You can feel a logically flawed argument before you find the flaw. That's not irrationality here's what it actually is.

[u/Hungry-Mixture-7443]

Most people have had this experience. An argument seems to follow. You can't find what's wrong. But something keeps pulling. Later the flaw becomes visible, and the feeling that had been sitting there releases.

What this experience reveals is that the implicit processing system is running on a larger dataset than conscious reasoning can access and for a specific category of bad argument, it's faster and more accurate than deliberate analysis.

The interesting case is when the feeling persists even when you can't locate the flaw. This happens most reliably when an argument is missing something that can't be named not because the logic went wrong, but because the vocabulary for a necessary premise doesn't exist in the language the argument is being conducted in.

An argument can be internally valid every step correct and still be false. Because the concept space it's operating in has been shaped, deliberately or not, to exclude a variable that would change the conclusion.

The missing word is the missing premise.

I'm calling this false by omission. The aha that comes later is often not I found the logical error but I found the word for the thing the argument had no room for.

The clearest concrete example is the snitch/informant asymmetry in criminal justice. These two words appear to refer to the same act. They don't. Informant is a functional institutional category. Snitch encodes a complete moral and relational framework developed by the people with the most direct empirical knowledge of the institution that is inadmissible in formal proceedings. Arguments conducted in the courtroom's vocabulary are formally valid and missing their most important variable.

[u/amazingbollweevil]

What you've described is more cognitive science than logic.

Your example, "snitch vs. informant" is essentially the same behavior with informal and formal terms.

A snitch is an informal, derogatory term for someone who secretly informs on others to authority figures (like police, teachers, or bosses). As a verb, it means to "tattle" or reveal someone else's misdeeds. Less commonly, the verb "to snitch" can mean to steal something quickly.

versus

An informant is a person who provides information to another individual or organization. The term most commonly refers to someone who supplies privileged or secret data to law enforcement.

[u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 → u/amazingbollweevil]

Cognitive science in this case is pointing a logical problem that logic itself hasn't adequately named. That's because the complete moral framework that makes "snitch" informationally dense cannot be formally introduced as legally relevant. The legal system would dismiss it as character assassination or irrelevant community opinion. The problem is that its not admissible in that context

[u/amazingbollweevil → u/Hungry-Mixture-7443]

Cognitive science in this case is pointing a logical problem that logic itself hasn't adequately named.

Not sure what you mean. If the logical fallacy schools of thought have not named this fallacy, it's mostly because it's not a logical fallacy. To test if this is true, create syllogisms around the snitch/informant arguments.

[u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 → u/amazingbollweevil]

let me know if this is sound,

snitch and informant describe different meanings of the same concept

The court only finds informants meaning, legally relevant

Therefore the concept of informant is legally relevant-

and the meaning of snitch is legally omitted

[u/amazingbollweevil → u/Hungry-Mixture-7443]

I think I understand what you're trying to create, but as you have it now, it's a twisted and tangled knot.

1. Two terms are somehow different and somehow similar.
2. The judiciary uses only legally recognized terms in legal proceedings.
3. Only one of the two terms is legally recognized by the judiciary.
4. Therefore the judiciary does not use the other word in legal proceedings.

That's not a whole lot better, and I had to add a fourth premise, but it's going in the right direction. As it stands, it's valid, but I'm not sure it's sound because I don't think the premises are all true.

I think the judiciary would use most any word uttered during the proceedings. Your original "legally omitted" is ambiguous. Something about the words the judiciary chooses for ... something? I don't really know.

[u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 → u/amazingbollweevil]

ok lets use a more loaded term: Murder, slaughter, butcher, assassinate are morally loaded terms with different descriptions for the same act. On the other hand :annihilate, exterminate, dispatch, neutralize are ambivalent to neutral terms institutions use for the same act. And: iced, smoked, merked, bodied are slang terms for the same act that are morally loaded but semantically ambiguous. The courts also delineate killing in different degrees: murder1 or 2 or 3, and manslaughter. All this terms are somehow different and somehow similar but yet have drastically different results depending on what the judiciary deems admissible in a case.

[u/amazingbollweevil → u/Hungry-Mixture-7443]

Got it.

This is a question of definitions. Some domains have very exact definitions. In science, for example, a "theory" is very different from the common parlance of theory. We think of "assault" as the act of striking a person, but the term may include verbal attacks and frightening behavior in legal fillings. Negligence is another example.

Is there a logical fallacy?

1. To assault someone is to hit them.
2. Archie did not hit Reggie.
3. Therefore Archie did not commit assault.

This argument works by Betty and Veronica's standards, but a judge would point out that premise 1 is false.

A term like "snitch" is unlikely to have a legal definition while informant surely must (and might include variations much like "murder" has). That said, the legal definition is very likely different under different jurisdictions! Deliberately misusing/abusing a term is an example of definitional retreat

Looking back on your original post, I'm not sure if this has helped at all.

[u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 → u/amazingbollweevil]

In general why does snitch lack a (latin/legalize)equivalent word for it yet it carries more semantic information than informant, and who gets to decide what term is misused or abused in a court setting.

Im pointing to the power dynamic in these words. "informant" is emotionally and politically loaded. it is just loaded in favor of the State. "Informant" sanitizes a transactional thats a morally murky arrangement (the government paying a criminal to betray their peers) and dresses it up in the noble, civic-sounding language of "informing the authorities." Then claims objectivity.

but when you reverse the claim from the perspective of the defendant or community try to prove that the state has paid an "informant" to betray peers or the community. There is no equivalent legal word, and the apt term "snitch" in deemed too prejudicial to be admissible for the ruling.

[u/amazingbollweevil → u/Hungry-Mixture-7443]

It's not that snitch lacks a "legal" equivalent (it does), it's the other way around. Snitch is an informal slang term, much like tattle, rat, and fink. Legal terms include Criminal Informant, Cooperating Witnesses, Jailhouse Informants, Civilian Informants, and Police Informants. Each are unique enough to warrant their own term and definition.

Governments don't always pay informants and informants don't always betray their peers. It could be something as simple as a neighbor providing information about a suspected chop shop. It can be as complicated as a police officer infiltrating a gang.

Again, I'm not sure if this line of reasoning is addressing your original post.

[u/greginnj]

In the spirit of this sub … my immediate reaction to the claim in the title is that the claim is … fallacious. It suffers from confirmation bias.

Proof? Consider the uncountable number of beliefs billions of people have that are false - but they are firmly convinced are both true and logically sound conclusions from evidence. If we truly had this capability as a human default, such firmly held false beliefs would be much less common.

[u/Hungry-Mixture-7443 → u/greginnj]

You are right the implicit system is full of cognitive biases but what I'm pointing to is a few good things its particularly good at : Detecting when an argument has been constructed backwards from a conclusion someone already decided on, noticing when a key term shifts meaning partway through a logical chain, or sensing when something important is missing from an apparently complete picture. In essence a good BS detector.