Special pleading

An attempt to apply a double standard: one standard or rule for the claimant or proponent making a claim – for they or their claim are ‘special’ – and a stricter or more demanding one for critics or opponents, or everyone else. For example, a police union representative acknowledges that officers are discouraged to issue citations or official notifications of traffic offences, etc., to fellow officers by utilizing the discretion available to them in the general exercise of their responsibilities ‘on the streets’, calling this apparent special treatment “a professional courtesy”, when in fact off-duty police officers are no more entitled to be the subject of such an exception than anyone else†.

Special pleading is an expression of partiality and inconsistency, when protagonists or arguers engage in special pleading they are endeavouring to favour one view, their own or a particular position they perceive as worthy of support, at the expense of and indulging in prejudice against others. On occasion special pleaders will seek to reverse the burden of proof in their efforts to have their stance accepted.

Special pleading involves an effort to persuade by presenting the aspects of an issue which are congenial with the conclusion argued for, while avoiding or dismissing aspects not consistent with the arguer’s beliefs, aspects which are likely to be seen by the advocate as unfavourable. Special pleaders are prone to engage in post hoc reasoning when defending their (failed) claims, and to become enmeshed in self-deception, for example, the reaction of practitioners of the divining rod after participating in controlled trials of dowsing and achieving test results indistinguishable from what would have been expected on the basis of guesswork. “If only we’d been permitted to use our own personal, preferred set-up for the testing we would have ‘showed’ those scientists and scored a 100 per cent success rate, just like always!” (see also: Confirmation bias, Observer bias)

A double standard is the circumstance in which a principle or expectation is sought to be applied unfairly (and inconsistently) to different claims, actors, or groups, unfair in that there is no relevant and legitimate difference justifying the variance in treatment – one may be condemned for the slightest supposed flaw or transgression, while the other is treated much more charitably or forgivingly.

The way words and descriptors are employed illustrates the thinking involved in this fallacy:

Sportsman ó playboy

police officer ÛÜ cop

enterprising v opportunistic

colourful 78 loud

earthy ÛÜ gross

cautious èç negative

reserved 78 secretive

group ó gang

A hint of self-interested inconsistency:

A businessman believes the taxation system should be made fairer and that the wealthy are taxed too leniently – several years’ later when he subsequently joins the tax bracket of the well-to-do he takes a different view, he now sees that the wealthy are too heavily taxed and that this has an unnecessarily oppressive affect on ‘wealth creation’ and the country’s prosperity.

“Do what I say, not what I do!”

(see also: myside bias, argument, soundness, problem of adequacy, persuasion/persuasiveness, fallacy, reasoning, conclusion, claim, evidence, (hidden) assumptions, establish, support, ground, justification, controversies)