Motte-and-bailey

What it is

Switches between a bold, contested claim (the bailey) and a modest, easily defended one (the motte): retreating to the modest claim when challenged, then acting as if the bold claim had been established.

Related

• Straw man fallacy
  In a motte-and-bailey, the defender's modest "motte" claim is exactly what a straw man misses, while the bold "bailey" claim is what they actually argue for.
• Equivocation fallacy
  The motte and the bailey are often joined by an ambiguous word that means a modest thing in one place and a bold thing in the other.
• Moving the goalposts fallacy
  Retreating from the bailey to the motte quietly changes what is being claimed, much like moving the goalposts.

References

• Wikipedia: Motte-and-bailey en.wikipedia.org
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies iep.utm.edu
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Fallacies plato.stanford.edu
• Wikipedia: List of fallacies en.wikipedia.org
• Purdue OWL: Logical fallacies owl.purdue.edu

More in “Dodging or distorting the argument”