Airedale comments on A sense of logic - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (269)
The problem is that it's wrong. All men are not created / did not come into existence equal. Intelligence, genetic risk factors for disease, appearance, etc are all examples of inequalities in the creation or existence of man. It is clear from the text that 'equal' means more than 'equally endowed with unalienable rights'. There are interpretations that are more correct, sure, but these interpretations aren't the natural interpretation of that piece of text, and it's perfectly reasonable to kinesthetically react to that natural interpretation.
I don't think people are generally using the phrase to mean that for the very reasons that it is so obviously and trivially false if used in that way. The phrase is part of a very famous historical document, and I think the most natural reading is in that original context.
The most natural reading of "all men are created equal" is that it predicates the quality of 'equal' on all men: formally, for all men, 'man' implies 'created equal'. That's what the sentence actually means. Keep in mind that this sentence was brought up as a case of instinctual reaction to bad logic; you may have managed to replace the obvious interpretation with the intended and reasonable one in your instinctual reactions, but for someone without that training it may be entirely accurate for them to respond with "urgh" even if that's not what people actually mean.
You make a good point. This isn't an instance of bad logic exactly; it's an instance of something entirely different to logic that also happens to contain nonsense.