Motte-and-Bailey Fallacy

This cluster revolves around commenters identifying, explaining, and accusing each other of employing the motte-and-bailey fallacy, a rhetorical tactic involving switching between defensible and controversial positions, often with Wikipedia links.

➡️ Stable 0.7x Politics & Society
260
Comments
12
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#8077
Topic ID

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Keywords

ASCII en.m slatestarcodex.com rationalwiki.org google.com TIL P.S wikipedia.org motte bailey argument fallacy controversial defend meritocracy parroting castle moat

Sample Comments

junon Nov 19, 2020 View on HN

This is a motte/bailey bait and switch argument. Please refrain from doing so in further discourse.

pbak Jun 20, 2021 View on HN

Nice "motte-and-bailey" argument. But a little transparent, no ?

kelipso Sep 27, 2025 View on HN

You are making a classic motte and bailey argument.

poszlem Oct 9, 2021 View on HN

Unfortunately it's a discussion tactic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacyThe motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the &

j_timberlake Apr 21, 2025 View on HN

This is a perfect example of a motte and bailey. The "motte" is that people should be judged badly for parroting horrible ideas they heard (which makes sense) and the "bailey" is that people should be praised just for parroting nice things they heard (which doesn't make sense).

nerfhammer May 16, 2018 View on HN

this is the motte and bailey argument technique: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

emmelaich May 22, 2022 View on HN

Sounds like the inverse of the motte and bailey.[0]Someone claims the bailey is safe, response is to accuse them of advocating the motte.Can be solved in part by trying to get clarity on the terms, but that can bog down.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy

pas Mar 22, 2022 View on HN

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy ?

humanrebar Nov 16, 2017 View on HN

It's a very obvious example of a motte and bailey argument.https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey

chmod600 May 14, 2022 View on HN

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy