The second form of the Fallacy of Political Reductionism arises from confusing the Ethical Consistency Principle with its converse:

Ethical Consistency Principle:
If X is moral (or desirable), then X should be legal.
Fallacy Form 2 (Converse):
If X should be legal, then X is moral (or desirable).

Suppose that one of the islanders argues: "If we legally permit Crusoe to indulge his poor nutritional habits, then we are implicitly giving moral sanction to this immoral behavior." This argument depends upon Fallacy Form 2, which is actually the contrapositive of Fallacy Form 1. Since contrapositives are logically equivalent, and since we have seen that Fallacy Form 1 is not in general a valid implication, therefore Fallacy Form 2 is also not in general a valid implication. To argue that an activity should be legal does not logically imply that one regards the activity as moral or desirable. For instance, one may sincerely and consistently believe that communists should enjoy free speech, but that communism and communist propaganda are evil or undesirable.      Next page

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