Question

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Is this a fallacy of division?

Is it fallacious to argue that given that African-American individuals are more likely to have excessive forced used against them and be killed by police violence, that individual cases of the use of disproportionate force by white officers against African-American individuals is likely due to their race? 

asked on Thursday, May 28, 2020 04:35:25 PM by

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Answers

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Bo Bennett, PhD
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The main problem I see is confusing causality with correlation. We are concluding a cause (racism) based on a correlation (African-American individuals are more likely to have excessive forced used against them). If the fact is that African-American individuals are more likely to have excessive forced used against them, we need to find out why—we simply cannot assert that it is racism. I am speaking as a logician here, not a social scientist (i.e, this example does not reflect my academic opinion on race and violence). To remove any biases consider the following:

Labrador Retriever puppies are more likely than other breeds to be held by children.
Poppy, the Labrador Retriever who was held by Johnny was held because he was a lab.

It might be the case that Johnny loves labs, or that Poppy came over to Johnny, or many other reasons.

I don't think this is an example of the fallacy of division.

answered on Thursday, May 28, 2020 05:42:34 PM by Bo Bennett, PhD

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account no longer exists writes:

Thank you very much for this answer - it’s really clarified some things for me. Just to confirm - as far as it could be established that the excessive force was caused by racial factors, one could say that it was likely that race was a factor in individual cases? 

posted on Thursday, May 28, 2020 06:15:10 PM
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Bo Bennett, PhD writes:
[To Sophie]

If by this we mean a sampling of a population cases were studied, and out of those cases, the majority (over 50%) were found to be caused by racial factors, then it is fair to conclude that, statistically, any given case in that same population is likely to be caused by racial factors. This is similar to saying that in a jar, 51% of all the jellybeans are red, and any given jellybean in the jar randomly picked is likely to be red.

[ login to reply ] posted on Thursday, May 28, 2020 06:35:48 PM
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TrappedPrior (RotE)
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The Fallacy of Division suggests that, since trait X is true for the group Y, it must also be true for the parts of that group. 

So "more likely to have excessive force used against them and killed by police" (X) is assumed true for African-Americans (Y). 

Following your logic, one could that a given African-American facing disproportionate use of force by white officers could be racially-motivated. This is not the Fallacy of Division as you are only suggesting, not making a definitive statement.

However, the claim is slightly different - first you talk about excessive force with the race of the officer not mentioned, then you talk about disproportionate force by white officers. By 'disproportionate' I'm guessing you're referring to 'out of proportion' rather than 'statistically overrepresented', in which case, there's no problem.

answered on Thursday, May 28, 2020 05:12:02 PM by TrappedPrior (RotE)

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Michael Hurst writes:

I disagree. The race of the offending officer is not at issue. It is disproportionate use of force against people of certain races that is the issue. Black officers can target Black civilians at a disproportionate rate, and while It may not be based on "racism" by definition, but it can still be based on race, if there is a fear of Black civilians, or some collegial advantage to targeting Black civilians.

In addition, people of one race can be prejudiced or racist against members of their own race. It is rare, but it does happen.

posted on Friday, May 29, 2020 10:52:37 AM
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Michael Hurst
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I don't think so. If you said that the use of force is absolutely due to racism, that would be fallacious. But if you say "likely", you are saying that based on historical data the probability that the action is based on race is high. There can be different opinions - someone else might argue that the probability is low because AAs commit crime at a higher rate. Neither is a fallacious argument, IMHO, they are just coming to different conclusions based on the weight they put on different contributing factors.

answered on Friday, May 29, 2020 10:41:30 AM by Michael Hurst

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