pleading-y [Biases & Fallacies]

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====== Special Pleading Fallacy ======

By [[yiler-huang| Yiler Huang]]

The Special Pleading fallacy is the situation in which a person makes up a reason -often an illogical one- to explain why they made a mistake or broke a rule. It is easy to fall into this fallacy because it hurts one’s self esteem knowing that they made a mistake, similar to the Self Serving bias. 

My mother would sometimes tell me to buy something for her on the way home, and would sometimes get unhappy when I forgot it. However, she also often forgot what I told her to buy, but she would always say that she’s too busy so it’s okay. My father would sometimes get upset when the dining table’s messy, but he’s often the one who made it messy. He would always say that it’s because he’s old so it’s okay for him to not notice it.

A case of Special Pleading is not always unreasonable, sometimes our mistakes are really caused by external factors which we can’t control. Such as being late because the MRT stopped in the middle of the trip, or other factors we can not control. There is nothing you can do to prevent this from happening, therefore, it can be justified. On the other hand, examples like forgetting to buy something for someone at the supermarket, are unjustified. This is because there are ways to prevent you from forgetting it -like making notes or setting alarms-, and it is your own fault that it happened. 

One easy way to avoid this fallacy is to think that when someone else uses the same excuse as yours, would they think it’s illogical or not? This allows us to see our arguments from a different perspective and can help us identify the fallacy we are falling into.