Informal fallacy: Hegelian Falllacy

This fallacy is committed when it is assumed that the middle postion between two extremes must be correct simply because it is the middle position.


Example:

Congressman Davidson wants to keep welfare payments as they are now. While Congressman Crawford wants to increase welfare payments by 40%. The middle solution would be to increase welfare by 20% and that is what we should support.


This fallacy draws its strength from the extremes or bookends of a position leading to the middle being most sound. No exercise or too much exercise are an example of the two extremes of the position of exercise. Too much exercise can be harmful and not any at all can be harmful. So it would seem logical to choose the middle position that by definition, at least in this case, seems correct. But it is not always so. Lots of killing or no killing according to the Hegelian fallacy could lead us to a middle position of moderate killing as a lifestyle. Or mass fornication vs no fornication would lead us to moderate fornication as a way of life. We exist or we do not exist. The middle of this would be a that we are in between existence and non-existence or the middle ground of becoming. This is a contradiction according to Aristotle’s laws of thought (Law of Excluded Middle, everything must be or not be.).

To automatically assume that the middle position must be the best option simply because it is the middle is a fallacious reasoning. The middle position, however, may still be correct, but we should never choose the middle hastily, and instead, apply sufficient reason why this is so.

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