Conversation Halters
Related to: Logical Rudeness, Semantic Stopsigns
While working on my book, I found in passing that I'd developed a list of what I started out calling "stonewalls", but have since decided to refer to as "conversation halters". These tactics of argument are distinguished by their being attempts to cut off the flow of debate - which is rarely the wisest way to think, and should certainly rate an alarm bell.
Here's my assembled list, on which I shall expand shortly:
- Appeal to permanent unknowability;
- Appeal to humility;
- Appeal to egalitarianism;
- Appeal to common guilt;
- Appeal to inner privacy;
- Appeal to personal freedom;
- Appeal to arbitrariness;
- Appeal to inescapable assumptions.
- Appeal to unquestionable authority;
- Appeal to absolute certainty.
Now all of these might seem like dodgy moves, some dodgier than others. But they become dodgier still when you take a step back, feel the flow of debate, observe the cognitive traffic signals, and view these as attempts to cut off the flow of further debate.
The Bedrock of Fairness
Followup to: The Moral Void
Three people, whom we'll call Xannon, Yancy and Zaire, are separately wandering through the forest; by chance, they happen upon a clearing, meeting each other. Introductions are performed. And then they discover, in the center of the clearing, a delicious blueberry pie.
Xannon: "A pie! What good fortune! But which of us should get it?"
Yancy: "Let us divide it fairly."
Zaire: "I agree; let the pie be distributed fairly. Who could argue against fairness?"
Xannon: "So we are agreed, then. But what is a fair division?"
Yancy: "Eh? Three equal parts, of course!"
Zaire: "Nonsense! A fair distribution is half for me, and a quarter apiece for the two of you."
Yancy: "What? How is that fair?"
Zaire: "I'm hungry, therefore I should be fed; that is fair."
Xannon: "Oh, dear. It seems we have a dispute as to what is fair. For myself, I want to divide the pie the same way as Yancy. But let us resolve this dispute over the meaning of fairness, fairly: that is, giving equal weight to each of our desires. Zaire desires the pie to be divided {1/4, 1/4, 1/2}, and Yancy and I desire the pie to be divided {1/3, 1/3, 1/3}. So the fair compromise is {11/36, 11/36, 14/36}."
Empty Labels
Followup to: The Argument from Common Usage
Consider (yet again) the Aristotelian idea of categories. Let's say that there's some object with properties A, B, C, D, and E, or at least it looks E-ish.
Fred: "You mean that thing over there is blue, round, fuzzy, and—"
Me: "In Aristotelian logic, it's not supposed to make a difference what the properties are, or what I call them. That's why I'm just using the letters."
Next, I invent the Aristotelian category "zawa", which describes those objects, all those objects, and only those objects, which have properties A, C, and D.
Me: "Object 1 is zawa, B, and E."
Fred: "And it's blue—I mean, A—too, right?"
Me: "That's implied when I say it's zawa."
Fred: "Still, I'd like you to say it explicitly."
Me: "Okay. Object 1 is A, B, zawa, and E."
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