Men cheat only in certain situation

The argument

The claim being resisted is that infidelity has an explanation of the kind a general theory could supply. It is reductive to believe there is a single explanation for infidelity, and the objection is not that the usual explanations are the wrong ones but that an explanation of that shape cannot be right. Analysis must be made on a case-by-case basis, because the reasons another person chooses to do anything are impossible to know from outside, and any general account ends up substituting a plausible motive for one that was never established. The difficulty is compounded by the word itself. This is typified by the term "cheat", which can mean a number of things, and the cases it collects are not obviously of a kind. Would we class a long-standing emotional affair in the same category as a sexually charged encounter? The first may involve no sex at all and years of concealment; the second may involve neither concealment nor any continuing attachment. And how might our reading vary depending on the state of a person's existing relationship, given that the same act carries a different meaning in a settled partnership, in one already ending, and in one whose terms have been openly negotiated? Answering these questions is not straightforward, but it does point to a single conclusion. Without knowing the links between these disparate forms of infidelity, they should only be looked at as stand-alone examples, and until such links are established there is no category coherent enough to be explained at all. That is what undermines the gendered account. A claim that men cheat, offered as a statement about men, requires cheating to be one thing with one set of causes. If it is instead a label covering situationally distinct acts, the explanation lies in the particular circumstances of each case rather than in the gender of the person involved.

Context

No argument can sufficiently capture what it is that motivates someone to cheat. That is because each instance is unique, resting upon a complex of factors that no one but those involved can fully understand. To look at infidelity as a single category undermines the range of ideas it contains. As well as the range of people, their motivations and behaviours, that it claims to describe.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Infidelity may be situational. But so are most real-world events, ranging from crime to divorce. That does not mean that more general conclusions can be drawn about these subjects. Rather, it reminds audiences to maintain a level of caution in how they read into things.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] We cannot rule out there being points of similarity across all cases of infidelity