Sunk-cost Fallacy

Reasoning that further investment is warranted on the fact that the resources already invested will be lost otherwise, not taking into consideration the overall losses involved in the further investment .

Examples:

  • I have already paid a consultant $1000 to look into the pros and cons of starting that new business division. He advised that I shouldn’t move forward with it because it is a declining market. However, if I don’t move forward, that $1000 would have...

Synonyms: argument from inertia, concorde fallacy, finish the job fallacy