Do Arguments for Global Warming Commit a Fallacy of Composition?

Abstract

This essay begins with a brief description of my approach to the study of argumentation and fallacies which is empirical, historical-textual, dialectical, and meta-argumentational. It then focuses on the fallacy of composition and elaborates a number of conceptual definitions and distinctions: argument of composition; fallacy of composition; arguments and fallacies of division; arguments that confuse the distributive and collective meaning of terms; arguments from a property belonging to members of a group to its belonging to the entire group; several nuanced schemes for arguments of composition; and several principles for the evaluation of such arguments. I then call attention to the fact that some scholars have claimed that the basic argument for global warming commits the fallacy of composition, and undertake a critical analysis of this claim. I show that the global-warming argument is not a fallacy of composition, but is rather a deductively valid argument of composition from the temperature of the parts to the temperature of the whole earth; moreover, I criticize the meta-argumentation of these scholars by showing that the global-warming argument is not similar to the one for global pollution, which is indeed fallacious; finally, I argue that these scholars confuse the global-warming argument with the argument claiming that all effects of global warming are harmful, which is indeed incorrect as a hasty generalization.