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A fallacy of illicit transference is an informal fallacy occurring when an argument assumes there is no difference between a term in the distributive (referring to every member of a class) and collective (referring to the class itself as a whole) sense.[1]

There are two variations of this fallacy:[1]

Since Judy is so diligent in the workplace, this entire company must have an amazing work ethic.
Because this company is so corrupt, so must every employee within it be corrupt.

While fallacious, arguments that make these assumptions may be persuasive because of the representativeness heuristic.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hurley, Patrick (2014), A Concise Introduction to Logic (12th ed.), Cengage Learning, pp. 161, 172, ISBN 978-1-285-96556-7


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