Moving the goalposts
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About
Moving the goalposts is a rhetorical deception in which the qualifications for determining the outcome of a debate are modified after the fact so that an argument which would have otherwise won the debate now no longer meets the minimum requirement to establish victory.
In common usage, this is often done repeatedly throughout a discussion -- i.e. every time a seemingly-conclusive argument is raised, the counter-arguer redefines the terms of the discussion in order to favor their preferred outcome.
Related
- Moving the goalposts is essentially unidirectional position dancing.