This short commercial tells the story of Raymond. Raymond, it seems, has denied himself ice cream despite desperately wanting it and having no real reason to continue denying himself this treat. It is claimed that now Raymond only continues to avoid ice cream because he has simply gotten used to saying no. After drawing out the absurdity of Raymond’s choice, the screen fades to black where we see the words “don’t spend your whole life waiting.” We then see the front end of a Mercedes Benz car, before the final words of the ad: “Mercedes Benz. You’re ready.”
I find that arguments from analogy are often tricky for students to get a grasp on, in spite of the fact that they likely use them on a daily basis. It becomes increasingly tricky, then, when trying to show the fallacy of false analogies and where students ought to draw the line. I always begin this segment by setting up an easy and straightforward analogy, which makes sense to the students, such as:
(P1) Marker A is a black Expo dry-erase marker with a chisel tip. I just removed it from the box earlier today. It can write on the whiteboard (I usually demonstrate for effect).
(P2) Marker B is also a black Expo dry-erase marker with a chisel tip. I removed it from the box earlier today as well.
(C) Therefore, it is likely that Marker B will also be able to write on the whiteboard.
We then discuss whether we are justified in making the inductive leap in this analogy.
Once students have seen how a good analogy works, however, I show this ad. It is short, and should be shown in its entirety. I tell the students to try to track the analogy in the ad. Invariably, when it becomes clear that the analogy is between denying oneself ice cream and denying oneself a Mercedes Benz, it is met with shock and laughter. The students seem to intuitively feel that there are serious problems with this analogy. To make it clear, though, I have the students help me make a list on the board. What are the characteristics of buying ice cream? What are the characteristics of buying a Mercedes Benz?
Finally, are there enough relevant characteristics in common to justify us making the inductive leap from “it is absurd to avoid ice cream” to “it is absurd to avoid buying a Mercedes Benz”?
With that done, this tends to lead to a class discussion about where the line is between a good and a bad analogy. To help students see the difference, I break them into groups and ask each group to make two ads — one with a good analogy, and one with a false analogy. Using the video as our reference point, they then present them to the class and we discuss them together.
In the course of this discussion, I point out to students that advertising of this sort is actually quite effective. After all, companies would not continue to allocate money for it unless it was shown to work. It is worth giving students the chance to reflect on why fallacies are so effective in advertising and why people tend to fall victim to them so easily.
Possible Readings:
Hurley, Patrick J. A Concise Introduction to Logic. 12th Edition (Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2015), 152-154.
Sources and other resources:
Curtis, Gary N. “Weak Analogy.” Fallacy Files. (2/7/2020)
Dowden, Bradley. “False Analogy.” Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2/7/2020)
This section of the Blog of APA is designed to share pedagogical approaches to using humorous video clips for teaching philosophy. Humor, when used appropriately, has empirically been shown to correlate with higher retention rates. If you are interested in contributing to this series, please email the Series Editor, William A. B. Parkhurst, at parkhurst1@usf.edu.
Timothy McGarvey
Timothy McGarveyis a PhD student at the University of South Florida where he works primarily on Friedrich Nietzsche and Environmental Ethics.
