No true Scotsman
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No true Scotsman, or the self-sealing fallacy, is a fallacy of equivocation and question begging. Its name was coined by philosopher Antony Flew in his 1975 book Thinking About Thinking – or do I sincerely want to be right?.[1]
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[edit] Fallacy
Imagine Hamish McDonald, a Scotsman, sitting down with his Glasgow Morning Herald and seeing an article about how the "Brighton Sex Maniac Strikes Again." Hamish is shocked and declares that "No Scotsman would do such a thing." The next day he sits down to read his Glasgow Morning Herald again and this time finds an article about an Aberdeen man whose brutal actions make the Brighton sex maniac seem almost gentlemanly. This fact shows that Hamish was wrong in his opinion but is he going to admit this? Not likely. This time he says, "No true Scotsman would do such a thing."
—Antony Flew, Thinking about Thinking, 1975
Flew's original example may be softened into the following [1]:
- Argument: "No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
- Reply: "But my uncle Angus, who is a Scotsman, likes sugar with his porridge."
- Rebuttal: "Aye, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge."
In putting forward the above rebuttal one would be employing an ad hoc shift in argument. The proposer initially treats the definition of "Scotsman" (i.e, a man from Scotland) as fixed, and says that there exists no predicated case that fall inside. When one such case is found, the proposer shifts to treat the case as fixed, and rather treats the boundary as debatable. The proposer could therefore be seen prejudicially not to desire an exact agreement on either the scope of the definition or the position of the case, but solely to keep the definition and case separate. One reason to do this would be to avoid giving the positive connotations of the definition ("Scotsman") to the negative case ("sex offender") or vica versa.
Formally the argument is an informal fallacy if the predicate ("puts sugar on porridge") is not contradictory to the previously accepted definition of the subject ("Scotsman"), or if the definition of the subject is silently adjusted after the fact to make the rebuttal work.[2]
This is connected to the widespread attempt in debate to assert that positive terms (good, decent) imply, naturally or by definition, the characteristics argued for (opposition to capital punishment, pornography, smoking in public), rather than actually making an argument why they are connected.
"No decent Scotsman" can be considered the moral (practical) equivalent of the theoretical "No true Scotsman". The word "real" may be substituted for "true" and still commit the same fallacy in different plumes. For example, when General George Patton said, "All real Americans love the sting of battle" to his soldiers, he was implying that they were un-American if they shrank from combat.
[edit] Why people fall into the fallacy
The truth of a proposition depends on its adequacy to its object ("Is the drawing a true likeness of Antony Flew?"). The truth of an object depends on its adequacy to its concept ("Is the figure drawn on the paper a true triangle?"). Problems arise when the definition of the concept has no generally accepted form, for example when it is vague or contested[3].
"A true Scotsman" (a concept) is not on the same level as "a true triangle" (a concept) never mind "the true Antony Flew" (a concrete existing object). The formal similarity, "true X", and the corresponding feeling that the concepts should be on the same level, in some sense must be on the same level (even perhaps all exist as objects), motivates the fallacy. It is a short step from that feeling to treating one's own definition, however arbitrary, of a "true Scotsman" (who else's?) as having the same objectivity as that of a geometrical figure or an existing individual, and then attempting to make the world agree.[4]
[edit] Errors in usage
In situations where the subject's status is previously determined by specific behaviors, the fallacy does not apply. For example, it is perfectly justified to say, "No true vegetarian eats meat," because not eating meat is what defines a person as a vegetarian. Similarly, claiming that "no true democracy has coercion in the voting process" is not a fallacy because a lack of coercion is a necessary component of democracy.
[edit] See also
- Equivocation
- Euphemism
- Loaded language
- Persuasive definition
- Power word
- Jingoism
- Reification (fallacy)
[edit] External links
[edit] References
- ^ Flew, Antony (1975), written at London, Thinking About Thinking – or do I sincerely want to be right?, Collins Fontana
- ^ Hope, Anthony (2004), written at Oxford, Medical Ethics: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press
- ^ The No True Scotsman Fallacy Fallacy Fallacy
- ^ Stove, David (1991), The Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies, Wiley
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