The following is a chapter from the book
Arriving at a conclusion that is not supported by the argument.
AKA: it does not follow, invalid inference, irrelevant reason, non-support
- That place must be the worst restaurant in the whole world. I went there once and they got my order wrong.
- I know Donald Trump will make America great again because it says so on his hat.
- If the White House were truly built by slaves, why would it be called the White House? Think about it.
Non sequitur is when an argument doesn’t actually lead to it’s conclusion. There may be little to no evidence provided, or the the evidence could be irrelevant. Non sequitur can work in a variety of ways and will often overlap with other fallacies. The constant is that a conclusions is stated that the argument doesn’t actually support.
Let’s start with an example from Sarah Palin in 2014:
Wait, I thought fast food joints…Don’t you guys think that they’re, like, of the devil or something? That’s what… Liberals, you want to send those evil employees who would dare work at a fast food joint that you just don’t believe in, thought you wanted to, I dunno, send them to Purgatory or something. So they all go vegan and, uh, wages and picket lines, I dunno, they’re not often discussed in Purgatory, are they?
This might sound like Palin’s unprepared response to an evil reporter’s gotcha question, part of a conversation secretly recorded without her knowledge, or something she said while having a stroke. In fact, this is from a video Palin posted to her own website, The Sarah Palin Channel. There was no ploy to make her look bad involved here. She actually created and disseminated that video of her own free will.
Palin was responding specifically to a speech by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in which she said “We believe that fast food workers deserve a livable wage and that means when they take to the picket line we are proud to fight alongside them.” Despite the mangled sentences in Palin’s response, the basic argument comes across: Fast food employee wages should not be increased because liberals don’t like fast food employees. This is non sequitur. The idea that liberals hate fast food employees in no way supports the conclusion that employee wages must remain unchanged. There are some other issues with Palin’s argument as well:
- Liberals have historically pressured the fast food industry over health concerns, false advertisement, pollution, sustainability, and indeed employee compensation and working conditions.
- It’s possible to dislike a company or industry without blaming every individual employee.
- Wanting fast food employees to suffer less than a livable wage to punish them because of decisions made by industry leaders is non sequitur in itself.
- The vast majority of democrats and liberals are not vegetarian or vegan.
Even if Palin’s argument that liberals hate fast food employees were somehow true, it still wouldn’t be a logical reason for keeping wages low. Even if based in truth, it would still be a non sequitur argument.
For another example we look at Brock Turner who was convicted of sexually assaulting his unconscious victim behind a dumpster. For the three felonies he was found guilty of, Turner faced a maximum of 14 years in prison and a minimum of 2 as prescribed by law. The prosecution asked for 6 years. Judge Aaron Persky however only sentenced Turner to 6 months and Turner was ultimately released after serving only 3 months.
Judge Persky was criticized not only for the lenient sentence, but also for the non sequitur justifications he made for it. Judges can ignore the minimum sentence, but there should be a reason given for why the particular case is extraordinary and deserving of such extreme leniency. While Persky rambled off a number of reasons why the man convicted of three felonies deserved to get off easy, none of the arguments actually showed that this case was unique or unusual in any way. The judge’s arguments could be reasons to stay in the middle or lower end of the 2-14 year range, but they don’t explain why a man convicted of three felonies should serve only 3 months. One reason Persky gave was that since Turner was 20 years old, and prison is scary, it would be wrong to send him there for too long:
Number five is the likely effect of imprisonment on the defendant and his or her dependants. Obviously, a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. And that may be true in any case. I think it’s probably more true with a youthful offender sentenced to state prison at a young age.
The legal range of 2-14 years in prison was not meant for a special class of people Turner doesn’t belong to. It’s meant for people convicted of the three felonies he was found guilty of. Perhaps Turner’s relative youth provides an argument for bringing him closer to, or even as low as, the minimum of 2 years, but there’s no logic in claiming his age as a reason to go significantly lower than the prescribed minimum sentence.
While “youth” can be objective (don’t tell mom she’s old, even if she is) there is an age at which we became adults in the eyes of the law. Turner was legally an adult. Still in college and only 20 years old, sure, let’s get closer to that minimum sentence. Still, there’s no logic in reducing the sentence of a legal adult below the minimum sentence due to his “youth.”
There’s also a case of special pleading here, since the judge is focusing on Turner’s “youth” while ignoring the victim’s. Her youth didn’t prevent Tuner from sexually assaulting her behind a dumpster while she was unconscious, so why should Turner’s youth prevent the judge from sentencing him to the appropriate penalty? Wouldn’t her youth make this crime even more heinous, and more deserving of a heavy sentence?
