A choice between two equally unpleasant alternatives that lead to the same result.
Named for John Morton, Henry VII's tax collector: the lavish can afford to pay and the frugal have savings to pay from. The structure is that the argument's branches converge on the same conclusion.
In practice
- An employee told to justify a low expense claim looks profligate for having made one and disorganised for having no receipt.
- A candidate asked why they left a job quickly looks unstable, and one who stayed long looks unambitious.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Decision-making & Reasoning
- Essay
- Paradoxes that broke theories, and sayings that outlived them