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pjeby comments on Being saner about gender and rationality - Less Wrong
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So, if I were to never become depressed again, I'm no longer a human? That doesn't make any sense to me.
Bear in mind, I'm not proposing Superhappy-ness. I'm simply saying that after the initial moment of pain or sorrow or frustration or grief or embarrassment or whatever, the utility of that feeling being continued drops off dramatically. And if something bothers you emotionally for, say, an hour (let alone frequently) the odds are good that you are wasting your time. (And yes, that does mean I've been doing a bit of time-wasting here recently.)
Unless I'm misunderstanding 'utility' as you're using it here, it seems like you're begging the question. To say that "bad feelings don't serve utility" doesn't really seem to be saying much at all; this is part of why I felt the need to put scare quotes around 'bad' above - bad feelings are by definition bad.
Pot, meet kettle. ;-)
If you're going to accuse me of committing a logical fallacy, please do me the service of doing so explicitly, and pointing out where it happened.
Here:
That isn't even remotely a justification for actually having bad feelings.
You didn't show where I was begging the question, or was that not what you meant to imply above?
While I'm not sure formalism is the right way to go, let's try it:
.1. 'Bad' feelings are part of what it is to be uniquely human.
.2. Our standards for what is good/acceptable flow from our nature.
.3. By 2, any standard of the good that runs counter to our nature is not a good standard.
.4. By 3 and 1, a standard of the good that considers 'bad' feelings to be bad is not a good standard.
Perhaps not the most helpful way of putting it, but hopefully that works. Any sign of a fallacy there? (note: 'the naturalistic fallacy' is not an acceptable answer)
Bad feelings are not unique to humans, so how are they "uniquely" human? And even if they were, why is being "uniquely human" all that's required for something to be good?
Why does that mean our standards are actually good?
Our nature includes violence, so by this argument, violence is a good standard.
Having a bad back is uniquely human, too, as are male pattern baldness and HIV. Is discarding these things "certainly bad"?
I also notice you haven't actually corrected the begging-the-question problem: you still haven't established that bad feelings belong to the class of "uniquely human", and you certainly haven't established that being uniquely human is good.
If you go with "part of our nature" instead, then it's also part of our nature to be stupid and irrational, biased and fallacious. Shall we not discard those either?
And of course, you're still begging the question of why "part of our nature" equals "certainly bad" to "discard". Sickness is part of our nature; shall we not cure it? Must we linger in ill health for as long as our ancestors, instead of getting well more quickly?
If not, how is it different from getting over a bad emotion more quickly?
Your #2 is even more disappointing -- "what is actually good flows from our nature" -- WTF? That's as much begging the question as saying there must be a God because he's good, and all the good we have in the world must therefore flow from His love. You're just babbling here, not making a case for anything. It's good because good flows from our nature, and our nature is good because discarding it is bad? Perhaps it contains a dormative principle, too?
I wasn't aware we were arguing metaethics at that level here, so a charge of begging the question seems entirely out of line.
That what is good comes from the sort of thing that one is, is not all that controversial. It's actually one thing I didn't have to explain or defend at all in my thesis on ethics, but as always your panel may vary. Let's go through a few candidate explanations of the good:
I'm leaving out explanations of the good such as Divine Command Theory and Ethical Nihilism since I assume you wouldn't buy into them anyway.
In each of these cases, what is good comes from what it is to be human. Our nature is the grounding of value, and to ignore a major part of our nature is sure to lead one astray when seeking out the good.
Did you have another idea in mind for what constitutes goodness?
That's not begging the question either, though I suppose it might be if it was stated more clearly. Does anyone actually argue that, anyway?
No. I did not argue that our nature is good. That would indeed seem circular.
Sorry, were you using 'begging the question' in the colloquial sense this whole time? I'd assumed not, since you referred to Aristotle. If not, please point out where I'd initially set out to prove that "part of our nature" equals "certainly bad" to "discard". I'd initially used (something like) that as a premise and not my conclusion!
If you see what I'm doing as "just babbling" then I don't see how you even have anything to argue against. You're being disingenuous, at best. That I'm taking fairly standard philosophical views and arguing using logic should not equate to "just babbling".
So then in your opinion, I didn't commit a logical fallacy after all?
ETA: Or were you just changing the subject?
You most certainly were begging the question. From Wikipedia (quoting Aristotle):
You asserted that one class of thing was good because another class of thing was good, while failing to either establish that the class was good, or even that the thing in question was a member of that class.
While I disagree with your assessment, it's clear at least that I did not make the argument clear to you, so more elaboration is above.