No True Scotsman
From RationalWiki
No True Scotsman is a logical fallacy by which an individual attempts to avoid being associated with an unpleasant act by asserting that no true member of the group they belong to would do such a thing.
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[edit] Origins
The term was coined by Antony Flew, who gave an example of a Scotsman who sees a newspaper article about a series of sex crimes taking place in Brighton, and responds that "no Scotsman would do such a thing". When later confronted with evidence of another Scotsman doing even worse acts, his response is that "no true Scotsman would do such a thing", thus disavowing membership in the group "Scotsman" to the criminal on the basis that the commission of the crime is evidence for not being a Scotsman. However, this is a fallacy as there is nothing in the definition of "Scotsman" which makes such acts impossible. The term "No True Scotsman" has since expanded to refer to anyone who attempts to disown or distance themselves from wayward members of a group by excluding them from it.
Broadly speaking, the fallacy does not apply if there is a clear and well-understood definition of what membership in a group requires and it is that definition which is broken (e.g., "no honest man would lie like that!", "no Christian would worship Satan!" and so on).
[edit] Prime examples
Phrases such as "un-American", "un-Christian" or "inhumane" are widely used in politics and media to distance oneself from a subject, defining them as outside the bounds of what the speaker considers to be truly 'American', 'Christian' or 'human' behaviour. These phrases strongly suggest the No True Scotsman fallacy, since the use, for example of "un-American" to describe specific political activities by some American citizens implies some special definition of "American" beyond mere nationality.
[edit] Religious
With respect to religion, the fallacy is well used, often even overused. Religious apologists will repeatedly try to use the No True Scotsman argument to distance themselves from more extreme or fundamentalist groups but this does not prevent such extremists actually being religious - they themselves would certainly argue otherwise. Moderate Muslim leaders, for example, are well known for declaring Islamic extremists as "not true Muslims" as Islam is a religion of peace. Similarly, moderate Christians, such as those in Europe, sometimes aghast when viewing their right-wing counterparts in the US, immediately declaring them "not true Christians", even though they believe in the same God and get their knowledge of it from the same book. Modern pagans do it all the time, perhaps even more than other religions, due to the fact that there is no agreed upon orthodoxy for the whole group, with some well-established practices in one setting being considered icky in others. Silver Ravenwolf, one of the best selling "leaders" of neopagans, has done this with multiple ancient, well-established practices.
Occasionally atheists can be guilty of the fallacy, such as someone hypothetically exclaiming that "true atheists" don't believe in ghosts or UFOs when such disbeliefs actually have nothing to do with an atheistic philosophy (although they can be linked by concepts of observational evidence and rationalism).
[edit] Political
A modern example may be found at the would-be Conservative encyclopedia, Conservapedia. The founder of the site, Andrew Schlafly, has repeatedly used this fallacy to defend his personal concept that Conservatives, by definition apparently, do not practice deceit, at all, ever, no way. When confronted with examples of deceit on the part of Conservatives, he routinely disavows that these individuals are Conservatives at all, on the basis that Conservatives do not practice deceit.[1] He instead assigns them to the group liberal, regardless of evidence to the contrary - indeed Schlafly has a tendency to shoehorn anyone into the category of "liberal" unless they conform with an increasingly strict set of criteria (observers wait with bated breath to see if Schlafly will, one day, accidentally render himself a liberal by his own definition). The use of this fallacy is underlined by the fact that prior to revelations of deceit, the same individuals would have been hailed as good Conservatives. Another prime example is Conservapedia's insistence that any "activist judge" is, by definition, liberal.[2]
[edit] External links
- A hilarious spin-cycle in and out of No True Scotsmanism is here.
- A YouTube video on the fallacy is here.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Comments regarding Jack Abramoff's Conservative credentials
- ↑ http://www.conservapedia.com/Activist_judge
| Articles about logical fallacies | |||||
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| Formal fallacies | |||||
| Informal fallacies | |||||
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No True Scotsman | |||||
| Red herrings | |||||
| Conditional fallacies | |||||
| Fallacious argument styles | |||||
