Which fallacy occurs when the premises are affirmative but the conclusion is negative?

• A. Fallacy of Drawing a Negative Conclusion from Affirmative Premises
• B. Fallacy of Illicit Minor
• C. Fallacy of Illicit Major
• D. No conclusion follows from two negative premises

Answer: (A)

When both premises are affirmative, you’re asserting that certain classes are contained within another class. From that, you can infer things about inclusion, not about disjointness. Concluding a negative statement about the relationship between the subjects—like No X are Y or No X are Z—goes beyond what the affirmative premises support. This is exactly the fallacy of drawing a negative conclusion from affirmative premises.

For example: All dogs are animals. All cats are animals. Therefore, no dogs are cats. The premises don’t establish disjointness between dogs and cats; they simply place both in the broader category of animals, so the negative conclusion is invalid.

The other options refer to different kinds of logical errors (illicit distribution of terms, or attempting to derive any conclusion from two negative premises), which don’t match this situation.