Perfect solution fallacy

Information about Perfect solution fallacy

The perfect solution fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when an argument assumes that a perfect solution exists and/or that a solution should be rejected because some part of the problem would still exist after it was implemented.

Presumably, if no solution is perfect, then no solution would last very long politically once it had been implemented. Still, many people (notably utopians) seem to find the idea of a perfect solution compelling, perhaps because it is easy to imagine.

Examples:

These anti-drunk driving ad campaigns are not going to work. People are still going to drink and drive no matter what.
Rebuttal- Although the ads will not prevent every single instance of drunk driving, it would reduce the rate enough to make the policy worthwhile.


Seat belts are a bad idea. People are still going to die in car wrecks.
Rebuttal- While seat belts could never save 100% of people involved in car accidents, the number of lives that would be saved is enough to far outweigh any negative consequences of wearing a seat belt.


It is common for arguments that commit this fallacy to omit any specifics about how much the solution is claimed to not work, but express it only in vague terms. Alternatively, it may be combined with the fallacy of misleading vividness, when a specific example of a solution's failing is described in eye-catching detail and base rates are ignored (see availability heuristic).

The fallacy is a kind of false dilemma.

References

  • Browne, M. N. & Keeley, S. M. (2004). Asking the Right Questions. 7th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
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Informal fallacies
Special pleading • Red herring • Gambler's fallacy and its inverse • Fallacy of distribution (Composition • Division) • Begging the question • Many questions
Correlative-based fallacies:False dilemma (Perfect solution) • Denying the correlative • Suppressed correlative
Deductive fallacies:Accident • Converse accident
Inductive fallacies:Hasty generalization • Overwhelming exception • Biased sample • False analogy • Misleading vividness • Conjunction fallacy
Vagueness and Ambiguity:False precision • Slippery slope • Continuum fallacy
Equivocation:Equivocation • False attribution • Fallacy of quoting out of context • Loki's Wager • No true Scotsman
Questionable cause:Correlation does not imply causation (Cum hoc) • Post hoc • Regression fallacy • Texas sharpshooter • Circular cause and consequence • Wrong direction • Single cause
A fallacy is a component of an argument that is demonstrably flawed in its logic or form, thus rendering the argument invalid in whole. In logical arguments, fallacies are either formal or informal.
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Utopia (from Greek: οὐ no, and τόπος, place, i.e. "no place" or "place that does not exist," as well as "perfect place") is a fictional island near the coast of the Atlantic Ocean written about by Sir Thomas More as the
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The logical fallacy of misleading vividness involves describing some occurrence in vivid detail, even if it is an exceptional occurrence, to convince someone that it is a problem.
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The availability heuristic is a rule of thumb, heuristic, or cognitive bias, where people base their prediction of the frequency of an event or the proportion within a population based on how easily an example can be brought to mind.
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false dilemma—also known as false choice, false dichotomy, falsified dilemma, fallacy of the excluded middle, black and white thinking, false correlative, either/or fallacy, and bifurcation
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An informal fallacy is an argument pattern that is wrong due to a mistake in its reasoning. In contrast to a formal fallacy, the error has to do with issues of rational inference that occur in natural language; which are broader than can be represented by the symbols used in formal
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Special pleading is a form of spurious argumentation where a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves.
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The gambler's fallacy is a formal fallacy. It is the incorrect belief that the likelihood of a random event can be affected by or predicted from other, independent events.
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The inverse gambler's fallacy is a term coined by philosopher Ian Hacking to refer to a formal fallacy of Bayesian inference which is similar to the better known gambler's fallacy.
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A fallacy of distribution is a logical fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense.
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A fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some (or even every) part of the whole.
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A fallacy of division occurs when one reasons logically that something true of a thing must also be true of all or some of its parts.

An example:
  1. A Boeing 747 can fly unaided across the ocean.
  2. A Boeing 747 has jet engines.

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This article or section may be confusing or unclear for some readers.
Please [improve the article] or discuss this issue on the talk page. This article has been tagged since October 2007.
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Many questions, also known as complex question, presupposition, loaded question, "trick question", or plurium interrogationum (Latin, "of many questions"), is an informal fallacy.
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In logic, correlative-based fallacies, also known as fallacies of distraction, are logical fallacies based on correlative conjunctions.

A correlative conjunction is a relationship between two statements where one must be false and the other true.
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false dilemma—also known as false choice, false dichotomy, falsified dilemma, fallacy of the excluded middle, black and white thinking, false correlative, either/or fallacy, and bifurcation
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The logical fallacy of denying the correlative is an attempt made at introducing alternatives where there are none. In a way, it is the opposite of the false dilemma, which is denying other alternatives.

For example:

Policeman: "..

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The logical fallacy of suppressed correlative is a type of argument which tries to redefine a correlative (two mutually exclusive options) so that one alternative encompasses the other, i.e. making one alternative impossible.
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a Dicto simpliciter (Latin: "from a maxim without qualification" -- meaning 'from a universal rule') or ad Dictum simpliciter (Latin: "to a maxim without qualification" -- meaning 'to a universal rule') The a
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The logical fallacy of accident, also called destroying the exception or a dicto simpliciter ad dictum secundum quid, is a deductive fallacy occurring in statistical syllogisms (an argument based on a generalization) when an exception to the generalization is ignored.
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The logical fallacy of converse accident (also called reverse accident, destroying the exception or a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter) is a deductive fallacy that can occur in a statistical syllogism when an exception to a generalization is wrongly
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faulty generalization, also known as an inductive fallacy, is any of several errors of inductive inference:

Logic

The proportion PIE of the sample has attribute CAKE.

therefore

The proportion CAKE of the population has attribute PIE.
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Hasty Generalization, is a logical fallacy of faulty generalization by reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence. It commonly involves basing a broad conclusion upon the statistics of a survey of a small group that fails to sufficiently represent the whole
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An overwhelming exception is a logical fallacy similar to a hasty generalization. It is a generalization which is accurate, but comes with one or more qualifications which eliminate so many cases that what remains is much less impressive than the initial statement might have led
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A biased sample is a statistical sample of a population where some members of the population are less likely to be included than others. An extreme form of biased sampling occurs when certain members of the population are totally excluded from the sample (that is, they have zero
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False analogy is a fallacy applying to inductive arguments. It is often mistakenly considered to be a formal fallacy, but it is not, because a false analogy consists of an error in the substance of an argument (the content of the analogy itself), not an error in the logical
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The logical fallacy of misleading vividness involves describing some occurrence in vivid detail, even if it is an exceptional occurrence, to convince someone that it is a problem.
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The conjunction fallacy is a logical fallacy that occurs when it is assumed that specific conditions are more probable than a single general one.

The most oft-cited example of this fallacy originated with Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman:


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vagueness. One example of a vague concept is the concept of a heap. Two or three grains of sand is not a heap, but a thousand is. How many grains of sand does it take to make a heap? There is no clear line. (See the paradox of the heap.
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Ambiguity is the property of words, terms, notations and concepts (within a particular context) as being undefined, undefinable, or without an obvious definition and thus having an unclear meaning.
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