A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “capital punishment”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott examines evidence for racial bias in the US criminal justice system, finding some bias in certain areas but not others, and concluding that claims of pervasive racism are overstated.
Scott Alexander introduces 'Guilt by Association' as a fallacy where people judge things negatively based on category membership rather than actual shared features, using examples like calling MLK a 'criminal' or abortion 'murder' to illustrate when this reasoning fails.
Scott proposes the "noncentral fallacy" as a candidate for the worst argument in the world: applying emotional reactions from archetypal category members to non-archetypal examples, illustrated through examples like calling Martin Luther King Jr. a "criminal."