Introduction
The ugly cousin of Subjectivism, the Argumentum Ad Populum or "Appeal to Majority" as it is contemporarily called, is a common fallacy advanced by many today, particularly the leftist media. You would think that in our advanced and enlightened society, we would be more intelligent in our reasoned discourse and public propositions. Unfortunately, however, society is not getting smarter and smarter - it's getting dumber and dumber. Newspaper commentaries are forever reminding Christians that their beliefs are "extreme", "rightist", "out of the mainstream", and not popular with the majority. How many times have faithful Catholics had to put up with drivel such as this:
"The studies have continued to show that the majority of Catholics in North America oppose the Catholic Church's ban on artificial contraception."
Of course, when the veil of this fallacy is lifted, we see a very ugly woman indeed. Her name is Secular Humanism and she panders to the coarsest of human aspirations - the dethronement of God and the objective order and the institution of Man and the subjective order. Have entire populations been wrong in the past? Of course, human history testifies to this with the evidence of a multitude of corpses to prove it.
Definition
The fallacy that purports to argue a proposition on the basis of the majority's belief in that proposition.
Illustrations
Objective Argument: Abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent human life, and grievously offends God.
Subjective Argument: Abortion is right because 70% of the population agrees with it.
Objective Counter Argument: If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?
Diagnosis
This fallacy is advanced so much in modern society that most people do not even realize the inherent and rather elementary invalidity of the argument. One need only read the newspapers or magazines or listen to the endless talk shows to hear this fallacy raise its ugly head. The dividing line on this type of argument is rather amusing. The Agnostic/Atheist favours it. The Christian opposes it. The reason is rather obvious: if you have an objective source for morality (God), you do not require a subjecitve source for it (Man). From a Catholic perspective, the fallacy is pushed by all those who oppose the Church's more difficult teachings: artificial contraception, abortion, homosexuality, a celibate priesthood, women priests, etc. etc. etc. Any issue that is opposed by the moral leftists will always be supported by this fallacy. Guaranteed.
Antidote
There are a vareity of ways of exposing this fallacy. One way is to point to historical incidents where the populations were way off i.e. Naziism and Communism. By bringing in historical evidence, one can show that any particular population's support hardly guarantees the truthfulness or the wisdom of its choice. An ancillary to that is to bring forth scientific and sociological evidence which shows the devastating effect of today's popular choices. Another approach to ask the person to assume an unpopular position, and inquire if they would then change their opinion based on the popular view.
John Pacheco
The Catholic Legate
August 17, 2001