Fallacy Form 2 is often called upon by those who oppose legalizing certain kinds of behavior because they regard such behavior (often with good reason) as immoral or undesirable, and because they think (incorrectly) that legalization would somehow lend moral sanction to the behavior. For instance, they may argue that legalizing the use or sale of drugs would "condone" the narcotics trade. In reality, this viewpoint confuses two separate ethical issues. One can firmly and simultaneously oppose both (1) dangerous drugs and (2) dangerous anti-market drug-prohibition policies, with the same moral fervor.

This form of the fallacy is sometimes even embraced unwittingly by less logically astute advocates of freedom. Such advocates may assert, for example, not merely that activities (such as drug use) that do not involve the initiation of force should be legal, but further that there is "nothing wrong" with such activities. The latter claim, however, undermines the foundation of ethics itself—i. e., determining what is objectively good for human beings. Without a proper ethical basis, they merely undermine their own creditability as defenders of freedom. After all, if "anything goes" in ethics, then is it not arbitrary and capricious to condemn the initiation of force against others? What moral basis is left for opposing the worst excesses of government policies, even the depredations of a Hitler or a Stalin?