Bad Arguments and Rationalization in Business

The following note attempts to catalog and analyze a set of flawed but common arguments made in business and organizational settings to drive strategic and operational decision-making. The arguments are deconstructed into syllogistic form—a set of premises leading to a conclusion—and analyzed for validity and soundness. The final part of this note pays attention to ways decision-makers can avoid such bad arguments and the rationalization that often goes hand in hand with them. Excerpt UVA-E-0406 Rev. Nov. 29, 2018 Bad Arguments and Rationalization in Business The following note attempts to identify and analyze a few examples of flawed but common arguments made in business and organizational settings to drive strategic and operational decision-making. The arguments are deconstructed into syllogistic form—a set of premises leading to a conclusion—and analyzed for validity and soundness. The final part of this note pays attention to ways decision-makers can avoid such bad arguments and the rationalization that often goes hand in hand with them. The Legal Defense: “Well, it ain't against the law” This is a common defense for a variety of wildly profitable corporate maneuvers, including lobbying government officials, corporate inversion, and patent trolling. The below syllogism illustrates one of the most common structures of this argument: . . .