Today’s Logical Fallacy is… Diminished Responsibility!


This fallacy occurs when we argue that our behavior should be excused because of impaired judgment, e.g. telling your teacher that they should grade your exam leniently because you were hung over and “it’s not my fault.” It is a contemporary fallacy that has arisen out of the misappropriation of the American legal concept, “diminished capacity” (that punishment for criminal acts should be decreased if the criminal’s judgment was impaired and thus would not have committed the crime under normal conditions). While being drunk may mean that you aren’t charged with first degree murder, it doesn’t mean that you are free of guilt or can’t be charged with second degree murder, and it doesn’t make the consequences of your actions any less severe. Likewise, the fact that you were hungover doesn’t somehow make your answers to your test less incorrect, and you must still live with the consequences of failing; your poor judgment in getting drunk the night before the test doesn’t excuse your performance.
 
Examples:

“You can’t count me absent on Monday – I was hung over and couldn’t come to class – it’s not my fault.”

“Yeah, I was speeding on the freeway and killed a guy, but I was high and didn’t know what I was doing, so it didn’t matter that much.”

“I was drinking at the time, so it’s not really my fault that I got in a fight.”