Wishful Thinking

Other Names

Appeal to Consequences

Description

Wishful thinking is when you state that something is true because you wish it were true. If you can make your fairy tale wonderful enough, your audience might be inclined to believe you.

Example

I have to believe in homeopathy because if it doesn't work then I have no hope of treating my condition.

Famous Examples

For thousands of years, human beings have been obsessed with beauty, truth, love, honor, altruism, courage, social relationships, art, and God. They all go together as subjective experiences, and it’s a straw man to set God up as the delusion. If he is, then so is truth itself or beauty itself.
If there is no God, then man and the universe are doomed. Like prisoners condemned to death, we await our unavoidable execution. There is no God, and there is no immortality. And what is the consequence of this? It means that life itself is absurd. It means that the life we have is without ultimate significance, value, or purpose.

Download Image Files

All Sophistry fallacy cards are shared under a Creative Commons 0 license. You are free to copy, use, modify, distribute or sell them in any way you wish. You are not required to credit us but we appreciate it.