Bob DeSlob, CEO of Westlake Inc., had supported the development and distribution of the Super Widget, a product that is expensive to make. The Super Widget failed to meet its expected sales. Bob, now, decides to invest more resources to produce and aggressively market the Super Widget, rationalizing that if he did not invest more in the product, what he has invested would be lost. Bob is engaging in:

A. sunk cost fallacy.

B. argumentum ad baculum.

C. argumentum ad hominem.

D. reductio ad absurdum

The correct answer is A. sunk cost fallacy.

Explanation:

In logic, the unrecoverable cost or fallacy of the Concorde is a fallacy that occurs when someone makes an investment that does not seem profitable and reasons as follows: I can not stop now, otherwise what I have invested so far will be lost.

This is true, of course, but irrelevant to the decision of whether one should continue to invest in the project. That is, the arguments to continue investing in the project should not be based on the fear of losing the investment but on the expectations of the operation of the project, both totally independent.

If there is no hope of any success for the investment, then the fact that one has already put a lot of money and effort does not justify having to keep losing it so as not to face the initial error. This occurs in people who do not know or can give up, because of the existing prejudice that if all the energy is put into something they will be able to overcome it. However, there may always be an unknown factor or unknown variable that could lead to failure indefinitely or irremediably.