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DeVliegendeHollander comments on Open Thread, Jun. 29 - Jul. 5, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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I wonder if the following is covered in the sequences... I could not find it.
There is a specific kind of argument which is not really an argument, because it is not just used in debates but people really seem to believe. It is a bit similar to motte and bailey, but that is a debate tactic, but this one is not, this is really believed.
The broad outline is statements that can have multiple interpretations, broader and narrower. And the broader interpretation is almost trivially true, while the narrower not and they get confused.
The latest example I saw was hedonism in the sense that everybody is a hedonist. Sure, someone working their ass off to be a champion do it because they think winning it gives them pleasure. Sure, the patriot selflessly fighting for his country and doing his duty is doing it because not doing so would give him a kind of psychological pain. This really really broad sense of hedonism is trivially true. But hedonism has a narrower, "sex and drugs and rock and roll" sense, let's call it instant gratification, and no, it is not true that everybody is chasing that.
The point I am trying to make is that I think I need to sort it out in my head whether I believe in the broader and almost trivally true definitions of some things, or in the narrower ones, and if I believe in the former, do I abuse that belief to justify the later?
I have managed to sort out a few things already. I am a broad atheist (no magic sky man) but not a narrow atheist (don't think religious mores and customs are predominantly harmful). Broad hedonist, not narrow hedonist - or let's say I keep trying to fight that in me (booze).
It is even in science! Aether theory was totally wrong and one of the biggest blunders of physics! No, wait, if you look at the Dirac quote here it seems if you define aether reeeeally broadly it is still true or at least was in 1951. Just be aware not to use the broad definition to justify the narrow one that got disproved.
But is there a general name for this?
Seems like Moving the goalposts, or something from this list.
See the post in the sequence "37 Ways That Words Can Be Wrong" called "Sneaking in Connotations. It seems to be roughly what you're talking about.
Related but not the same: deepity (note: link is to RationalWiki, which some folks in these parts don't like much, but this particular article is OK).
Yes, this is close.
Is this the same thing as the motte and bailey argument?
Not the motte and bailey argument, a motte and bailey doctrine. But yeah, it sounds a lot like what is called a motte and bailey doctrine everywhere except in the Scottosphere.
What does the tern "doctrine" mean in this context anyways? It's not exactly a belief or anything, just a type of argument. I've seen that it's called that but I don't understand why.
A doctrine is something like a rule or principle or concept. The point is that when you claim that something is a motte and bailey doctrine you don't just attack one argument, but rather the whole body of thought that argues about that thing using those concepts.
Ah I see. I was thinking of motte and bailey as something like a fallacy or a singular argument tactic, not a description of a general behavior. The name makes much more sense now. Thank you. Also, you said it's called that "everywhere except the Scottosphere". Could you elaborate on that?
Scott introduced the concept of a motte and bailey doctrine on Slate Star Codex, in an article called Social Justice and Words Words Words or something like that. I don't think he said anything that was wrong in that post (about that concept), but it appears that a lot of readers who hadn't heard about M&BDs before misunderstood it to be about a debate tactic/fallacy. So on SSC and to some extent on LW 'motte and bailey' is often used with the meaning 'bait and switch'.
Arguments that are used to believe things are also called arguments. It is rather unfortunate that those two sense are not distinguished. There are things that people do in debates where they try to turn the situation to their advantage that are not reasons to believe things ie arguments that are not arguments. An example would be (simply) saying "shut up!". Then there is where it has argument forms and non-argument forms. If you simply beat up anyone that disagrees with you it will affect discussion but if you threaten to beat someone for believing something that is appeal to the stick and actually has a "therefore" in it and is an argument.
Well the technique you are using is working because of equivocation. The concept is used in two different contexts where it actually means different things. I think there has been a lot of discussion about how arguments over definitions are largely pointless and miss the real things. However that is exactly what would combat the usage of this technique. Making formal appeals on why things "proved" for one sense of the word do not apply to its other senses. Off course in order to do that it must first be established on what sense is used in the original argument. The trouble is that most of the time multiple senses can form interesting and potentially critical separate arguments. It doesn't help matters that often their truth is pretty entangled. For example any argument that works against broad hedonism should work against narrow hedonism. Thus it can become tempting to not keep track whether the claim is broad or narrow. The trouble is that sometimes the defensibility/applicability of the argument is sensitive whether the claim is narrow or broad.
Also I would like to point out that it's not that the truth is trivial in the broad sense. While it can be easy to attribute a behavior or attribute to a really broad ism this can fail to be appropriate even if the ism is very very broad. For example a champion trainee might in fact be motivated by sense of duty or being a sporty man being a high virtue for them even if the people around them understand his behavior in hedonistic terms. Or rather than them winning they might feel that it is important that their country wins.
This can form a basis for another maybe coused technique. If you see a hard worker you might tell (yourself) a plausible story about how they are working to get their children fed and struggling to make ends meet. This might let you think that they are motivated by the practical enablingness of money, a form of positive greed. Someone might use the existence of the worker as an argument how a worldview that emphasizes greed ends in positive results. Thus you might be inclined to support heavy privatization schemes. However if you were to ask the worker how they feel about their work they might tell about how they chose their profession so they can see first hand how their work helps others or how the work helps their community. If the reason you attributed for them wouldn't come up and for example they turned down a more paying job because it involved less personal contact it can be obvious that the story you told of them is a work of your fiction and contrary to the fact. By that time you might have used that story to passionately defend the way of life you had empirically witnessed against dubious theoretical alternative systems. But if your "emprical experience" was based on your way of interpreting the existence of the worker it's more case of a word against word. Part of your experience might have been the champion trainee demonstrating how ambition for personal achievement gets you places. But what if the champion trainee did it for national pride?
Just because an explanation works doesn't mean you should understand a phenomenon in those terms. One way of defending against spins that are convenient for third parties is to be interested on direct factual accuracy of psychological claims and not rely on external circumstances alone to infer states of mind. That is that a person works isn't evidence for what reason they do the work. For example a greed arguer might say that if a person didn't desperately need money they wouldn't work so that they work is evidence that they do need it desperately. However if you believe this line of argument you are just taking their word for psychological laws and states about the human mind (while the arguer might want you to focus on the states of the world). Epistemologically (atleast) it would be prudent to recognize this as a claim that might need backing to be believed. Even if you end up accepting the claim you will have rooted in more easily checkable things than the word of a potentially agendafull arguer. If for example your own experience of your own mind backs the existence of these psychological laws you are backing them with direct empirical evidence. In addition you know to be wary of typical mind fallacy and you might be more easily aware that greed is not the be-all-end-all of psychological law.
Some years ago I reasoned that all Christians are closeted hedonists: sure, they preach against promiscuity and greed in this world, but they eagerly await the infinite delights of heaven. What's more hedonist than that?
Rather than an argument having a broad and a narrow meaning, I construed this as people failing to take their own beliefs to their logical conclusions. If you're sacrificing earthly pleasures, but still wish to experience endless bliss, you're still a hedonist no matter what else you preach.
A similar reasoning led me to conclude that all ethical systems end up inevitably being situationist, want it or not. This is not a defense of situationism, but a statement of fact. Thou shalt not murder all you want, except when your Bible commands otherwise.