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The appeal to tradition assumes a key part of what makes a belief or practice true or correct is its age—that is, it is old enough to be a tradition. If defenders of tradition simply went with the oldest beliefs and practices they could find, there would be no need to sort out which traditions to accept beyond discerning which are the most ancient.

But those making the appeal rarely use it to defend the ancient beliefs or practices. For example, while American defenders of “traditional” gender roles often hearken back to their perception of a past, they do not  draw their traditions of sexual roles from ancient Greece. This is not surprising—though these are ancient, they are not consistent with the values that are presented as traditional by present day American conservatives. Since defenders of tradition do not follow the “oldest is best” principle, they need some other guide in selecting their traditions—some principle other than time.

This leads to the obvious dilemma: if time is the determining factor for what is best, then they would need to embrace the oldest practices and beliefs they can find. If there are other factors, then there would be no need to appeal to tradition—they could just use these other factors to defend their beliefs and practices. The first option is absurd; the second makes referring to tradition pointless—except as a fallacy or rhetorical device. While the scope of time  is a problem for the defenders of tradition, there are analogous problems.

While time is obviously a factor, one also must consider geography. For example, Christian Americans who appeal to tradition when defending religious values do not embrace the traditions of the China, Persia (now Iran), or India. They focus on the United States and Europe. Not only that, they must focus on specific groups within those geographic locations—after all, there are diverse traditions in even a single American state. And even single cities. And even within a single family. Those making an appeal to tradition would need, to make a principled argument, give reasons as to why the traditions should (in addition to being from a specific time) also come from a specific location—and even a specific group. As has been argued repeatedly, if reasons can be advanced, then there is no need to appeal to tradition.

One interesting approach is to embrace a form of relativistic traditionalism: the traditions are best that are the traditions of my culture. This, obviously enough, would include a form of moral relativism: what is morally right or wrong is relative to the culture. Equally obviously it would run into the usual problems for moral relativism. One is that relativism entails that a person has no logical reason to accept the values of their culture as correct—that my culture accepts X gives me only practical reasons to follow X, such as avoiding being harmed or seeking praise. After all, if I know that relativism is true, I also know that all cultural values are equally good (or bad).

Another is that relativism ends up collapsing into subjectivism: I can form a culture of one and thus make my values the correct values—and so can everyone else. And I can change my values.  This clearly collapses into nihilism—there would be no values in any meaningful sense. In the case of relativism about beliefs, there would be the usual problems for embracing relativism about truth—ones addressed at length by other philosophers, such as Plato. As such, the relativism approach would end in failure.

If an appeal is made to objective truth and objective values, then invoking tradition would be an error: there are many traditions that are inconsistent and even contradictory—so they cannot all be correct. What would be needed would be arguments to show which beliefs and practices among the traditions are correct (if any).  Why, then, do people use the appeal to tradition?

One obvious reason is that it can work—fallacies often have far more persuasive power than good logic. Invoking tradition can also be seen as a rhetorical device: people often like traditions and calling something traditional can give that thing a positive feeling—though it would obviously be unearned unless reasons were given as to why it is true or good. Traditions can also often be comforting and give people a sense of stability and security—thus calling something traditional can invoke those feelings. But, once again, as a mere rhetorical device this is unearned.

In closing, I must note that I do not think that something must be bad because it is traditional—like all people, I have traditions that I like precisely because they are pleasant and comforting—but I know that appealing to tradition proves nothing.

 

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In the previous essay we looked at the family of fallacies in which the appeal to tradition resides. In this essay we will take a look at the test of time and the origin problem. As noted in that essay, the gist of the appeal to tradition is that it involves fallaciously inferring that something is correct or true simply because it is a tradition. While concluding that something is correct or true merely because it has been done or believed a long time is an obvious error, those making an appeal to tradition often try to invoke the notion of the test of time. In some cases, the appeal to the test of time is implied while in others it is explicitly made. The appeal to the test of time can be presented as the following argument:

 

Premise 1: X has withstood the test of time.

Conclusion: X is true, right, or correct, etc.

 

While this could be a possible fallacy, the main concern is working out what constitutes the test of time. If this simply means that X has been believed or practiced a long time, then this is just the appeal to tradition fallacy all over again. False beliefs can persist for centuries as can awful practices, so mere historical longevity does not suffice as evidence of truth or goodness.

The test of time can, of course, be defined in terms of actual testing. In the case of a belief it could be argued that the belief has been subject to repeated assessment for a long time using rigorous methods and thus has passed the test of time. While such testing over time would be good evidence for a belief, it still does not mean that the belief should be accepted as true because it is a tradition. Rather, it should be accepted as true because of the evidence found during the repeated testing. As such, if a belief has passed this sort of test of time, then there should be a significant body of evidence to back up the belief and hence there would be no reason to make a mere appeal to tradition. There are numerous examples of such beliefs—such as the belief that the earth orbits the sun, that fire burns, that the appeal to tradition is a fallacy, and smoking damages your health. There can, of course, be meaningful debate over even well-supported beliefs.

The same approach can be taken for practices—if a practice has been rigorously assessed over time, then there should be a significant body of evidence supporting the correctness or goodness of the practice and thus no reason to try to rely on a mere appeal to tradition. For example, the practice of good hygiene has been assessed over time and has been found to be a good health practice. Well-supported practices are also obviously still subject to debate and practices that involve value judgments (such as in law, ethics and religion) are matters of considerable dispute.

Using the test of time approach creates a dilemma: if the test of time is just another expression for tradition, then it is just an appeal to tradition. If the test of time involves rigorous testing, then there is no need to appeal to tradition—there would be good evidence and arguments to use instead. One thing that those who use the test of time approach must admit is that this test must have had a starting point. That is, every belief or practice that is defended as traditional must have an origin—this leads to the origin problem.

