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