Portland Trying to move up
- Thread starter DoDiGaG0
- Start date
Well, to be precise what you quoted wasn't a logical fallacy, because it was not an appeal to tradition. An appeal to tradition follows the formula: X is the way it has always happened, therefore X is right or proper in some moral sense.
The statement you were arguing against was actually a form of induction: X is the way it has always happened, therefore X is the way it will continue to happen in the future.
It's a completely different inference, and as Hume has argued induction has its own logical difficulties, but it is not appeal to tradition and as far as I know nobody has ever gone so far as to seriously claim that induction is a logical fallacy.
However, as Brick pointed out with two counterexamples, in the case at hand the statement corresponding to "X is the way it has always happened" doesn't appear to be true anyhow, so I guess everybody gets to be right!
The statement you were arguing against was actually a form of induction: X is the way it has always happened, therefore X is the way it will continue to happen in the future.
It's a completely different inference, and as Hume has argued induction has its own logical difficulties, but it is not appeal to tradition and as far as I know nobody has ever gone so far as to seriously claim that induction is a logical fallacy.
However, as Brick pointed out with two counterexamples, in the case at hand the statement corresponding to "X is the way it has always happened" doesn't appear to be true anyhow, so I guess everybody gets to be right!
You're correct, and the fallacy is so commonplace it should be more easily coined. The first has the subject sticking to tradition out of desire but it is a choice, the second removes the suggestion of human guidance through desire to stay with tradition. Thanks Capt. and nice catch.
Now will you please take over for me when this person's creative arguing pops up.
Now will you please take over for me when this person's creative arguing pops up.