Majority Belief and Perfectionists arguments:
It is not unusual for us to take our lead about what is an appropriate course of action on the basis of what the majority of reasonable people believe to be true. Many salespeople are aware of this and use this majority view as part of their argument to convince us we are taking the right course of action. After all, not everyone can be wrong, or can they? As consumers we are much more demanding than we were even a decade ago. However, when a salesperson imposes unreasonable expectations on the recommendations offered by a competitor they are not arguing fairly. But let us first look at the majority belief.
Majority belief:
Probably the most common piece of fallacious reasoning used to justify buying a product or service is to argue that because the majority of the public believe a certain proposition, then that proposition must be true. This is the majority belief fallacy. Taken at face value the following argument does, or at least did, seem reasonable:
It is widely believed by most informed customers and financial experts alike that the low cost endowment is a good means of paying-off your mortgage.
However, the only reason we are given to support this recommendation is that most people believe it to be the best advice. This is not a sound argument when we examine the underlying or hidden premise of the statement above, namely:
Any belief shared by most informed people is true.
Given the recent problems with endowment mortgages we are all wiser. But this does not mean salespeople are not prone to repeating the same mistake of making similar appeals to majority beliefs for other products.
The fallacy of majority belief is an easy one to commit, not least because quite often we can be persuaded by consensus opinion and it is quite an easy fallacy to avoid, if we want to. We should also be aware that sometimes the public have a knack of identify what is right. Being in the majority, as I said previously, doesn’t necessarily make it right. But then again, it doesn’t necessarily make it wrong either. Be on your guard and go with the crowd when you should, and not when you are told you should.
Perfectionist:
The perfectionist fallacy occurs when a salesperson places excessive demands on a proposal and then rejects it on the basis it will not solve the problem. This is the kind of argument we might hear used to dissuade us from taking a competitor’s advice. For example:
Well I can’t see how taking a few branches out of the tree will solve the problem of the roots undermining your house and weakening the foundations. Neither will it prevent the tree falling on your house if we get a storm.
I don’t see how replacing a few tiles here and there and re-pointing the capping tiles will solve the structural weakness of the roof. Neither will it prevent further leaks and damage to the structure of the building.
The hidden assumption driving the perfectionist fallacy is that we should only pursue plans that completely satisfy our needs. In other words, no course of action is worthwhile unless it solves the problem completely. But this approach is complete nonsense. In fact if this were the basis of all recommendations we would hardly buy any products or services at all.
This is not to suggest some problems do need a complete solution. However, partial solutions form a large part of many product and service sales. Very few of us can ever afford complete solutions to problems. Many recommendations are aimed at partial rather than complete solutions and these recommendations are justified if they are part of a wider strategy to reduce the larger problem at hand. Selling honestly does not just include being honest about what a company’s products can and cannot achieve. Honesty extends to the salesperson examining their own motivation for suggesting one course of action rather than another, and this applies equally to advice given by other parties.
Understanding the absurdity of the perfectionist fallacy better enables us to defend against its use. If we hear it being used we might want to remember the following:
Farmers put up fences around pasture to prevent the cows wandering off. Once in a while a cow escapes. But no one would fences are unjustified.
By analogy, partial solutions are justified if they resolve that portion of the problem they claim to resolve. So disparaging or rejecting a proposal simply because it is not a total solution is a weak argument.
What is required from the salesperson is a substantive argument. But even here we may still have to accept that in some instance we are better off with a partial solution rather than nothing. The salesperson dogmatically insisting that only a complete resolution is worth undertaking is not helpful.
In #10, the final blog on this topic, I will look at Weak Analogies and Appeals to Ignorance arguments.