The dangers of false dilemmas: moving beyond binary thinking in the rent control debate.

In her paper titled Two is a Small Number: False Dichotomies Revisited, Canadian philosopher Trudy Govier raises concerns about the impact of false dichotomies on our ability to imagine and explore new possibilities. She highlights how statements like “either you are a vegetarian or you hate animals” or “be my friend or be my enemy” limit our thinking by presenting options as mutually exclusive. Govier is not alone in her worries about false dilemmas.

To combat this issue, organizations such as Truth Labs for Education – a collaboration between Cambridge University, the University of Bristol, and Google – have developed resources to help people resist manipulative techniques and misleading rhetoric encountered online. These resources, rooted in social psychology’s inoculation theory, aim to build psychological resistance against future manipulative persuasion attempts, including false dichotomies.

False dilemmas are tempting because they simplify complex situations into binary choices, making arguments appear stronger by obscuring middle-ground in debates. In my recent research comparing rent regulation in Germany, Ireland, and the Netherlands, I often encountered simplistic and binary comments – discussion around rent controls is sometimes framed as a choice between said controls, or property supply, with the assumption that they are mutually exclusive. The argument is that rent controls discourage investment and choke off supply as famously described by Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck: “In many cases, rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing.”