For example (forgive my lack of details or possible inaccuracy but it’s mainly to describe the concept anyway):
At one point in time in Australia, the Greens party pushed for strong climate regulation. But it was knocked down and a half-measure was proposed instead. Rather than accepting this half-measure, the Greens rejected it in favor of pursuing their original goals which they determined to be too crucial to abandon. As a result, there was no change implemented at all and it arguably impeded progress.
The Greens were accused of “letting the perfect become the enemy of the good”. But as Greta Thunberg said, “‘The good’ in climate terms is not safe and is closer to black comedy than reality.”
Whether or not they made the right decision with the gamble at the time since they didn’t have the benefit of retrospect that it wouldn’t work out the way they hoped, could it be that in a dire situation, there is an argument for risking causing an even worse outcome in order to attempt to pursue a better outcome which is seen as absolutely required, rather than accepting a positive yet insufficient outcome? Would that necessarily be a fallacy or possibly just somewhat recklessly ambitious in a way that might be subject to interpretation on whether it was wise or not depending on the circumstances and the importance of meeting a goal?
Also, the phrase “letting the perfect become the enemy of the good” is often associated with the Nirvana fallacy or the perfect solution fallacy.
"The Nirvana Fallacy occurs when someone dismisses a realistic solution to a problem because it is not perfect, and they argue that a perfect solution is the only acceptable option. In essence, it’s the rejection of a good or adequate solution because it doesn’t meet an ideal standard.
The Perfect Solution Fallacy arises when someone rejects possible solutions because they believe these solutions are not perfect or do not solve the entire problem. It involves demanding that a proposed solution must be flawless and comprehensive, or it is deemed unacceptable.
The Nirvana Fallacy is about rejecting realistic solutions because they fall short of an ideal, while the Perfect Solution Fallacy is more about demanding an ideal solution and dismissing anything less."
I struggle to understand the difference between the 2 closely related fallacies, but my understanding is perhaps the Nirvana fallacy involves: “This solution is imperfect, and the perfect solution would be unrealistic, therefore we shouldn’t try to improve anything at all.” (ignoring that any improvement is better than nothing) whereas the perfect solution fallacy is more like: “This solution is imperfect, therefore we should reject it and only strive for a perfect/adequate or better solution.” (ignoring that the perfect solution may be unrealistic and an imperfect solution may be a valid compromise to fall back on.) The Nirvana fallacy seems overly pessimistic/defeatist whereas the perfect solution fallacy seems overly optimistic in an unreasonable way of not accepting a valid albeit imperfect solution even when there’s no reason not to i.e. it wouldn’t prevent the perfect solution from still being pursued.
What the Greens did in this scenario seems more like the latter, however I feel like there’s a slight difference, since they didn’t just reject the imperfect solution (and take an all-or-nothing approach to pursue a perfect solution) purely because it wasn’t perfect, but because there was reason to believe that only one solution could be pursued and either one would make the other impossible to achieve; in other words if the lesser solution was accepted it may prevent the chance of achieving the greater solution, and vice versa, so they rejected the insufficient solution only as a means to attempt to attain the “sufficient” solution which they viewed as absolutely necessary or non-negotiable.
So does it fall under one of these fallacies, or a different fallacy, or is it not a fallacy?
I don’t think it’s a logical fallacy. I do think the advisability of that sort of thinking is situational: if the half-measure solution is tenable, then it’s worth being open to compromise, but if the half-measure solution is almost as disastrous as losing completely you might as well be uncompromising.
Climate change denialists might claim that the Greens were in the first situation and therefore made a tactical mistake, while scientists might say the Greens were correct to reject half-measures. (You might think that sounds like I’m saying it’s a matter of opinion, but the crucial difference is that it’s actually a matter of fact and one “side” of the “debate” is simply factually incorrect.)
- make-or-break (adj.)
- all or nothing (phrase)
To me perfect is the enemy of good is: you don’t arrive at good, because you set unrealistic goals for example. But theoretically you all want to go in the same direction.
