1. The scheme
The argument from waste is defined as follows by Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca:
The argument of waste consists in saying that, as one has already begun a task and made sacrifices, which would be wasted if the enterprise were given up, one should continue in the same direction. This is the justification given by the banker who continues to lend to his insolvent debtor in the hope of getting him on his feet again in the long run. This is one of the reasons which, according to Saint Theresa, prompt a person to pray, even in a period of “dryness.” One would give up, she says, if it were not
‘… that one remembers that it gives delight and pleasure to the Lord of the garden, that one is careful not to throw away all the service rendered, and that one remembers the benefit one hopes to derive from the great effort of dipping the pail often into the well and drawing it up empty’. (1958], p. 279)
According to the tradition established by Aristotle in the Rhetoric, the Treatise introduces the scheme of waste by a definition immediately followed by two illustrations. The defining topos is given in the following passage:
as one has already begun a task and made sacrifices, which would be wasted if the enterprise were given up, one should continue in the same direction.
The topos is given as a generic sentence, outlining a typified situation. The agents are impersonal (“one”); “(one has) already begun” / “should continue”; “a task”, an “enterprise”; “(one has made) sacrifices.
The topos corresponds to the following script (the elements of the affective scenario are underlined):
(i) A complex initial situation:
(a) A task has been started in the hope of a significant benefice.
(b) The task is long and difficult: sacrifices have been made.
(c) Nothing has been obtained (implicit).
(ii) These hard conditions generate an interrogation:
(d) Implicit: despair looms; it is possible and one is tempted to stop: “should I continue?” This key point is not explicitly mentioned in the scheme.
(e) The situation is now radicalized, as a risk of losing everything:
— Either (e1) I “give up” and all the efforts will be wasted.
— Or (e2), I go on, “hoping” that things will finally turn better.
This key element, hope, is not mentioned in the scheme, it only appears in the first example.
(e2) can be derived from (e1) by application of the opposite scheme:
give up and waste everything
continue and not to lose, or even to win (implicit).
(iii) Conclusion: A decision, actually a bet: “one should continue in the same direction”.
All these conditions are crucial, for example (e). If it was a cumulative task (like weight training), then one could justify the decision to stop by saying that, well, “it is something anyway”.
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The scheme is structured by a concatenation of emotions:
hope → temptation of despair → renewed hope
2. Related forms
The scheme of waste is related to the proverbial scheme, “one does not stop in mid-stream”, to which one can reply “either you stop or you drown yourself”. It is vulnerable to a counter-discourse such as, “we have already lost enough time like that.”
Slippery Slope
The scheme of waste ratifies the slippery slope argument, “we must not begin, because, if we start, we will not be able to stop”. This last scheme justifies an initial abstention, whereas the argument of waste is that of perseverance in action, S. Direction.
Sunk cost fallacy
The sunk cost argument is discussed in Walton 2002, Walton & al. 2008, p. 326-327. Economic theory distinguishes between sunk costs (retrospective costs), which have already been incurred and are therefore irrecoverable, and forecast costs (future costs). This theory states that, in decision-making, only theforecast costs should be taken into account. It follows that taking into account past costs and sacrifices already made is irrational and fallacious (Wikipedia, Sunk cost).
The banker must know how to evaluate the situation of his debtor at any moment and then, according to this evaluation alone, without taking into account past costs, take his losses, as he knows how to take his profits.
3. Examples
The following example introduces a formula frequently associated with this scheme when used to justify the continuation of a war “then they would have died for nothing!”:
“Beating a retreat is tantamount to recognizing that all our guys died for nothing!” claims [John McCain’s (1) fan] Private Carl Bromberg, having returned home.
(1) Republican Presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election.
Marianne, 1-10 March 2008, p. 59.
The key elements of the scheme can be scattered across the passage (our emphasis):
He [the philosopher Alain] does not believe in the war in the name of law. From the end of 1914 on, he favors a peace of compromise, and he follows very closely, through the Tribune de Genève (1) sent to him by the household Halévy, everything which looks like the beginning of a negotiation, however fragile. But he is under no illusion: precisely because it is so hideous, so murderous, so blind, so total, war is very difficult to stop. It does not belong to this category of armed conflicts that cynical princes can stop if they consider that the costs exceeds the possible gains, and that the game is not worth the candle. It is led by patriots, honest men elected by their people, who are locked up every day more and more in the aftermath of the decisions of July 1914(2). The sufferings have been so great, the deaths so numerous that no one dares to act as if they had not been necessary. And how do we move forward without being labeled as a traitor? The longer the war lasts, the longer it will last. It kills democracy, from which it nevertheless receives what perpetuates its course.
(1) A Swiss newspaper (2) Date of the declaration of war.
François Furet, [The Past of an Illusion], 1995[1].
Leaders of democracies may be using the sunk cost argument when they decide to continue the war, despite heavy losses, thinking they had a good chance of winning.
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On the method of identifying a topos in a passage, see Argument scheme, which uses the waste argument as an example.
[1] François Furet, Le Passé d’une illusion. Essai sur l’idée communiste au XXe siècle. Paris: Robert Laffont & Calmann-Levy, 1995, p. 65. [The Past of an Illusion. Essay on the communist idea in the twentieth century]