Yvain comments on The noncentral fallacy - the worst argument in the world? - Less Wrong

157 Post author: Yvain 27 August 2012 03:36AM

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Comment author: Yvain 27 August 2012 09:38:42PM *  28 points [-]

The challenge is an interesting exercise, and I will try to think up some examples, but your comment also contains an implied accusation which I'd like to respond to first.

By my count, this post includes critiques of four weak right-wing arguments (abortion, euthanasia, taxation, affirmative action) and three weak left-wing arguments (eugenics, sexism, capital punishment). As far as I know, neither side thinks MLK was a criminal. That means I'm 4-3, ie as balanced as it's mathematically possible to get while seven remains an odd number.

And I think the responses I see below justify my choice of examples. Shminux says the pro-choice converse of "abortion is murder" would be "forced pregnancy is slavery"; TGM suggests below it "denying euthanasia is torture". These would be excellent examples of TWAITW if anyone ever asserted them which as far as I know no one ever has. Meanwhile, I continue to walk past signs saying "Abortion Is Murder!" on my way to work every day. I don't know who exactly it would be helping to give "Forced Pregnancy Is Slavery" equal billing with "Abortion Is Murder" here and let my readers conclude that I'm arguing against some fringe position irrelevant to the real world.

If you can think of left-wing WAITWs that are as well-known and catchy as "abortion is murder!", I will happily edit the post to include them (well, to include one of them; otherwise it'll be 5-4 and the leftists will start complaining). The best I can do at the moment is anti-war arguments that seem to equate for example humanitarian intervention in Rwanda with invading your next-door neighbor to steal their land because they're both "war", but that one doesn't come in convenient slogan form as far as I know.

Comment author: Yvain 30 August 2012 02:52:48AM *  3 points [-]

So this may be more complicated than I thought, in that all of the examples below seem really bad to me, but that might just be an example of my personal bias. I think if any of them get, let's say, more than ten upvotes I'll assume they're generally agreed to be a good argument and I'll put them in - does that sound like a reasonable bar? That means upvote them if you think they're worthy of inclusion.

I was trying to think of further liberal examples, and I think some references to "human rights" might qualify - for example, "health care is a human right". The meaning of "human right" that allows us to assert this seems very poorly defined, whereas the meaning of "human right" that allows us to say that negative rights like free speech are human rights seems well-defined, even though I don't agree with it. So calling health care (or housing, or something) a "human right" might be a way of trying to claim that we should view health care as exactly like free speech, free religion, etc, even though it is quite different in that it requires positive action by other people.

I'm not quite willing to include that one just because the total ambiguity in the definition of "human right" makes it pretty hard to pin down exactly how the argument is being made.

EDIT: Just saw "Property is theft" has 15 upvotes. Do people think this one should be added?

Comment author: shminux 30 August 2012 05:05:01AM *  1 point [-]

all of the examples below seem really bad to me

I'm not fond of any, either. See if you can find something you like here.

Comment author: kilobug 30 August 2012 07:57:52AM -1 points [-]

"Human rights" are poorly defined, but I guess the closer we have to a formal definition of them is Universal Declaration of Human Rights which does include health care and right to education at the same level than free speech or fair trial.

But I agree it's a very poor defense of universal healthcare, the UDHR is a political document that can carry weight of authority, but it doesn't make something ethical or unethical by itself. The only way I use the UDHR in a political discussion is with a reasoning like « UDHR includes right to healthcare, and UDHR was accepted by most countries of the planet, so it's not a completely lunatic position. Now, please stop your authority arguments like "the only natural rights are freedom and ownership" and listen to my actual arguments for universal healthcare, and I'll listen to your real ones against it », which doesn't in itself justify healthcare, but can help giving me at least a chance to expose my arguments.