And then you are left holding the baby! Strategic manoeuvring with the argumentum ad consequentiam

In argumentative discourse fallacies occur regularly, but often they seem not to be noticed by the participants. In spite of the fact that people generally denounce this fallacy when confronted with clear case, this also goes for the fallacy known as the argumentum ad consequentiam. In explaining this paradox it is argued in this paper that certain types of argumentum ad consequentiam are modes of strategic manoeuvring which take on a reasonable appearance by mimicking legitimate pragmatic argumentation or reductio ad absurdum argumentation. In an experiment we tested the following hypothesis: fallacious argumentum ad consequentiam argumentation is regarded less unreasonable when it is presented in this way as reasonable pragmatic argumentation.