English final vocab rhetoric

  1. Self-serving bias: a tendency to support something because it personally benefits you.

  2. It’s a sign: something is a sign of something else often bad

  3. Argument by marginal example:  a black swan used as an example, rather than the exception; 

  4. Issues: a sentence that explores multiple sides of a subject, is not biased, and is in the form of a question. 

  5. Allegory:  a story or picture that an be interpreted to reveal hidden meaning, typically a moral one.

  6. Difference in prediction: opposite opinions on what will happen in the future

  7. Difference in Fact:  there is likely differing facts or evidence that conflicts

  8. Difference in reasoning:  How we logic out the problem

  9. Difference in values:  difference in what our moral/ethical beliefs say.

  10. Belief Perseverance:  a tendency to hold on to beliefs, even in the presence of factual information that refutes it.

  11. Opportunity Cost:  when you make a decision, it will limit other options and it will ‘cost’ something time, income, freedom

  12. Confirmation bias:  we tend to look for things that reinforce beliefs we already possess about a topic, rather than seeking opposite opinions.

  13. Lesser of Evils: situations often have two undesirable solutions; choose the most desirable of the two.

  14. Relativism: a belief that truth, morality, and knowledge exist in relation to culture, society, or history  🡪 thus not absolute

  15. Absolutism: a belief that truth, morality, and knowledge exist as absolutes, regardless of culture, society, or history

  16. False Dichotomy/dilemma:  fallacy based on the premise that only two choices exist, rather than a spectrum of options theist, atheist, democrat/republican

  17. Correlation:  two things change at the same time. Positive correlation, negative, inverse.

  18. Causation:  one thing is the main cause of the other

  19. Causation is not always Correlation:  two things can change but not cause each other.

  20. Illusion of explanatory depth:  we often believe we understand things far better than we actually do

  21. Cost-benefit analysis:  all actions have costs to them.  Are the benefits worth it?

  22. Burden of Proof:  anyone arguing for change must prove how it will make things better.

  23. Primacy and Latency Effect:  we tend to remember the first and last interactions, words, etc.  We lose lots of the middle

  24. Sunk cost fallacy: a reluctance to abandon a strategy or action because you are heavily invested in it…even though abandoning it would be more beneficial.

  25. Gambler’s fallacy:  the mistaken belief that a random event is more likely to occur because a series of the opposite event has happened.

  26. Halo Effect: positive feelings about people make us have positive feelings with things associated with those people.

  27. Bystander Effect: people are less likely to help a victim when others are present.

  28. Dunning-Kruger effect:  people with limited competence in a particular domain tend to overestimate their ability and vice-versa

  29. Multi-variate causality:  there are often multiple causes of an event, not a single one though we act like there is

  30. Law of Diminishing returns: increasing a single factor will eventually cause a leveling off or decrease in output

  31. False dichotomy:  presenting a situation as only having two options, often as opposites, when more options exist.

  32. Tabula Rasa: is the idea of individuals being born empty of any built-in mental content, so that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences.

  33. Thought experiment: an experiment that happens in the mind

  34. Enforceability: an agreement consists of the necessary components in order to be able to be imposed under law.

  35. Law of unintended consequences: actions of people — and especially of government—always have effects that are unanticipated or unintended.

  36. Utilitarianism:an ethical theory that determines right from wrong by focusing on outcomes.

  37. Precedent:  an earlier action or decision is used as an example for subsequent circumstances.

  38. Virtue Signaling:  act of expressing opinions or stances that align with popular moral values, often done through social media.

  39. Occam’s Razor: Principle of logic🡪 usually the most simple explanation is the best or correct one.

  40. The Ship of Theseus: whether an object is the same object after having all of its original components replaced over time, typically one after the other.

  41. Survivorship Bias: tending to concentrate on the people or things that made it past some selection process & overlooking those who didn’t

  42. False Equivalency:  drawing a connection between two subjects based on a similar characteristic, even though they are different by orders of magnitude 

  43. Slippery Slope: an idea or course of action will lead towards something disastrous (downhill sliding)

  44. Curse of knowledge: what you know well, becomes easy; thus it becomes frustrating to teach.