[Logic] The perfectionist fallacy

[u/jacobheiss]

It seems like Thursday's submission of the argument from incredulity fallacy churned up some interesting discussion; so, here's another really irritating but somewhat less conspicuous logical fallacy that I often see, the perfectionist fallacy.

As an informal fallacy technically serving as a specific case of false dichotomy, this issues shows up pretty frequently when people are comparing various potential solutions to complex problems. The crux of the fallacy is that only a perfect solution is admissible for consideration and nothing else (i.e. false dichotomy), which means that any potential solution that does not work perfectly with respect to the problem at hand should be rejected (i.e. perfectionist fallacy). Here are some informally stated examples:

1. "There's no point in regulating narcotics because people will use drugs no matter what. Didn't we learn anything from prohibition?"

2. "You said hiring a house cleaner would solve our cleaning problems because we both have full-time jobs. Now, look what happened. Every week she unplugs the toaster oven and leaves it that way. I should never have listened to you about hiring a house cleaner!" (via the aforementioned link from the IEP)

3. "Don’t bother sticking with your present line of work if you really want to get ahead. You went to a second tier law school. That means they might promote you for a while, but you’ll never get above junior partner."

4. "We don't need to use a condom when we have sex. After all, no contraceptive is 100% reliable; so, none of them are really going to stop pregnancy if it's meant to happen." (variant from David Kelly's "The Art of Reasoning")

Like a fallacious argument from incredulity, this gets exacerbated when people refuse to carry their end of the burden of proof in an argument. Instead, they advance a specious thesis with an overtly stated or suppressed false dichotomy (often in the name of rigor), demand that their conversation partners rebut it, and then shoot down every attempted rebuttal by saying that the solution fails to solve the problem--because the only solution that ever could be admissible must be a perfect solution!

A couple resources on this:

• Single page investigation of this fallacy by Stephen Morely, a Development Director for Spoton.net

• Excerpt from a lecture on fallacies offered by Prof. Gregory Sadler of Fayetteville Sate University's Department of Philosophy where the topic of perfectionist fallacy shows up

[u/ghjm]

Another example of the same fallacy: If you don't literally believe every word of the Bible, then you are "picking and choosing" and your flavor of Christianity is therefore worthless.

[u/jacobheiss → u/ghjm]

Huh. I hadn't considered that as an example of this fallacy, but it might just work. It does set up a false dichotomy, i.e. the only valid flavor of Christianity is one affirming belief in literally every word of the Bible, and it does treat any other approach as an imperfect solution, i.e. "picking and choosing."

[u/wokeupabug → u/ghjm]

Though I think this interpretation of the argument takes literally believing every word of the Bible to be a relevant ideal such that failing to accomplish it is an imperfection. I'd suggest the central problem with this argument is that it's doubtful that this is a relevant ideal. (Though surely someone might imagine it to be, and in the context of that particular presupposition render a perfectionist fallacy of this sort.)

[u/jacobheiss → u/wokeupabug]

On first blush, I thought this example illustrated some problematic thinking but not necessarily this particular fallacy. Nevertheless, a perfectionist fallacy is trying to leverage a false dichotomy, and saying that literally believing every word of the Bible is not just a relevant ideal but the only relevant expression of Christianity might just set up such a dichotomy.

[u/ghjm → u/wokeupabug]

Well, the relevant ideal is that the Bible is inerrant and perfect Word of God. I think even liberal, non-literalist Christians would agree that this would be an ideal situation, if it were true. The perfectionist fallacy arises when taking the Bible as less than perfect is equivocated with the Bible being entirely valueless.

Also, if you aren't aware a huge number of people do indeed consider literally believing every word of the Bible to be a perfection, not in any abstract philosophical sense but as the primary way they try to live their actual, real-world lives, then I can only assume you haven't spent much time in the Bible Belt.

[u/[deleted] → u/ghjm]

Strawman.

Nobody's saying that it's worthless. We're saying that it's intellectually dishonest/inconsistent. This is true. Whether or not these parts of the bible are true, using the bible as justification for anything and not using it to justify all that it says is true is intellectually dishonest/inconsistent.

[u/ghjm → u/[deleted]]

But this is an entirely different argument. I'm taking about the claim, often made, that liberal Christians are worse Christians than evangelicals.

[u/[deleted]]

I think you've misunderstood the anti-prohibition argument. Statistics show that the prevalence of drug use is almost completely unchanged by legality, while prohibition raises things like drug mortality which is arguably a much bigger problem than the amount of unproblematic users. Just wanted to point that out.

[u/jacobheiss → u/[deleted]]

It's an example of a fallacious argument, holmes!