The fallacy of gray is an assertion, in the face of a lack of a clear black and white divide, that the cases are all equally good or bad. The fallacy is that (to continue the color metaphor) each case is a different shade of gray; that some cases are better (for some definition of better) than others.
The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.”
The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view”
—Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling
I don’t know if the Sophisticate’s mistake has an official name, but I call it the Fallacy of Gray.
Bibliography
Yudkowsky, Eliezer. n.d. “The Fallacy of Gray.” Accessed February 17, 2022. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallacy-of-gray.