KnaveOfAllTrades 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: KnaveOfAllTrades 20 December 2012 06:22:27AM *  2 points [-]

Then there's another half--when the wrongness of something is missed because it does not (technically by an approximate dictionary definition) fall into a pre-existing category in the 'Wrong Cluster'. Examples: Forced consent, dishonesty that's 'technically not lying', extortion that's 'technically not stealing' getting a free ride.

So we have a general 'linguistic ethical determinism' (better name anybody?) fallacy, wherein something is considered wrong if and only if it comes under an existing Category of Wrong according to a pedantic definition. (This is itself, of course, a corollary of human obsession with linguistic categories, which I gather is covered in A Human's Guide to Words.)