I see this fallacy all the time, and it’s good to have a name for it.
Usually when I see it[1] it’s in a political context where employing the fallacy is an effective rhetorical move (because it lets you switch from “Hated enemy group X disagrees with us about a controversial question of fact” to “Hated enemy group X wants cute babies to die in agony”). I suspect few people in such a dispute are (1) willing to listen to a complain that the argument is fallacious and also (2) willing to accept a framing with “because that thing is true” as part of it.
So I guess this is best used “internally”, as a tool for thinking about one’s own mental mistakes. (Like most things in the field of cognitive biases, probably.)
I see this fallacy all the time, and it’s good to have a name for it.
Usually when I see it[1] it’s in a political context where employing the fallacy is an effective rhetorical move (because it lets you switch from “Hated enemy group X disagrees with us about a controversial question of fact” to “Hated enemy group X wants cute babies to die in agony”). I suspect few people in such a dispute are (1) willing to listen to a complain that the argument is fallacious and also (2) willing to accept a framing with “because that thing is true” as part of it.
So I guess this is best used “internally”, as a tool for thinking about one’s own mental mistakes. (Like most things in the field of cognitive biases, probably.)
[1] Or maybe it’s just when I notice it.