How Fallacious is the Consequence Fallacy?

In Williamson (2007), Timothy Williamson argues against “the tactic of criticizing confidence in a theory by identifying a logical consequence of the theory (not itself a logical truth) whose probability is not raised by the evidence” (232-233). He dubs it the consequence fallacy. In this paper, we will show that Williamson‟s formulation of the tactic in question is ambiguous. On one reading of Williamson‟s formulation, the tactic is indeed a fallacy, but it is not a commonly used tactic; on another reading, it is a commonly used tactic (or at least more often used than the former tactic), but it is not a fallacy. The two readings of Williamson‟s formulation of the tactic are: (T1) Arguing that the probability of a theory is not raised by the evidence by identifying a logical consequence of the theory whose probability is not raised by the evidence. (T2) Arguing that a theory is not made likely to be true by the evidence by identifying a logical consequence of the theory that is not made likely to be true by the evidence. 1