Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
We are going to start off by reviewing a fallacy we covered earlier this season: Guilt by Association. Do you want to hit pause real quick & see if you can remember what this fallacy is? The Guilt by Association Fallacy happens when someone rejects an idea or a claim simply because someone who they dislike also believes the idea or claim. We see this happen with ideas held by groups of people who have been “demonized”...and basically everything & anything they believe is discredited simply b/c they believe it.
If you think you’re facing a Guilt by Association fallacy, the question to ask yourself is this: “Is it really true that it’s a bad idea just b/c that other person or group did it or believed it?”
If you want to review or hear more about this fallacy, check out Episode 64.
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Ok, the new fallacy we’ll be talking about today is the Appeal to Common Practice Fallacy. The Appeal to Common Practice Fallacy is saying that because most people do a certain thing, it must be right.
Now, if this fallacy sounds sort of familiar, you’d be right…just a few episodes ago in episode 118, we talked about the Appeal to Common Belief, which said that just because most people believe a certain thing, it must be true. So do you see how this is similar? The Appeal to Common Practice is just saying that b/c most people *do* a certain thing, it must be right or it should be done. And, yes, this is also a form of the Bandwagon fallacy, which we covered in episode 19!
The phrase that comes to mind is something your mother may have said to you: “If all your friends jump off a bridge, would you jump off it too?” This is kind of a funny way of saying that just b/c a certain action is common, doesn’t mean it’s good and right.
An example of this would be the student who got caught cheating on a test in school argues that he shouldn’t get in trouble because everyone cheats on their tests, he’s just the unlucky one who got caught. Well, even if it’s true that everyone cheats on their tests, does that mean it’s right? Does that mean this student shouldn’t get in trouble when they’re caught? No. Cheating is wrong, whether everyone is doing it or not.
Or, it could be the worker who steals office supplies from the workplace to use at home, but justifies it by telling themselves, “everyone does it, plus they don’t pay us enough anyways.”
The problem with the Appeal to Common Practice fallacy is that, no, just because a majority of people do something doesn’t mean it’s right or good or moral! We have to actually look at the action and judge the action for itself whether it’s good and moral or not! If all your friends started stealing shoes at the mall, would that mean it’s all the sudden right to steal shoes? No, of course not.
One place this fallacy really becomes obvious is when people in crowds get into what’s called a ‘mob mentality’. We see this during riots when groups of people start to destroy property, attack police and start fights…because they’re part of a larger group who believes it’s ok, and even that they’re justified in doing those things. This can also happen when there’s a major sporting event and fans on both sides of the game get really excited. Whether it’s the losing team or the winning team, the mob mentality can kick in and the fans can start to do some crazy things either in celebration of a win or in the disappointment of a defeat. But they justify doing those crazy things because it becomes a common practice for that particular group to do those things, even when what they’re doing is clearly destructive or wrong.
Question to ask yourself: “Does the fact that everyone else is doing it make it right?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
