portfolio example page: fallacy of appeal to tradition

At the top, it labels the category of argument.

It documents the source. (Provide the same sort of documentation that would be used for a citation in a college research paper.)

It identifies the issue in the form of a question.

It evaluates its soundness. (For the fallacies, we skip the standard form reconstruction but explain how the fallacy occurs in the example.) It explicitly states whether the argument is sound or unsound.

Fallacy of Appeal to Tradition

Preteens in Indian Caste Forced Into Prostitution
Run Date: 04/29/02
By Swapna Majumdar WEnews correspondent http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/893

RATLAM, India (WOMENSENEWS)--In the morning, 12-year-old Maya Lal plays with her dolls. She no longer goes to school. Instead, as soon as the sun sets, she retreats into a room with her father's "friend."

Maya is not the only 12-year-old engaged in such work. In the Ratlam district of the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, when a first-born daughter of the Banchhara tribe turns 12, her father organizes a ceremony where she makes known her intentions to work as a prostitute. After this declaration, her father takes her to her first customer, who waits in a room in her family's house reserved for this purpose.

"My father has told me that I have to do this work because it is part of our custom. So I don't mind," Maya said.

Source: Women's News, March 4, 2002

Issue: Should Maya work as a prostitute?

Evaluation: This is an example of the fallacy of appeal to tradition because the only reason
given for forcing Maya into prostitution is that it is their tradition ("our custom").
But tradition does not justify every behavior, and it certainly is not a good reason
to force 12-year old girls into prostitution.

Because of the fallacy, her father's argument is unsound.