The origin problem for tradition is that when the tradition was new it could obviously not be defended by appealing to tradition (or the test of time). The obvious question to ask at the origin of a now traditional belief or practice is “what made it better than the alternatives then?”

The answer to this question should still be applicable today, though it might need to be modified to account for changes over time. As such, a fair response to an appeal to tradition is to engage in some thought time travel and ask the appealer why you should accept the belief or practice at the time before it became a tradition. For example, if someone is appealing to tradition to defend what they see as traditional roles, it is quite reasonable to trace the lineage of the tradition back to its origin and inquire about what made these roles better at that time—and why they are the best today. Obviously on day zero of a tradition there can be no appeal to tradition. If no reasons can be advanced as to why it was better then, merely saying it is a tradition now obviously provides no reasons to support its alleged truth or correctness.

 

 

 

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One fallacious way to argue that something is true or good is to make this inference by appealing to tradition. When the debate over same-sex marriage was at its peak, this sort of poor reasoning was commonly deployed in an effort to defend “traditional” marriage. While that debate is largely settled, the appeal to tradition is still employed to defend what some people see as traditions worth defending, such as “traditional” gender roles and “traditional” religious values. The obvious problem with this approach is that it involves a fallacy—a bad argument in which the premise(s) fail to logically support the conclusion. As to why people would use a fallacy, some reasons include not realizing it is a fallacy, not having any good arguments to use, or knowing that a fallacy can be far more persuasive than a logically good argument.

Rather than engage in the endless task of addressing the multitude of specific fallacious appeals to tradition, I will focus on the fallacy itself in the hopes that it will provide people with the tools needed to recognize and defend against such appeals. I will go beyond merely describing the fallacy and will do something of a deep dive. To begin, we should consider two relatives of the appeal to tradition, the appeal to belief and the appeal to common practice.

The appeal to belief fallacy occurs when a person infers that a claim is true simply because all or most people believe the claim. It has the following pattern:

 

Premise 1:  All (or most) people believe that claim X is true.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is true.

 

This line of “reasoning” is fallacious because the fact that many people believe a claim does not, in general, serve as evidence that the claim is true.

There are, however, some cases when the fact that many people accept a claim as true is an indication that it is true. Avoiding the fallacy in such cases does require including this as a premise. For example, while you are visiting Maine, you are told by several residents you see fishing that they believe that people older than 16 need to buy a fishing license to fish. Barring reasons to doubt these people, you have good reason to believe their claim because they most likely know the law and are probably not lying to you.

There are also cases in which what people believe determines the truth of a claim. Avoiding the fallacy in such cases does require including this as a premise.  For example, the truth of claims about manners depend on what people believe to be good manners. The meaning of words also seems to rest on belief: words, in a practical sense, mean what most people believe they mean. Some philosophers argue that ethical and aesthetic claims fall into this category. Those who embrace moral relativism argue that what is good and bad is determined by the beliefs of a culture. Those who embrace aesthetic relativism contend that beauty is determined in the same way. These theories cannot be simply assumed without committing another fallacy, that of begging the question. Now to the appeal to common practice.

While the appeal to belief involves what people believe, the appeal to common practice involves what people do. It occurs when someone concludes that an action is correct or right simply because it is (alleged to be) commonly done. It has the following form:

 

Premise 1: X is a common action.

Conclusion: Therefore, X is correct/moral/justified/reasonable, etc.

 

It is a fallacy because the mere fact that most people do something does not make it correct, moral, justified, or reasonable.

As with appeal to belief there are philosophers who argue that there can be arguments from common practice that are not fallacious. For example, moral relativism is the theory that morality is relative to the practices of a culture. If what is moral is determined by what is commonly practiced, then a non-fallacious argument could be constructed using that as a premise.

People sometimes mistake an appeal for fair play to be an appeal to common practice.  For example, a woman working in an office might say “the men who do the same amount and quality of work I do get paid more than I do, so it would be right for me to get paid the same as them.” The argument does not rest on the practice being a common one; rather it is an appeal to the principle of relevant difference. On this principle two people, A and B, can only be treated differently if and only if there is a relevant difference between them. For example, it would be morally acceptable to pay people differently for work of different quality; but it would not be acceptable to pay people differently for the same quality and quantity of work simply because one person is a male and the other female. As would be suspected, there is considerable debate about what differences are relevant.

You might be wondering what the appeal to belief and the appeal to common practice have to do with the appeal to tradition. Roughly put, the appeal to tradition fallacy involves arguing that something is true or right because it has been believed or done for a long time (or both). As such, the fallacy occurs when it is assumed that something is better or correct simply because it is older, traditional, or “always has been done/believed.”

This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

Premise 1: X is old or traditional (believed or done a long time)

Conclusion: Therefore, X is correct or better than the new/non-traditional.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the age of something does not automatically make it correct or better than something newer. This is made quite obvious by the following example: the theory that witches or demons cause disease is far older than the theory that microorganism cause diseases. Therefore, the theory about witches and demons must be true.

While one should avoid falling for the appeal to tradition, it is equally important to avoid falling for the appeal to novelty.  This fallacy occurs when one infers that something is correct or better simply because it is new or non-traditional. This sort of “reasoning” has the following form:

 

Premise 1: X is new (or non-traditional).

Conclusion: Therefore, X is correct or better than the old/traditional.

 

This sort of “reasoning” is fallacious because the novelty or newness of something does not automatically make it correct or better than something older. To use a silly example, if someone just created the “earthworm diet” that involves eating only earthworms, it obviously does not follow that this is better than more traditional diets.  As a general rule, the age or traditionality of something provide no evidence for or against its truth or goodness. In the next essay I will get into some deeper philosophical analysis of the appeal to tradition and why it is defective.

 

 

 

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