All or nothing is taking chances, gambling. It’s a different category. It doesn’t have to do anything with one solution being good or bad. It’s saying I want that, no compromises. Like if you say ‘I want to go to Disneyland or I’m not coming with you.’ There’s not necessarily anything good or perfect or bad in it. With political parties it’s often they have to show their voters they’re determined and not taking shit. So they say ‘we’re not compromising’. And that way you have a clear winner and loser. Can be beneficial or detrimental to a goal. The motivation could be entirely different. But both things can also be at play at the same time.
It’s usually called a “Hail Mary.”
It might help to read on the idea of “burn the boats”. Julius Caesar basically suggested in order to take an island, after you land burn down your boats. There is then no choice to give up or flee. The soldiers succeed or die. Not sure if this helps you or not, but it’s a similar play on the idea.
Sun Tzu wrote something similar.
Adding: While it’s been a while since I read the Art of War, I recall him teaching to lead the own groups to an dead end to confront the enemy. That way they’ll fight more fiercely, for their lives, if you will.
“Going all in” “Last ditch effort” If you play American football “Doing a hail Mary”
I am sure there are more. The last two are more of your doing it because you’re desperate.
Going for broke
Double or nothing
I feel like gambling fits here. Or risk taking. But excessive risk is usually considered gambling.
It’s probably more a failure of strategy than of logic. People whose PSY 101 class ignored behaviorism and tactics for shaping behavior would be prone to these sorts of mistakes.
Damn the torpedoes – full speed ahead!
As a historical footnote, “torpedoes” in that quote referred to underwater mines.
There was no missile technology, underwater or otherwise at the time.
Not sure it has a specific name, though it’s pretty much idealism. To add another pithy phrase for us in this conversation, politics is the art of the possible. In democratic systems, it’s pretty rare for any one’s ideal to be realized. With people who disagree on fundamental values, it’s more likely that politicians will need to compromise and work on a consensus for policy. It makes for messy solutions that are rarely ideal. At the same time, it’s less likely to lead to any one group being able to dictate policy and create authoritarian dystopias.
“putting all your eggs in one basket”
The phrase don’t let good be the enemy of perfect doesn’t apply to everything.
For example, in surgery, you do want a perfect result usually. But in software, you want to ship the product and get features into users hands so investors give you more funding, so you may not ship a pixel perfect product, but it’s good enough, so you focus on speed and not perfection.
I don’t think refusing to accept a compromise is a logical fallacy.
The perfect, good, mediocre, and just barely tolerable are all enemies. Sometimes bad is better as it doesn’t erode the motivation to solve the problem and means you’re more likely to end up with a good solution later. Often, when people accuse others of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, the option was neither perfect nor good, just mediocre or barely tolerable. The exception is when one solution can go on to evolve into a better one, but it can still be better to wait until it does before deploying it.
I’m not convinced this is exactly applicable to the story in the OP, though. The compromise would have eroded the motivation to vote for the original legislation in that election, but probably made it more likely that it could have happened in the next one, and made the consequences of putting it off that long slightly less bad.
You ignored “actually achievable” in your consideration and thus equated all falsely.
I didn’t, otherwise I’d have said bad was always better, which would be silly. It’s pretty reasonable to assume that most of the time, at least one of the perfect, good or mediocre solutions would be actually achievable, so settling for a just barely tolerable one would be unwise if it was going to block one of the better solutions happening later.
Anyway, my main point is that people have a tendency to bring up the perfect being the enemy of the good when the thing people were objecting to wasn’t even good, and a better solution would be perfectly feasible.
If best, good, and neutral are all unachievable, bad is the best you can chose. The only thing you are showing is a lack of actual consideration of the position you are taking.
Again, you’re reading things into my comment that I specifically avoided saying. If perfect, good and mediocre can’t exist, then obviously what I said isn’t applicable, and you shouldn’t be applying it in that context. It’s just like you wouldn’t reply to a post about it being necessary to outlaw the slavery of elves by saying elves are fictional and the author is demonstrating that they’ve not considered this.
This segues nicely into my original point - if you try applying adages to situations they’re unsuitable for, dumb things will happen.
If and when it’s a fallacy, like when you risk something valuable to acquire something less valuable, it’s called “greed”.
