Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Abortion and an Inverse Application of the Decision-Point Fallacy

(This is for one of my Logic students, who asked a very good question in class tonight.)

Decision-Point Fallacy: The assumption that there must be a specific transforming point even though no such point exist or needs to exist.

Example: Joe had a full head of hair. Now, years later, he is bald. He lost much of his hair. When did Joe change from not bald to bald? What was the tipping point from not bald to bald?

This reasoning commits the decision point fallacy. Non-B becomes B. Quantitatively.

The more rational way of looking at this is to say that the transition from Non-B to B happens gradually, over a period of time.

ChristopherHitchens uses a variation on the decision-point fallacy in his argument against abortion.

The abortionist claims there was a time, a point perhaps, when the human was not a person. And then the non-person becomes a person. Non-P becomes P. Qualitatively (not quantitatively). “Human” and “person” are not quantitative things, but have to do with a quality or, perhaps, an essence. “What else could the fertilized egg be but a human?”, asks Hitchens.

An “essence” would not be something that is gradually acquired. Historically, some believed there was a point when the human in utero became “ensouled.” That has been understood as a “point in time” event, not something gradually acquired like baldness. (For example, a square would not gradually evolve from four-sidedness to three-sidedness.)

Hitchens doesn’t think anything special happens that would allow for this. To him it makes more sense to call the human a person from beginning to end. The alternative is to reason that, at some point, a “human” became a “person.” Acquiring personhood is not like becoming bald, which happens over time (and thus avoids the decision-point fallacy). So I think, in Hitchens’ kind of reasoning, an inverse application of the decision point fallacy is being utilized by those who say that, somehow, Non-P becomes P. Because a point in time (time t) would be needed, and this seems arbitrary.

In the case of baldness, it is a fallacy to say “Suddenly Non-B became B.” In the case of personhood one would need to say “Suddenly Non-P became P.” If one reasoned that personhood is something (Iike baldness) that is gradually acquired, that would be absurd. Hence, the inverse relationship.