Appeal to Consequences

Type

Informal

AKA

Argumentum ad Consequentiam (appeal to consequences)

Description

Arguing a belief is false (or true) because it leads to undesirable (or desirable) outcomes.

Examples

• "If atheism is true, life is meaningless. Therefore, it’s false."
• "If God exists, bad people go to hell. Therefore, God must exist."
• "Without God there would be no objective morality, and that would be terrible, therefore God." (See Moral Argument - Argument from Objective moral values.)

Notes

• Whether a conclusion is comfortable has no bearing on whether it is true. Pascal's Wager is the appeal to consequences formalised, and the claim that religion is a human need is a soft version of it: useful, therefore to be kept, whether or not true.

Also see

• Pascal's Wager
• Argument from Desire
• Moral Argument - Argument from Objective moral values
• The human need for religion

#fallacy