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Fallacies & Bad Faith (MOC)

⬅️ Back to 60.10 Argumentation · Sister MOCs: Debate Playbook (MOC) · Argument Anatomy (MOC) · Rhetoric & Persuasion (MOC) · Psychology of Belief (MOC) · Argumentation Library (MOC)

Two different failures, often confused. A fallacy is a broken inference — the argument doesn’t work. Bad faith is an intact inference deployed dishonestly, or a refusal to argue at all. Name the right one or you’ll lose the room.

The master reference

Logical Fallacies holds the full catalogue — formal, informal, and the Wikipedia-sourced list. Everything below is a route into it.

Formal Fallacies

Errors in the form. All of them are species of non sequitur.

Informal Fallacies

Errors in content, relevance, or language.

The Ones You Hit Most

Each with the counter, not just the name.

Bad Faith — The Named Moves

Not fallacies. Refusals to argue, dressed up as arguing. Debate Pervertry is the working taxonomy.

MoveWhat it looks like
The Lazy Gardener”Let’s not get into the weeds / this is just semantics” — obfuscating past the decisive detail
The Clown MirrorNever able to summarize your position; you spend the debate correcting characterizations
The Deaf PreacherSweeping moral statements in place of any factual response
Debate EdgingStacking descriptive claims toward a prescription never actually voiced
Occam’s Mallet”They benefited, therefore they plotted it”
Moral DodgeballInferring a different core value from a disagreement over an applied position
The Webster WarriorRetreating to a dictionary definition when the topic needs context
Analogy AllergyRefusing a hypothetical because it’s “wacky,” not because it’s inapplicable
Death by a thousand anecdotesAnecdote deployed against data
Tragedy of the Commons Sense”It’s just common sense” as the whole justification
The Robinhood ComplexAutomatically siding with whoever has less power
The Braveheart”Personally, I wouldn’t do that” instead of engaging the affected party’s real options

Why It Works — The Bias Substrate

Fallacies land because the audience is already primed.

Sources