Is there a word to describe a claim that cannot be disproved because the situation will never occur?

Question

I'm looking for a way to describe a statement or claim made by a person that can't be disproved purely on the basis that the situation itself will never occur (or is highly unlikely to).

For instance, a person giving a talk about his commitment to a vegan diet might make the claim that "If I was stranded on a desert island with no food, I wouldn't kill animals to eat even if I was starving to death."

It's clear that there's no way to disprove this as it's highly unlikely they would ever be in the situation in the first place, so what would you call these kinds of statements?

Answer 1

Such a debate is academic:

.7. Theoretical or speculative without a practical purpose or intention. [AHD]

.3. theoretical or hypothetical; not practical or directly useful: an academic question. [RHK Webster's]

The unrealistic aspect is perhaps best described by fanciful.

Answer 2

You could consider the claim moot.

Having little or no practical relevance

As you say, practically speaking, their belief in the claim is likely never going to be challenged, so their contention that they wouldn't eat an animal even at the cost of their own life is a moot one.

Answer 3

Unsubstantiable, which means not substantiable, ie not provable (1,2,3,4,5) may serve. Here are two examples from wordnik: “the theory was something that might in the long run turn out to be unsubstantiable, and perhaps unusable...”; “you are going on a unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable flight of speculative fancy...”

The term vacuous (“Lacking meaningful content”) may also apply. In mathematical writing, it is used to characterize claims about objects which don't or can't exist.

Answer 4

If it were stated as a hypothetical then I would say it is "academic" for the reasons given by @Edwin. If it were a claim then I would say that the reasoning behind the claim is "specious"

having deceptive attraction or allure

having a false look of truth or genuineness

"moot" generally implies the claim is not relevant due to factors outside the claim itself, for instance,

"If I was stranded on a desert island with no food, I wouldn't kill animals to eat even if I was starving to death."

would be rendered moot by being thrown into a prison for life where vegetarian was the only option, or if all food animals went extinct. It may or may not be true, but it is no longer important because there is no choice but to be vegetarian.

EDIT:

I believe the choice would be "unfalsifiable" which would apply when the situation were actually completely impossible to test due to its nature. It would not work for the 'highly unlikely but possible' case though.

If the opponent is known to be adversarial then you have more leeway in saying something is unfalsifiable. As in, you can take into account that the person may actively try to reinterpret the statement were the situation to occur. For instance "I can beat up the best guitar player in the world." could be called unfalsifiable if deciding who the best guitar player were left to the other person. The person can always claim whomever they failed to beat up wasn't actually the best guitar player and they think someone else is better thus indefinitely delaying the testing of the hypothesis.

Answer 5

The claim can be defined as speculative:

• pertaining to, of the nature of, or characterized by speculation, conjecture, or abstract reasoning.

• theoretical, rather than practical.

Source: Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary.

Answer 6

How about a ludicrous counterfactual, where counterfactual is a term used in the field of logic to describe a supposition contrary to fact, as in "if pigs could fly, then I'd be rich."

Answer 7

When you say a claim that cannot be disproved, I assume that must also mean that it cannot be proved. So wouldn't said claim simply be unprovable or unverifiable? Then one could add virtually to cover the "highly unlikely" chance that the claim could ever possibly be tested. So, the claim is "Virtually unverifiable." (or "unprovable" as it can be neither proved nor disproved) Personally I'd avoid undisproveable since it seems like a double negative to me. But maybe it really is not unimpossible? Afterthought: Depending upon the speaker, I definitely might have occasion to call it a bunch of hot air instead!