search

Become an active member of our fallacy-discussing community (or just become a lurker!)

Limited Depth

Description: Failing to appeal to an underlying cause, and instead simply appealing to membership in a category.  In other words, simply asserting what you are trying to explain without actually explaining anything.

Logical Form:

Claim X is made about Y.
Claim X is true because Y is a member of category Z.

Example #1:

My dog goes through our garbage because he is a dog.

Explanation: We know your dog is a dog, but what about him being a dog makes him go through the garbage?  By referring to your dog as a member of the category “dog”, this fails to explain anything.

Example #2:

Mormons are really, really nice because they go to Mormon church.

Explanation: Question begging aside, simply stating that Mormons are a member of the group, “Mormon churchgoers” does not explain why they are nice.  A reasonable explanation would need to include a valid causal relationship between niceness and Mormon-church-going.

Exception: At times, limited depth can be used as a shorthand when assumptions are made that no deeper explanation is needed. 

I need oxygen because I am human!

Fun Fact: Mormons getting their own planet in the Mormon afterlife is actually a misconception, not official Mormon doctrine.

References:

Farha, B. (2013). Pseudoscience and Deception: The Smoke and Mirrors of Paranormal Claims. University Press of America.

Questions about this fallacy? Ask our community!

Eat Meat... Or Don't.

Roughly 95% of Americans don’t appear to have an ethical problem with animals being killed for food, yet all of us would have a serious problem with humans being killed for food. What does an animal lack that a human has that justifies killing the animal for food but not the human?

As you start to list properties that the animal lacks to justify eating them, you begin to realize that some humans also lack those properties, yet we don’t eat those humans. Is this logical proof that killing and eating animals for food is immoral? Don’t put away your steak knife just yet.

In Eat Meat… Or Don’t, we examine the moral arguments for and against eating meat with both philosophical and scientific rigor. This book is not about pushing some ideological agenda; it’s ultimately a book about critical thinking.

Get 20% off this book and all Bo's books*. Use the promotion code: websiteusers

* This is for the author's bookstore only. Applies to autographed hardcover, audiobook, and ebook.

Get the Book