So with the Paris attacks, I’ve heard many people (falsely) claiming that Muslims implicitly support the attacks; because if they do not, then “where is the Muslim outrage?”
When Hamas, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad, as well as Iran have condemned the attacks, I think that that question is rather stupid.
But it is also obviously a logical fallacy: if I do not see X then X does not exist.
I’m leaning towards the latter, but it seems to be the opposite: rather than using evidence of correlation the argument uses absence of evidence, so it doesn’t feel quite right.
I’d just call it totalitarian bad manners: that everyone must publicly display an approved set of emotions in an approved manner or else be thought suspect of… well, something or other, and definitely Not One Of Us. (As in, long before the internet, “poppyism” in the UK at the this time of year, and the Diana Memorial Hysteria, and nowadays endless Facebook memes).
In this particular case it’s a subset of “othering”, but I don’t know if there’s an establised taxonomy of those.
Also, whatever the philosophical taxonomy, there is Lenin’s concept of “useful idiocy”: the more people who can be persuaded to provide evidence to persuade Muslims that they’re all being tarred with the “terrorist” brush, the more support ISIS hopes to arouse.
Excluded middle, black and white thinking. The logic seems to be either group X disapproves Y in which case there would be outrage, or they support Y in which case there would a be lack of outrage. One can think of many reasons for a hypothetical lack of outrage. Moreover, you could take the opposite to test it: if the group likes it so much, there should be plenty of examples of support. This suffers the same fallacy, but it’s consistent with the original questioner and could put them in a bind.
Although not a fallacy, the line of thinking also tends to be hypocritical, because most people don’t go around condemning anything that could be tenuously connected to them by an opponent. And even if they did, it’s not really possible to do it in a way that would be easily accessible to most people. I could, on behalf of all white people, condemn Adam Sandler right now, but only a couple hundred people will see it.
Argumentum ex silencio? The arguer isn’t aware of any outrage, and therefore is assuming that there isn’t any? It doesn’t get to the heart of the argument, which is that “all Muslim people must universally condemn anything bad that Muslims do,” but it’s one element.
Dr. Drake, the issue is whether the premise “If Muslims are against the Paris attacks then they will display moral outrage” is true. (Which it isn’t, obviously - there are all kinds of other ways that Muslims can manifest their being against the attacks).
So this is an an invalid argument or an unsound argument, but it isn’t a logical fallacy.
That sounds like false dilemma (aka false dichotomy). It wrongly ignores other possibilities (i.e. some people may be against the attacks, but aren’t vocal about the outrage - at least not vocal enough for you to hear about it).
Obviously, when arguing on the internet pointing out the illogic of someone’s argument is going to achieve a net result of zero - so the advice offered is only for my benefit, but I do appreciate the assistance.
I don’t require someone at a funeral to scream, wail and gnash their teeth in order to believe that they are feeling sad or grieving. Claiming that they are not would be an extraordinary claim.