Overview
Circular reasoning is a common logical fallacy in which an argument’s conclusion is used as evidence for the argument.
Examples:
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“We should support this candidate because they are the only electable choice.” In politics, electability arguments often suffer from circular reasoning; they are electable because people would vote for them, and people would vote for them because they are electable.
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“Decriminalizing marijuana would be condoning illegal behavior.” There is an implicit idea that something being illegal makes it immoral, so something illegal must stay illegal because it is illegal. It is the law that makes it illegal to begin with.
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“Everyone pays attention to them because they’re always doing something newsworthy.” Calling something “newsworthy” is already implying that it’s the type of thing people will attention to, so reporting on something because it’s arbitrarily deemed newsworthy becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. People pay attention to what is reported on, which is what makes something newsworthy to begin with.
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“The patient is suffering from maladaptive behaviors because of cognitive distortions, and we know that they’re having distorted thoughts because they keep choosing maladaptive behaviors.” Some Cognitive-Behavioral Theory (CBT) applications can fall into the trap of setting up frameworks in which irrationality is necessarily the problem behind every issue. A clinician might assume that a patient presents with depression because they mention irrational thoughts or patterns that are self-deprecating as symptoms, but those irrational thoughts or patterns are also seen as a cause of the depressed state of mind that prevents rational perceptions that should change their experience of reality.
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“The patient is resistant to treatment because they’re not applying the coping skills we taught them, and we know they’re not applying the coping skills because the treatment has not been improving their symptoms.” If a patient tries every CBT coping skill but fails, a clinician can interpret that as the patient being resistant or failing to apply the skills properly. It’s difficult to argue that the coping skills were applied appropriately but just weren’t that effective, or that depression or anxiety are actually rational reactions to certain circumstances. This circular reasoning always leads to the patient being resistant.