Here is the fallacy I’m describing:
Someone defends their own actions, or someone else’s actions, as acceptable/justified or necessary, on the basis that those actions might be necessary or justified in certain circumstances, referencing other individuals or circumstances for which it might be necessary or justified, despite their own circumstances/the circumstances in question not having the same elements that would require it or justify it.
For example, someone defends the actions of someone who murdered another person unnecessarily because they disliked them (e.g.), using the argument that there might be people who need to kill in self-defense or in a survival situation for whom it might be justified, despite that not applying to the situation in question.
I’ll attempt to write the form of the fallacy here:
X is justified in Y case.
Someone does X in Z case.
X is justified in Z case because X would be justified in Y case.
It’s a fallacy because:
What is true of Y case doesn’t necessarily apply to Z case; the elements/circumstances of Y case that would make X justified may not be present in Z case, and therefore even if X is justified in Y case it wouldn’t automatically be justified in Z case as a consequence.
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An invalid analogy, perhaps?
Since the original thing is an analogy and OP is trying to say that one cannot be used as analogous to the other.
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Except that OP is implying that the analogy being used doesn’t match the argument being put up.
Rereading OC, I realise that it is not really an analogy, since the same “X” is being used in both the cases. So perhaps we should be looking for something else.
I disagree. I don’t think it’s good enough for someone to just state that Y and Z (for any values of Y and Z) are sufficiently equivalent without anything to back it up, and then expect anyone who disagrees to carry the burden of proof. Occam’s razor would say to use the simpler null hypothesis that Y and Z are distinct, and the burden of proof is on the one who claims equivalence.
Otherwise you could win any argument by assuming the conclusion based on an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
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Are you claiming that the purpose of an analogy is to smuggle in problematic assumptions, and so if one analogy is fallacious, they all are?
Yeah no, I disagree. A sufficiently formed analogy serves as a “mapping” or logical “reduction” from one problem space to another. If a party understands how to solve a problem in one problem space, and agrees on the mapping to a different problem space, now they also know how to solve the problem in the new space.
However, if you propose a fallacious mapping, then your argument is now also fallacious. It would be no different from proposing a solution to a math equation with an error in the work. Your solution could still possibly be a correct one just by chance, but you have not successfully shown a valid path to the solution. That’s the definition of a fallacy.
Yo dawg, I heard you like analogies.
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