Argument to moderation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Middle ground)
Jump to: navigation, search
"Middle ground" redirects here. For other uses, see Middle Ground (disambiguation).

Argument to moderation (Latin: argumentum ad temperantiam)—also known as [argument from] middle ground, false compromise, gray fallacy, and the golden mean fallacy[1]—is an informal fallacy which asserts that the truth can be found as a compromise between two opposite positions. This fallacy's opposite is the false dilemma.

Vladimir Bukovsky points out that the middle ground between the Big Lie of Soviet propaganda and the truth is a lie, and one should not be looking for a middle ground between disinformation and information.[2] According to him, people from the Western pluralistic civilization are more prone to this fallacy because they are used to resolving problems by making compromises and accepting alternative interpretations, unlike Russians who are looking for the absolute truth.

An individual operating within the false compromise fallacy believes that the positions being considered represent extremes of a continuum of opinions, and that such extremes are always wrong, and the middle ground is always correct.[1] This is not always the case. Sometimes only X or Y is acceptable, with no middle ground possible. Additionally, the middle ground fallacy can create the rather illogical situation that the middle ground reached in the previous compromise now becomes the new extreme in the continuum of opinions; all one must do is present yet another, radically opposed position, and the middle-ground compromise will be forced closer to that position. In politics, this is part of the basis behind Overton window theory.


  • A 100 ft canyon lies in front of Jack and Jill. Jack wants to build a 100 ft bridge to cross the canyon, but Jill doesn't want to cross at all. A compromise between the two would be a 50 ft bridge, which would only please Jill.
  • Bob says we should buy a computer. Sue says we shouldn't. Therefore, the best solution is to compromise and buy half a computer.
  • "Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected without, I thought, proper consideration." — Stan Kelly-Bootle[citation needed]
  • Jon wanted to touch the fire because he said that fire is cold, Jim said he shouldn't because it is hot, so they compromised and said it was lukewarm and Jon burned off his hand.
  • I wanted to live in Montreal, but she wanted to live in Vancouver, so we compromised and decided to live in Winnipeg.
  • I wanted to explore one side of the Milky Way, but he wanted to explore the opposite side, so we compromised and ended up into Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
  • Bobby wants all of the pie, whereas Dennis thinks they should each get half. The compromise that should make them both happy is to give Bobby three-fourths and Dennis one-fourth.
  • If you have read this far, you either grasped the concept behind the argument to moderation or you didn't. Therefore you still haven't grasped the concept fully.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ a b Fallacy: Middle Ground, The Nizkor Project (accessed 29 November 2012)
  2. ^ Vladimir Bukovsky, The wind returns. Letters by Russian traveler (Russian edition, Буковский В. К. И возвращается ветер. Письма русского путешественника.) Moscow, 1990, ISBN 5-2350-1826-5, page 345.

External links[edit]