How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic (2006)

Dlcto simpliclter 51

into rejecting them. The fact that death and taxes will result

anyway should not impinge on your success.

Dicto simpliciter

Dicto simpliciter is the fallacy of sweeping generalization. It consists

of the application of a broad general rule to an individual case

whose special features might make it exceptional. To insist that the

generalization must apply to each and every case, regardless of

individual differences, is to commit the fallacy of dicto simpliciter.

Of course you voted for the resolution. You're a dock-worker, and your

union cast 120,000 votes in favour.

(Carried unanimously, brothers, and by a clear majority.)

Many of our general statements are not universals. We make
them in the full knowledge that there will be cases whose
accidental features make them exceptions. We are apt to say that
various things make people healthy, knowing that we do not
necessarily have to mean 'all' people. We make similar general-
izations about foods, even though we recognize that some
people have allergies to various foodstuffs.
When we insist on treating a generalization as if it were a
universal which admitted no exceptions, we commit a dicto
simpliciter. The fallacy arises because we use information about
the whole of a class, which has not been established or accepted.
We bring in outside material, therefore, without justification.

Everyone knows that hooded teenagers are criminals. Since this hooded

one isn't breaking any laws, he must be older than he looks.

(Or maybe he's just having a day off.)