The Doughnut Fallacy as Deliberative Failure

Abstract in Undetermined
The Doughnut fallacy hypothesis posits that many debaters tend to sup- port their arguments using collapsed generalities – such as “democracy” – with pur- ported self-evident positive or negative qualities as philosophical grounding. This will leave an often unexamined hole in the middle of the debate which will stunt delib- erative processes, as it effectively stops deliberation from proceeding to the “philo- sophical core” of the debate. The authors contend that the fallacy is particularly devi- ous as analysis of individual arguments will not necessary detect it (and may in fact conclude that it is evidence of good deliberation) as the problem is only evident on the discourse level. It could be seen as an unexplored subgroup of the already noted Aristotelian fallacy of ambiguity. This piece will explore the fallacy, relate it to extant thinking, formalise assessment of it, and finally prepare the ground for future quan- titative analysis of its deliberative impact (to be carried out on its own or as part of a larger effort, e.g., an index).