Furtive fallacy

The furtive fallacy is when you assume that something secret or hidden is going on—that people have a hidden motive or that the real cause is concealed—without good evidence. Suspicion isn't proof. We can be right that someone is hiding something, but we need evidence before we conclude it. The fallacy is to treat "they might be hiding something" as "they are hiding something" and then reason from that. The remedy is to ask: what's the evidence for the hidden cause or motive?

Examples

• The only reason they'd change the rules is to hide what they're really doing.

• They're only being nice because they want something.

• The real reason they're doing this is to distract us.

• There's more to this than they're saying.

• They released that report to bury the bad news.