Continuing my series on logical fallacies, Special Pleading is when someone makes a claim, and then when you prove it wrong, they move the goalposts. Instead of admitting the claim might be false, they create a special exception to keep it alive.

You see this in tech consulting when someone insists their custom-built Excel sheet is perfect and doesn't need replacing. You show them it breaks when someone filters a column. They say, yeah, but you're not supposed to filter it. Then you show them the formulas collapse if you sort. Yeah, but you have to know not to sort that column. And when you finally convince them it should be rebuilt in Access, they say, "well, you just don't understand how our process works."

In other words, it only works under ideal conditions with one specific user and the phase of the moon lined up just right... on a Tuesday. Instead of admitting the tool is fragile, they carve out endless exceptions to keep it sacred.

Star Trek gives us a good example with Q. Whenever someone calls him out on something - say, interfering with humanity or abusing his powers - he always has some godlike excuse. Oh, I did that to teach you something. It's part of your trial. You're not evolved enough to understand. He constantly moves the goalposts. You can never win the argument because he won't let the rules stay still long enough to pin him down.

In real life, this fallacy shows up when people refuse to admit they might be wrong - so they make up invisible conditions to keep their belief intact. You proved my psychic powers don't work in a lab? Ah, but that's because the energy in labs interferes with the flow. You didn't believe hard enough. You didn't want it to work.

You see special pleading in politics all the time. A senator will blast government spending when the other party is in power, but when their own party passes a bloated bill, suddenly it's a necessary investment or part of a broader strategy. Same action, different spin. The rules only apply when it's convenient. They're not saying they were wrong before - they're saying this situation is different, without ever explaining why. Instead of holding the same standard across the board, they carve out exceptions to protect their own team.

Special pleading is a defense mechanism. It lets people hold onto weak claims by fencing them off from criticism. But truth doesn't need special rules to survive. If something only works when no one's allowed to test it, it probably doesn't work at all.

LLAP
RR