Restricting the Options to Two:

‘Black and White’ Thinking

In black and white thinking, or the false dichotomy to give it

its slightly grand title, the arguer gives only two options when

other alternatives are possible. For example, ‘If you want

better hospitals for everyone, then you have to be prepared

to raise taxes. If you don’t want to raise taxes, you can’t have

better hospitals for everyone.’ Logical nonsense! Plenty of

other options are possible between these two extremes.

(Maybe money could be swapped from building roads . . . or

new missiles.) Someone using this type of argument is proba-

bly deliberately trying to obscure other available approaches.

You may also spot another failure of logic in this example (like

buses, fallacies often come in twos and threes) — mistaking

correlation for causation (see the later section ‘Mistaking a

Connection for a Cause: Correlation Confusion’). Better hospi-

tals and higher taxes aren’t necessarily linked: healthcare can

improve without increased funding and increased funding for

hospitals doesn’t necessarily improve it either

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