up a story to get attention. He believes he knows this because he would have done the same thing if he was as lonely as the witness.

The jurors used critical thinking to come to their decision of innocence or guilt throughout the movie. The film depicts the maturity of the men throughout the film, allowing critical thinking to over take them and eventually allowing change to occur. The men eventually thought beyond boundaries, with the ability to do so without bias. They were able to express their doubts and ideas without fear, disregarded all their personal issues, and remained level-headed. Critical thinking is a skill they obtained.

Works Cited

1. Arguing from Ignorance. 2009. November 20, 2010. http://www.logicalfallacies.info/presumption/arguing-fromignorance/>. 2. King, David. Fallacies. October/November 2004. November 13, 2010. <http://www.hevanet.com/kort/2004/KING13.HTM>. 3. Lau, Joe and Chan, Jonathan. MODULE: Fallacies and biases. 2004. November 13, 2010. <http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/fallacy/ic.php>. 4.Rose, Reginald. Memorable quotes for 12 Angry Men. 1990. November 7, 2010. <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050083/quotes>.