Logical fallacies

false dilemma

Two options were offered. There were never only two.

  • “Either we ship Friday or the whole quarter is wasted.”

    “What does shipping Monday actually cost us?”

    Ship late, ship partial, cut scope. The two-option framing was a choice.

Also called black-or-white thinking or a false dichotomy. Presenting a spectrum as a switch makes one option look inevitable, because the alternative on offer was built to be unacceptable.

How to answer it: name a third option out loud. If it’s real, the dilemma collapses immediately. Some dilemmas are genuine—sometimes there really are only two doors—so the question is always whether the middle was ruled out or just left out.

Now go find the third door.