Appeal to common practice

Informal fallacies → Relevance / appeals

Appeal to common practice is when you say it's OK to do something because everyone else does it. That's not a good reason—other people might be wrong, or the practice might be harmful even if widespread. "Everybody does it" doesn't justify breaking a rule or doing something unethical. The fallacy is to treat prevalence as permission. The right question is whether the action is right or wrong, not how many people do it.

Examples

  • Everyone speeds on this road, so it's fine to speed.

  • All the other firms do it, so we can too.

  • Nobody declares that on their taxes, so I won't.

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