Special pleading
If anyone says to you: ‘everyone knows that’, ‘it’s obvious that’
or ‘it’s indisputably true that’, you can be certain that he has
taken for granted what he is about to assert.
We indulge in special pleading when we stress our own case
and fail to see that there may be other points of view, other ways
of looking at the question. Special pleading happens when we
cannot detach ourselves from our own circumstances. We often
blunder because we forget that what is true of one of us is also
true of the other in the same situation.
A safeguard against this mistake is to change youinto I. Thus, I
feel that you can’t see what is straight in front of your nose; you
feel that I can’t see what is on the other side of my blinkers. A
rule that appears to be sound when I apply it to you may seem to
be unsatisfactory when you ask me to apply it to myself.
Of course, thinking for too long about other points of view is a
recipe for indecision. There are not necessarily two sides to every
question and even if there are, you eventually – and often
quickly – have to come down firmly on one side. But before you
do this, check in case the other points of view or the alternative
approaches are valid, and take them into account.
Over-simplification
Over-simplification is a special form of potted thinking or special
pleading. It often arises in the form of what Susan Stebbing terms
‘the fallacy of either black or white’, the mistake of demanding
that a sharp line should be drawn, when in fact no sharp line can
be drawn. For example, we cannot ask for a clear distinction to
be drawn between the sane and the insane, or between the intel-
ligent and the unintelligent. Our readiness to make this mistake
may be taken advantage of by a dishonest opponent, who insists
that we define precisely that which does not permit such defin-
ition.
Reaching false conclusions
One of the most prevalent fallacies is that of forming the view
that because someare or may be, all are. An assertion about
several cases is twisted into an assertion about all cases. The
conclusion does not follow the premise.
How to Think Clearly 297