Special pleading
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Special pleading is a form of fallacious argument that involves an attempt to cite something as an exception to a generally accepted rule, principle, etc. without justifying the exception.[1][2]
The lack of criticism may be a simple oversight (e.g., the reasons are thought to be obvious) or an application of a double standard.
Examples[edit]
A difficult case is when a possible criticism is made relatively immune to investigation. This immunity may take the forms of:
- unexplained claims of exemption from principles commonly thought relevant to the subject matter
- Example: I'm not relying on faith in small probabilities here. These are slot machines, not roulette wheels. They are different.
- claims to data that are inherently unverifiable, perhaps because too remote or impossible to define clearly
- Example: The inhabitants of the third planet of the Alpha Centauri System believe in God.
In the classic distinction among informal (material), psychological, and formal (logical) fallacies, special pleading most likely falls within the category of psychological fallacy, as it would seem to relate to "lip service", rationalization and diversion (abandonment of discussion). Special pleading also often resembles the "appeal to" logical fallacies.[3]
In medieval philosophy, it was not assumed that wherever a distinction is claimed, a relevant basis for the distinction should exist and be substantiated. Special pleading subverts an assumption of existential import.
Statistical[edit]
This variation occurs when the interpretation of the relevant statistic is "massaged" by looking for ways to reclassify or requantify data from one portion of results, but not applying the same scrutiny to other categories.[4]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^ Damer, T. Edward (2008). Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-free Arguments (6 ed.). Cengage Learning. pp. 122–124. ISBN 978-0-495-09506-4.
- ^ Engel, S. Morris (1994), Fallacies and Pitfalls of Language: The Language Trap, Courier Dover Publications, p. 102, ISBN 978-0-486-28274-9
- ^ This division is found in introductory texts such as Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument, W. Ward Fearnside, Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1959. OCLC 710677
- ^ Fischer, D. H. (1970), Historians' Fallacies: Toward A Logic of Historical Thought, Harper torchbooks (first ed.), New York: HarperCollins, pp. 110–113, ISBN 978-0-06-131545-9, OCLC 185446787
External links[edit]
| Appeals to emotion | |||||
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| Genetic fallacies |
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| Appeals to consequences |
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Informal fallacies | |
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| Equivocation | |
| Question-begging fallacies | |
| Correlative-based fallacies | |
| Illicit transference | |
| Secundum quid (ignoring qualifications) | |
| Faulty generalization | |
| Vagueness / Ambiguity | |
| Questionable cause |
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