I’m sorry, but this is exactly the fallacy I’m describing in my post. Sometimes the innocent is convicted, and sometimes the guilty is acquitted, which means the only thing that makes “convicted” true in all circumstances is “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”. Nothing more. Now, you may certainly make very plausible Bayesian predictions about the fact that someone has been convicted, but they will always be probabilistic rather than determinative.
Consider the hypothetical where Trump’s conviction gets overturned or vacated, maybe because of some procedural defect, what would change? For me, it wouldn’t change the fact that Trump constructed a convoluted scheme to pay hush money to a porn star he had an affair with in an attempt to hide this fact from the voting public. The only thing that would change from the conviction getting overturned is whether “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”.
I don’t believe that anyone actually holds the syllogism you describe, because a consistent application would mean that even folks like Nelson Mandela (convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life) would be unfit to serve as president. Instead, what I gather people are doing is some combination of the composition/division fallacies:
A (being convicted of a felony) implies B (being a bad person).
B (being a bad person) implies C (being unfit to be president).
Therefore, A (being convicted of a felony) implies C (being unfit to be president).
I’m sorry, but this is exactly the fallacy I’m describing in my post. Sometimes the innocent is convicted, and sometimes the guilty is acquitted, which means the only thing that makes “convicted” true in all circumstances is “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”. Nothing more. Now, you may certainly make very plausible Bayesian predictions about the fact that someone has been convicted, but they will always be probabilistic rather than determinative.
Consider the hypothetical where Trump’s conviction gets overturned or vacated, maybe because of some procedural defect, what would change? For me, it wouldn’t change the fact that Trump constructed a convoluted scheme to pay hush money to a porn star he had an affair with in an attempt to hide this fact from the voting public. The only thing that would change from the conviction getting overturned is whether “the legal system has deemed an individual guilty of the allegations”.
I don’t believe that anyone actually holds the syllogism you describe, because a consistent application would mean that even folks like Nelson Mandela (convicted of sabotage and sentenced to life) would be unfit to serve as president. Instead, what I gather people are doing is some combination of the composition/division fallacies: