Two Wrongs Make a Right is a fallacy in which a person
"justifies" an action against a person by asserting that the
person would do the same thing to him/her, when the action is not
necessary to prevent B from doing X to A. This fallacy has the following
pattern of "reasoning":
- It is claimed that person B would do X to person A.
- It is acceptable for person A to do X to person B (when A's doing X to B is not necessary to prevent B from doing X to A).
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because an action
that is wrong is wrong even if another person would also do it.
It should be noted that it can be the case that it is not wrong for A
to do X to B if X is done to prevent B from doing X to A or if X is done
in justified retribution. For example, if Sally is running in the park
and Biff tries to attack her, Sally would eb jsutified in attacking Biff
to defend herself. As another example, if country A is planning to
invade country B in order to enslave the people, then country B would be
justified in launching a pre-emptive strike to prevent the invasion.
- Bill has borrowed Jane's expensive pen, but found he didn't
return it. He tell's himself that it is okay to keep it, since she would
have taken his.
- Jane: "Did you hear about those terrorists killing those poor people? That sort of killing is just wrong."
Sue: "Those terrorists are justified. After all, their land was taken from them. It is morally right for them to do what they do."
Jane: "Even when they blow up busloads of children?"
Sue: "Yes."
- After leaving a store, Jill notices that she has underpaid by
$10. She decides not to return the money to the store because if she had
overpaid, they would not have returned the money.
- Jill is horrified by the way the state uses capital punishment.
Bill says that capital punishment is fine, since those the state kill
don't have any qualms about killing others.
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