Questionable cause
🧠 Psych - 103 / 200
Hello!
It seems a lot of fallacies have a more Philosophical aspect than a Psychological one.
Therefore, I have a poll for you. Do cast your vote below!
For now, let’s talk about the Fallacy of Questionable cause.
What is it?
Correlation does not equal causation. Just because two things seem together, doesn’t mean that one was caused by the other.
Examples -
Poor people don’t have money, but that doesn’t mean that giving them money will eliminate poverty. (Poor people are often poor for reasons, such as drug addiction and bad behavior; giving such people money doesn’t actually help.) [1]
Some bad person is found to have used bitcoin. People then conclude the bitcoin currency must be bad. (Bitcoin causes evil.) [1]
Where does it occur?
Fundamentally, a questionable cause fallacy works because its conclusion is something that people want to be true.
(Remember when we learned about Confirmation bias? )
Why do I need to know?
Because, based on this knowledge, people can produce desired outcomes, and move from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.
We must be vigilant in certain situations so that we can identify the danger of the questionable cause fallacy, either in other people’s thinking or our own.
Takeaways: -
Wanting something too much is a problem for us, and very often pulls us into the opposite of what we want.
References & Studies: -
https://freemansperspective.com/fallacy-3-questionable-cause/
https://psychology.wikia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_the_single_cause
What do you think about such fallacies with the Philosophical aspect?
Your feedback will help for future iterations of this newsletter :)
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