The practice of demanding that an opponent's reasoning be free of any and all cognitive bias, emotional influence, or cultural perspective before it can be considered valid. It sets an unattainable standard of "pure reason" that no human has ever achieved, then uses the inevitable failure to meet it as grounds for dismissal. This fallacy is common among those who have just discovered that biases exist and now use that discovery to disqualify any argument they disagree with. "You only believe that because of confirmation bias" becomes a conversation-ender, as if having a bias automatically makes a claim false, and as if the speaker themselves were miraculously bias-free.
Example: "He dismissed every study I cited with 'that's just your Western rationality'—a Fallacy of Impossible Rationality pretending that because perfect objectivity doesn't exist, all reasoning is equally worthless."
by Dumu The Void March 11, 2026
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