Many writers over the years have drawn our attention to the value of contrast. Contrast isn’t just a physical phenomenon – in reflective practice it’s how we process meaning, build resilience, and truly value the gifts we are given.

The Shadow Deck of Distorted Reasoning Forms and Distorting Conditions introduced in this post is not a deck of bad thinking as much as it is a deck for seeing. It makes visible the pressures, distortions, and empathy failures that often remain in the background of deliberation. Like chiaroscuro in painting, shadow is not merely darkness. It gives definition, contrast, and depth. It helps the figure emerge.

In this series on the Ecology of Judgment:

• valid reasoning styles can be better appreciated when contrasted against distorted reasoning forms;
• enabling capacities are more desirable when seen alongside distorting conditions; and
• Lucid Empathy is recognised as essential when compared with the degradation of reasoning wrought by shadow empathy patterns

Reasoning’s Shadow Side

The Reasoning Repertoire card deck introduced 21 valid reasoning styles and seven enabling conditions that support the use of those styles in nonprofit deliberations. This post shifts the focus to what could be considered a ‘shadow’ card deck – 22 distorted reasoning forms and the 12 distorting conditions behind them.

Distorted reasoning forms are recurrent patterns in which thought becomes unreliable, self-protective, oversimplified, improperly structured, or unduly persuasive without being well-grounded. These are not merely accidental mistakes. They are recognisable forms of misreasoning that recur across individuals, groups, boards, committees, and organisations.

The 22 distorted reasoning forms and an icon representing the set of those forms are highlighted in the chart below.

The table which follows describes the symptoms associated with each form, to help you recognise each of the 22 threats to effective deliberation.

Forms not styles

It would be tempting to think that there would be a simple correspondence between the 21 valid reasoning styles and distorted (shadow or mirror) versions of those. While the names of some distorted reasoning forms seem to suggest this (e.g. linear versus linearist reasoning, probabilistic reasoning versus probabilistic misreasoning, and analogical reasoning versus analogical overreach) most involve a mix of elements rather than a simple ‘mirror’ of a valid style. It would also be a mistake to characterise them as ‘styles’ – as if one might deliberately choose to apply them.

This distinction between valid reasoning styles and distorted reasoning forms is important. Poor reasoning is not always random or chaotic. Very often it has a shape; following familiar paths and patterns. For example, a board may overstate one cause, mistake sequence for causation, collapse tension into binary choices, protect a favoured narrative, or allow rhetorical force to stand in for evidence.

The 22 distorted reasoning forms identified here are all underpinned by the susceptibility of the board to certain of the 12 distorting conditions discussed below.

The Distorting Conditions

Much as the valid reasoning styles are supported by a set of enabling capacities, the distorted reasoning forms are generated by a set of underlying distorting conditions, or contributary causes. These are described in the chart and table which follow, with most being familiar causes of damage to effective deliberation and decision-making.

Causal links between these distorting conditions and the 22 Distorted Reasoning Forms are described in the next summary table.

Shadow Empathy Patterns

Whereas the Reasoning Repertoire Deck employs the Lucid Empathy card to balance valid reasoning styles whenever human consequences are involved in deliberations, the Shadow Deck includes seven Shadow Empathy Patterns. The Window of Empathic Tolerance highlighted the issues of poorly calibrated empathic arousal and self-other boundary integrity. The seven patterns in this section of the Shadow Deck are expressions of three kinds of empathy failure that were evident in the zones outside the Window, as described in the following chart and table. Lucid Empathy offers the remedy for these failures, with disciplined regulation of arousal (feeling) and agency (boundary integrity).

These cards also recognise that empathy is required in both the process of deliberation, by virtue of the professional courtesy we extend to our colleagues, and in the consideration given to the human consequences of any decision we might make (or fail to make) regarding the matter at hand. These cards therefore ask: “How might empathy be missing, distorted, or misused in the matter before us or in how we deliberate together?”

The Shadow Deck

A similar card format to the one used in the Reasoning Repertoire Deck is employed in the Shadow Deck of 22 Distorted Reasoning Forms, 12 Distorting Conditions, 6 Diagnostic cards, and 7 Shadow Empathy Patterns. The diagnostic cards include remedial suggestions, most of which involve replacement of the distorting conditions with enabling capacities, and enhanced familiarity and facility with the valid reasoning styles.

As with the Reasoning Repertoire Deck, the cards in the Shadow Deck pdf can be downloaded, printed, cut, folded and glued to create a physical deck for use as flashcards, workshop resources, or reflective practice aids.

Note: While the Shadow Deck does not include a counterpart to the Practical Reasoning Map (which appears in the Reasoning Repertoire Deck), failure to consider one or more of the seven elements of practical reasoning (context, trigger/signal, frame/scope, purpose, object, phase, and mode) could also undermine effective reasoning.

Call to Action

Use the Shadow Deck alongside the Reasoning Repertoire Deck to support reflective governance. Treat the Deck not as a description of bad judgment but rather, as an aid to making good judgment visible. Focus on identifying issues in the way deliberations are conducted and response measures that shift your deliberative practice towards effective use of the 21 valid reasoning styles (supported by Lucid Empathy whenever human consequence is involved).

The aim is not to discard the shadow, but to work with it. Distorted reasoning, once recognised, can become the raw material for better judgment. Under the heat of lived experience, reflection, challenge, and practice, what begins as lead (distorted reasoning) can become gold (a more disciplined form of reasoning).

See also other posts in the Ecology of Judgment series:
Your Reasoning Repertoire Expanding Your Reasoning Repertoire
Enabling and Supporting Reasoning
Factors Shaping Reasoning Style Selection and Orchestration
Calibrating Relationship, Judgment, and Action with Lucid Empathy
Governance OF and WITH Empathy
Empathic Windows: Calibrating Empathic Receptivity, Involvement, and Agency
Empathy at the Core