A field guide to the ways reasoning breaks
Crowds and prestige
Also called Everyone does it
Justifying an action because it is widely done, rather than because it is right.
Everybody rounds up their hours on timesheets, so it is fine.
Separate frequency from justification. Ask whether the practice would survive being stated openly.
The everyday version of ad populum aimed at conduct rather than belief: 'everyone does it' offered as a permit. Textbooks have listed it for decades, usually as a cousin of the bandwagon and of 'two wrongs make a right'.
Every shop on this street leaves the excess packaging loose on the pavement, so our pile is nothing unusual.
All the parents let their kids keep phones at the dinner table; being strict about it would only make you the outlier.
Everyone in the league parks across two spaces on match day, so one more car makes no difference.
Every freelancer I know inflates the estimate a bit to cover delays — it is simply how the work gets quoted.