False Compromise

Splitting the Difference rejects both of two opposing views on the presumption that "extreme" views are never true. Splitting the Difference claims that both sides have gone too far, and that the truth must be in the middle. However, the claim that both sides have gone too far is made without confronting the arguments that either side might give. If the arguer using the fallacy proposes an actual position, it is a merely arbitrary position defended by no rationale other than that it is in the middle. In extreme cases, the arguer may even propose a middle ground position for two views between which no middle ground exists.

The Common Denominator Fallacy accepts both of two opposing views on the grounds that both sides share at least some common assumptions. The Common Denominator Fallacy claims that there is really no dispute between the two sides, so they may both be accepted. However, it makes this claim by focusing on minor and preliminary points of agreement while overlooking the central points of disagreement that are really at issue.

Compromise may even be involved in the very structure of rational inquiry. As Hegel describes dialectic, it is the process of finding the kernel of truth in both of a pair of opposites (the thesis and antithesis), and devising a synthesis (a compromise?) that resolves the conflict.

Because the path to truth, or at least to acceptable law, so often passes through a compromise, and because defining common ground is often a first step toward the genuine resolution of disagreements, it is easy to fall into the trap of assuming that compromise is always desirable, even just for its own sake. The fallacy of False Compromise mimics the dialectical move to a rational synthesis, but does so, not by confronting and resolving the issues in question, but by diverting attention away from those issues.

The False Compromise Fallacy, like other fallacies, is often used to end discussion rather than to move it forward. Splitting the Difference is sometimes proposed simply to bring the discussion to a speedy resolution. For example, "You think my client needs to spend some time in jail, but we think twenty years is excessive. Let's agree on ten years, and we can all go home." Similarly, an appeal to the Common Denominator Fallacy is often used to break up a discussion (on a presumably friendly note), as in, "Well, I have to go home now, so, let's just agree to disagree." Sometimes, of course, discussions have to come to an end without resolution, and when this occurs, it is better that they end amicably. I confess that I myself sometimes use the Common Denominator fallacy to avoid getting into discussions that I don't want to have. Even so, the proper goal of argumentation is to end discussion by reaching eventual agreement, not to end it in a way that makes eventual agreement more difficult, or even impossible.