This example illustrates another very common causal fallacy. It is alleged, rightly or wrongly, that if all the members of a certain class, e.g. all nations or all the individuals of a certain nation, were to act simultaneously in a certain way, certain very desirable results would follow. It is concluded that each member of that class ought to act in that way, regardless of whether the rest do so or not. This is crazy logic and crazy ethics. Often it is not enough that even a large majority of the members of the class could be relied upon to act in the way suggested if one or a few were to set the example. One of the greatest difficulties of social and political life is that the pace is inevitably so largely set by the most backward and most evilly-disposed individuals and communities. The existence of a single powerful aggressive fanatical nation, like pre-war Germany or present-day Russia, is enough to make it suicidal for other nations to reduce their armaments. And the existence of a comparatively small minority of criminals or lunatics or abnormally inconsiderate individuals within a community compels all its other members to take precautions and to support punitive and preventive measures which they would gladly do without.
(C. D. Broad, "Some Common Fallacies in Political Thinking," Philosophy 25 [April 1950]: 99-113, at 105)
Note from KBJ: Two words came to mind as I read this: "Virginia Tech."
