Truth Through Fallacious Reasoning

Managed to bump into a post, " ARE WE PREJUDICED AGAINST FALLACIOUS REASONING?", written some couple months ago by clayton littlejohn.

In his post, Clayton questions if people are prejudiced against fallacious reasoning. He talks about justified actions and permissible actions and ends off with, "What is it exactly that is wrong with a belief that is true but arrived at through affirming the consequent? What is it exactly that is wrong with the inference? Presumably theoretical reasoning aims at truth. Why shouldn't we have the 'by whatever means necessary' sort of attitude towards belief?"

Let us examine a simple situation. Say we wanted to find out the total number of apples we have. And if you had one, and i had one, then we would know two things. The process to find the total would be 1+1, and the result is 2. In fact, the example is so simple, because we have all learned a great amount of mathematics and this situation is elementary, we know that saying 1x1=2 or 1+1=3 is fallacious and untrue, either in the process or the consequent respectively.

But what of complex situations, where things are not as simple as 1+1? It is then difficult for a consequent arrived at, through fallacious reasoning, to be recognisable as a truth. What happens is the inevitable need for reassessment to confirm that the consequent is indeed the truth. And through such reassessment, the fallacious reasoning must ultimately be discarded in favor of sound reasoning. If such is not the case, then how does anyone recognise a consequent as truthful?

I think Clayton was trying to tell people that they should not disregard, without thought, a consequent that was arrived at through fallacious reasoning, as the consequent might still be truthful even if the means was fallacious. This to me, seems like a very subtle shift in burden of proof.

I thought of another example, which i'm not exactly sure if it does Clayton's post any justice. Say for example, a man is wrongfully accused of assault and is punished for a crime he did not commit. Let's say he was jailed for ten years. Ten years later, someone relooked at the case, and found that the man indeed had an alibi. The man could not have committed the crime of assault because a the time that the assault was taking place, he was somewhere-else committing grand theft. And let's hypothesize that the punishment for assault and grand theft is the same, ten years. Then do we punish the man for the crime he was not yet punished for? By jailing him for another ten years? Or do we call it quits because justified action was arrived at through fallacious methods.

Kind of boggles the mind doesn't it?