Does this qualify as the Nirvana fallacy / perfect solution fallacy?

Felipe Contreras writes:

You are morphing the conclusion. The original conclusion made emphasis on X being frequent , whereas your emphasis is that X can't be avoided. Your conclusion completely ignored the "happen all the time" part. In fact, in the original reasoning it's the frequency was the reason given.

These two arguments are not the same:

• It's fine to allow speeding, since speeding happens all the time
• It's fine to allow murder, since we can't avoid murder

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:

[To Felipe Contreras]

The original conclusion made emphasis on X being frequent

No. The conclusion is "It's fine to allow avoidable bad things." This says nothing about frequency. Besides, there is no "frequency" exception to this fallacy. Consider the following:

In a perfect world, nobody every speeds.
In this world, people speed frequently.
Therefore, we shouldn't bother trying to stop people from speeding.

Again, this is a classic nirvana fallacy . If you are still not convinced, look at your own reasoning. You said the two are not the same (of course they are not, but that doesn't mean they both aren't fallacious in the same way.) Doesn't murder happen all the time as well? 400,000 people are murdered each year. Now it is not fallacious since it happens "all the time"? Of course not. Frequency is irrelevant. The reason this is fallacious is because we saying we should do nothing (allow) because we can't achieve the ideal outcome.

 

 

Felipe Contreras writes:
[To Bo Bennett, PhD]

The reason this is fallacious is because we [are] saying we should do nothing (allow) because we can't achieve the ideal outcome.

I understand if that's what was being said, then it would be the nirvana fallacy, but I claim that is not what was said.

I was the one that made the synthetic argument "it's fine to allow speeding, since speeding happens all the time", and I know what gives weight to the argument, it is the why that is important. Your syllogism is pretty far from this argument, and in fact it's not complete; it has hidden premises.

1. In a perfect world, nobody ever speeds
2. In this world, people speed frequently
3. Stopping people from speeding is an imperfect solution
4. We should reject solutions that are not perfect
5. Therefore, we shouldn't bother trying to stop people from speeding

This would be the complete argument, but in this argument premise 1 and 2 are immaterial, all that matters is that solution X is imperfect, but you changed the why we shouldn't bother, therefore it's not my argument; it's a strawman of my argument. In your version of my argument the current state of this world doesn't even matter.

In my argument the ideal outcome doesn't matter at all.

TrappedPrior (RotE) writes:
[To Felipe Contreras]

It's fine to allow speeding, since speeding happens all the time
It's fine to allow murder, since we can't avoid murder

Are these two not logically equivalent?

1) It's fine to allow speeding; since speeding happens all the time (implying we can't avoid it)

2) It's fine to allow murder, since we can't avoid murder (implying that it happens all the time)

Speeding and murder are both illegal and arguably immoral acts that occur all the time in the real world. Despite punishments and social disincentives against them they're still taking place in pretty much every society, so we can say that they're "unavoidable" in the sense that at least a few occurrences will happen, except in an ideal society where there'd be no speeding or murder. We don't have that ideal society, but that doesn't mean we should allow anyone caught speeding to get away, or anyone caught murdering to walk off with a slap on the wrist, for example.

OP's hypothetical conclusion was the same - "it's fine to allow avoidable bad things to happen because unavoidable bad things happen all the time" - and it's fallacious for the same reason. If the emphasis is on reducing harm by preventing bad things, then as many should be dealt with as possible.

Felipe Contreras writes:
[To Rationalissimo]

No, they are not the same. In one the reason is the frequency , in the other it's the unavoidability.

Consider these two:

• It's fine to allow speeding; since speeding happens once every minute
• It's fine to allow speeding; since speeding happens once every year

They are both unavoidable, but they are not the same argument. What gives weight to the argument is the amount. An argument that concludes it's OK to lose $1 is different from one that concludes it's OK to lose $1,000,000. To ignore this amount is a mistake.

Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Felipe Contreras]

There are two major problems with your line of reasoning:

1) In these examples, you are creating a massive difference in frequency. There is no comparison in the original argument; it is simply using one frequency "all the time". As pointed out, your reasoning is seriously flawed when we point out that murders, rape, etc. happen "all the time." "Happens all the time" is NOT justification for allowing it to happen.

2) Even the most extreme example, "it is okay to lose some pocket change because it happens all the time," is a non sequitur . It doesn't follow. Ultimately, you are making a claim and you are pointing to the frequency at which something occurs as justification for it occurring (being allowed, acceptable). This is simply not a valid justification.

Back to the nirvana fallacy , I guarantee exploring your line of reasoning would come back to this fallacy. The whole idea of "unavoidable" juxtaposes a world in which the thing in question is avoidable (i.e., a perfect or ideal world.)

I don't know how else I can explain this. I don't think I could possibly be more clear. At this point, I would really consider if you are doing your best to save face with your friend on the argument. Check out this article I wrote which may help you move on from this, if you backed yourself into a corner: https://www.bobennett.com/posts/bobennett/that_ahole_who_is_right.html

Felipe Contreras writes:

"Happens all the time" is NOT justification for allowing it to happen.

Indeed; it's an error in reasoning, but it's not a non sequitur, nor is it the nirvana fallacy.

1. Losing $1 happens once each month
2. That which happens all the time can't be that bad
3. Therefore it's fine to lose $1 once each second

This is clearly fallacy, but it's not the nirvana fallacy. The important part is not that premise 1 is unavoidable; it's that it happens regularly. Because it happens regularly, it is a given that it's survivable. But because it's survivable 1 time a month doesn't mean it's fine 2.6 million times a month.

The fallacy is that the weight of "bad things" is assumed to be zero, so a million times zero is zero. But it is not zero. The fact that you can tolerate X one time doesn't mean you can (or should) tolerate it n times. I don't know if such fallacy has a name.