Another point Persky made was that he believed Turner was sorry about assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster, even if Turner wasn’t actually sorry. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, that’s because it doesn’t make any sense:
And so you have Mr. Turner expressing remorse, which I think, subjectively, is genuine, and [Jane] not seeing that as a genuine expression of remorse because he never says, “I did this. I knew how drunk you were. I knew how out of it you were, and I did it anyway.” And that – I don’t think that bridge will, probably, ever be crossed.
Persky suggests that Turner has never said and probably never will say in plain and simple terms that he is solely responsible for the assault. Yet the judge still arrives at the conclusion that Turner is remorseful. And not just the normal level of regret that any felon might feel, especially after being exposed in the media and tried in court. Persky is claiming that Turner’s remorse is so unusually pure and true that it should knock years off of his sentence, even bringing him well below the prescribed minimum. This leap is about as non sequitur as it gets. How does a judge claim that a felon hasn’t fully apologized or accepted responsibility while also calling him extraordinarily remorseful? Perhaps if Turner actually accepted full responsibility and the victim accepted the apology, the judge could begin to consider a lighter sentence. Yet with no full apology from Turner or acceptance from the victim, the judge makes the non sequitur conclusion that Turner is remorseful enough to fall below the minimum sentence.
Persky explained further:
I’m not convinced that his lack of complete acquiescence to the verdict should count against him with respect to an expression of remorse because I do find that his remorse is genuine.
No judge, that would be incorrect. Turner cannot feel remorse for the felonies he committed if he does not accept responsibility for them. How could anyone feel remorse for something without first acknowledging that they did the thing they are feeling remorseful for? How does a judge claim that the felon’s refusal to accept responsibility does not affect his ability to express true remorse?
Persky also pointed to Turner’s character as reason for the severely reduced sentence.
I find another factor reasonably related to the sentencing decision is the character evidence – provided both at trial and in connection with this sentencing hearing – the character evidence with respect to Mr. Turner’s past up until the point of the incident. And, in fact, there was some character evidence post-incident related to what he’s been doing since the criminal proceeding has been ongoing.
It’s not unusual for these factors to be considered. Just like Turner’s age, his character could help the judge decide where the sentence should fall within that 2-14 year range. Still, the sentence for a man convicted of three felonies should probably be more about punishment for the crimes instead of rewards for actions unrelated to the crimes. It’s another non sequitur. The argument, he seems like a nice guy, does not support the conclusion that he shouldn’t even be sentenced to at least the two year minimum. Sexual assault is not defined as something done by a person with at least three other negative qualities aside from the fact that they sexually assaulted someone.
One of the ways Persky learned about Turner’s character was through a series of letters submitted by friends, family, and other acquaintances. While Persky was the target of widespread backlash for his sentencing, Turner’s father was also criticized for parts of the character letter he submitted:
His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.
Turner’s father refers to the sexual assault as 20 minutes of action. Make of that what you will, but his point seems to be that the punishment shouldn’t be too harsh because the crime didn’t last very long. This argument is non sequitur. The fact that the assault did not last especially long does not support the conclusion that Turner should not be handed the expected penalty. There is not supposed to be a correlation between jail time and how long felonies take to commit. Turner was not charged with wasting a significant amount of someone’s time. He was found guilty of assault with intent to rape an intoxicated woman, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object, and sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object. These actions are not considered felonies because of how long they last.
The 20 minutes is really a guess or an allusion though as we don’t know for sure exactly how long Turner assaulted his victim for. However long it took, we can say for sure that you could have murdered someone faster. Probably a few people. Even with a knife, you could murder someone and spend less time doing it than Brock Turner spent assaulting his victim. You would still be convicted to murder and sentenced based on the fact that you murdered someone. You wouldn’t get rewarded by a judge for how quickly you killed your victim.
However long Turner spent assaulting his victim, he would have continued for even longer if not for the two men who were walking by and noticed Turner was sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. One of the men said, “What the fuck are you doing? She's unconscious,” prompting Turner to run away. The two men chased him down and held him until the police arrived.
And it’s a good thing too. Imagine if the assault had gone on for a little longer! Then they’d have to give Turner an appropriate sentence, right? They couldn’t let him get away with sexual assault that lasted a bit longer, that would be completely non sequitur.
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