F042 • Informal - Relevance/Appeals
Also known as: Everyone Does It, Common Practice Fallacy, Argumentum ad Antiquitatem (when practice is traditional)
There is a particular kind of reassurance in knowing that what you are doing is what everyone else does too. We look around, see a practice that seems normal, and take that normalcy as permission -- or even as justification. Appeal to Common Practice is when the fact that something is widely done quietly becomes the reason we treat it as acceptable or correct.
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Most people do X; therefore X is acceptable/correct
Observing what others do is one of the most efficient ways to learn how to navigate the world. As children, we learn language, social norms, and practical skills by watching and copying. That strategy is so deeply wired that it persists into adulthood, and most of the time it still works -- if everyone washes their hands before eating, there is probably a good reason. The failure mode arrives when we stop asking whether a widespread practice is actually good and start assuming it must be, just because it is widespread. Common practices can persist for reasons that have nothing to do with their merit: habit, inertia, lack of alternatives, or simply because questioning them feels uncomfortable. The fact that something is normal does not make it right; it just makes it familiar.
| When establishing conventions or protocols where standardization itself has value. |
| When common practice reflects collective wisdom or testing over time, combined with evidence of effectiveness. |
| When describing norms for informational purposes without claiming they're therefore correct. |
| You might notice yourself feeling relieved when you discover that a questionable behavior is widespread -- as if the prevalence has answered a question it has not actually addressed. |
| Watch for the moment when 'this is how everyone does it' stops feeling like a description and starts feeling like a justification. |
| Pay attention to situations where you feel less guilty about something specifically because others do it too, rather than because you have reasoned through whether it is appropriate. |
| Notice if 'industry standard' or 'common practice' is being invoked to end a conversation about whether a practice is actually good, rather than to begin one. |
| Thinking that describing a common practice is the same as committing this fallacy -- sometimes people mention prevalence as context, not as justification. |
| Ignoring that common practices sometimes genuinely reflect collective wisdom that has been tested over time, especially in domains with tight feedback loops. |
| Treating all appeals to norms as fallacious, when some conventions exist precisely because standardization itself has value. |
| Appeal to Common Practice |
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| Justifying an action, practice, or belief as acceptable or correct solely because it's commonly done or widely practiced, without examining whether the practice is actually justified or ethical. |
| The prevalence of a practice doesn't establish its correctness, morality, or rationality. Common practices can be inefficient, unethical, or based on outdated information. Something being 'normal' or 'what everyone does' provides no logical support for its merit. |
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