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Special Pleading
 
Description:
 
The argument defends a position by claiming that the opponent lacks the necessary perspective (experiences or credentials) to appreciate the position. This lack allegedly makes the opponent unqualified to critique the position.
 

 
Comments:

 

An extreme, but nevertheless important, version of Special Pleading claims that no one has the necessary perspective or relevant credentials. This extreme version of Special Pleading is often introduced with phrases such as "Who are we to say..." or "How can we know..."
 

 
Examples:

"Your opposition to capital punishment is insensitive. Since you have never had a loved one killed, you can't appreciate the feelings of victims."

"As a man, you naturally don't understand the arguments supporting abortion."

"My opponent can't know what's best for our fair community. He wasn't born and raised here, like I was."
 
 
    Discussion:
   
    It is a well-known fact that we tend to feel sympathy for others when we can imagine ourselves in their place. Hence we tend to empathize most strongly with beings that are most like ourselves. Anyone is likely to be disturbed by the suffering of a chimpanzee. We are less disturbed by the suffering of a rabbit, and the suffering of a fish bothers us practically not at all. Even if we agree that a rabbit and a fish can feel just as much pain as a chimpanzee, we still find their pain less important and less disturbing. It may be callous and immature of us to assume that being "like me" is an important moral consideration, but...well, instincts are not necessarily rational.

Given this principle of empathy, it is reasonable to suppose that people who are (or consider themselves) different from me may not fully empathize with my suffering. The fallacy of Special Pleading mimics reasoning based on this perfectly reasonable psychological expectation. However, while it may be perfectly valid to say, "You aren't like me, so you may not fully empathize with my plight," it is quite a different thing to say, "You aren't like me, so your arguments (about my plight) are utterly worthless." The fallacy of Special Pleading depends upon our failing to see this distinction. I may not fully empathize with rabbit suffering, but I can still reason clearly about what might cause a rabbit to suffer and about how that suffering might be reduced. My opponent may not fully empathize with my plight, but his arguments still deserve to be considered on their own merits, not judged by his ability (or lack of ability) to empathize with me.

All such considerations aside, it should also be pointed out that, in fact, all human beings are very much alike. The fallacy of Special Pleading presupposes that some differences are so great that the human capacity for empathy cannot cross them. Our ability to empathize with others is usually greater than this argument gives us credit for.
 

 
Classification: A Fallacy of Irrelevance (a deductive fallacy of soundness with a falsehood in the major premiss) in the Ad Hominem family.

 
Source: The Oxford English Dictionary cites examples of the phrase "special pleading" being used to label sophistical argumentation from about the middle of the 19th Century. One such citation is to Francis Bowen's 1864 Treatise on Logic. I first became aware of this fallacy from W. Fearnside and W. Holther, Fallacy: The Counterfeit of Argument (1959).
 

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