Wonder if they're hiring over there at pundit school?
Category Archives: General discussion
Anything else.
Opposition party
The other week I was going to post something about how Obama reads criticism closely and takes it seriously. This, I think, is a praiseworthy intellectual habit. Perhaps the following item, however, means that he is taking it too far:
Barack Obama took the next big step in his Republican charm offensive on Tuesday night, when he dined with several of the nation's most prominent conservative pundits.
The president-elect arrived at the Chevy Chase, Md., home of syndicated columnist George Will shortly after 6:30 p.m., according to a press pool report. Greeting him at the residence were other luminaries of the conservative commentariat, including the Weekly Standard's William Kristol, New York Times columnist David Brooks, and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post.
The odd-couple gathering led to speculation that Rush Limbaugh, who said that he was in D.C. for a "secret meeting," was also in attendance. "I'm just offering, a personal trip, nobody even has to know about this," the notorious and combative talk show host wrote on his website.
Alas, a source close to the transition confirms, Limbaugh was definitely not in attendance during the dinner affair — likely disappointing some in the conservative blogosphere, knowing full well the fury that would have caused among progressives.
Nevertheless, Obama's choice of dining partners seem likely to cause its fair share of hair-pulling and eye-rolling. As the pool reporter, Ken Bazinet of the New York Daily News, penned in his write up: "This is for real, folks. The bloggers are going to love this one."
Obama has pledged to be a uniter once in office. He's also said he is willing to take policy suggestions from any source, regardless of ideological affiliation, as long as they work. So far, he's living up to his word.
I wonder who did the cooking.
Critical Thinking Software
As I've been "preping" a course in ethics and critical thinking I've been considering the use of software to help layout arguments, and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts or experience with them. Douglas Walton points to two programs in the first chapter of Argumentation Schemes.
Same sex marriage and begging the question
This is a bit of a departure from our usual analysis of particular arguments in the media, but because these arguments are fairly common and because we've been hashing these issues out in the comments to the earlier post "5,000 Years," I thought I'd try to synthesize the analysis of the argument as I see it.
Is there a non-question begging (secular) argument for the following claim?
C: Same-sex relationships cannot be considered "marriage."
Setting aside certain circular arguments about tradition (like Rick Warren's which was originally being commented on), the best argument seems to rest on the premise:
P: A necessary condition of marriage is the biological possibility of procreation.
Here biological possibility has to be understood as satisfying the counter-factual condition:
BP: If the functional organs of procreation are working in a species typical way, procreation would be biologically possible.
This condition is meant to include infertile and older couples within the scope of the condition, while still excluding same sex couples. I am not, of course, endorsing this exclusion: the question is whether a good argument can be constructed for C, as a matter of logic, that could justify arguments against same-sex marriage. I am tempted to claim that there cannot be any such argument after considering the various arguments.
Because the argument is trading in essences and definitions it would seem to be deductive: That is, it argues for the impossibility of same-sex marriage by appeal to a definition/essence. It has the form of:
1. X is a necessary condition of Y.
2. Necessarily, Z does not have X.
3. Therefore, necessarily, Z is not Y.
Triangles must have straight sides. Necessarily, Circles do not have straight sides. Therefore, necessarily, circles are not Triangles. Or, Nougaty filling is a necessary condition of being a Three Musketeers bar. Necessarily, Toffee does not have a nougaty filling. Therefore, necessarily, toffee is not a Three Musketeer's bar.
As such this looks like a valid deductive argument. But, a critic might wonder whether P understood in the light of BP really says anything more the following implicit premise.
IP: Only heterosexual couples can be married.
If this is so, then the argument might reasonably be accused of begging the question. But determining when the question is begged needs to be handled carefully, since a begged question can always be resolved by appealing to some further argument that independently justifies the problematic premise.
So, the question then becomes, what independent reason can be provided for P/BP? What sort of "warrant" can be given to claim that marriage has an essential link to the biological possibility of procreation?
In the comments, we identified two distinct strategies:
a) Appeal to tradition/Generalization from past practices–this can range from some sort of descriptive anthropological claim, to some sort of generalization to a normative claim, or a most often a simple stipulation on the basis of past stipulation.
b) Appeal to social function of marriage as defining its essence (coupled with an argument that marriage is the best means for attaining the relevant goals).
It seems to me that (a) either begs the question if it appeals to tradition, or, fails to attain the universality that seems to be needed to underwrite P/BP (at most the generalization can show is that marriage has been understood to have an essential connection to the possibility of procreation, not that this is essential for it. And counter-examples are too many to make the universalization possible (old people getting married, infertile couples etc. And it's no good saying that marriage has just been socially constructed this way, since we are aiming for an essential connection.)
The appeal to tradition seems to me to beg the question insofar as it takes the following form:
1. Marriage has been understood (in the past) to require P/BP.
2. Therefore, P/BP
[I probably don't have the logic right here. I'm realizing as I write that I'm not quite clear on how "appeals to tradition" really work, though I think that they are typically bad arguments. I guess they're a sort of temporally dispersed ad populum.]
Even if we can avoid begging the question here, the problem with this argument is that insofar as it appeals to people's opinions about marriage, it relies on a convention, which doesn't seem to be able to underwrite a claim about essence. At most it underwrites a sort of stipulation which isn't adequate to the purposes of this argument.
The strategy of (b) fails for slightly different reasons. The argument seems to run something like this:
1. Marriages provide for stable procreative units.
2. Society has an interest in stable procreative units.
3. Therefore, Society has an interest in recognizing marriages that are means to stable procreative unit
and,
4. Therefore, Society does not have an interest in recognizing relationships as marriages that are not means to stable procreative units.
This is a fine argument as it stands, but it doesn't get close to showing that there is some sort of essential incoherence in the notion of a marriage for some other purpose (adoptive child-rearing for example). It needs to conclude something much stronger than this, something that would suggest that recognizing same-sex marriages is incoherent, since it aims at establishing P/BP. At most it has shown that from the perspective of society, whether there are same-sex marriages or not is a matter of ambivalence. I think typically the argument seems to succeed because it trades the elision of biological function and social function. A little dose of evolution seems to suggest that this necessity is somehow a species necessity, but I think those arguments are pretty empty. (That is, I don't think we can deduce the "right" social institutions from biology, though I certainly grant that there are lots of ways in which biological truths affect which institutions are desirable and which not).
I'm not at all sure about much of this, and I'm sure there are strategies that I've missed. And certainly it is always open to the arguer to appeal to the Bible or personal communications with God to justify P/BP. But, as far as I can see, I cannot find a viable strategy to make the argument non-question begging. The problem is that the opponent of same-sex marriage must offer a very very strong argument that concludes impossibility if they want to trade on an putative "essence" of marriage. But, the arguments that would establish this putative "essence" of marriage seem to be either too weak to do so, or end up begging the question. The problem is that the "tradition" of heterosexual marriage might have arisen because it was socially useful (and perhaps still is) for managing procreation and the family, but that does not enail the necessary link between marriage and procreation. If this is so, then the whole strategy needs to be rethought, as it is doomed to failure. But, maybe I'm missing something obvious.
Argumentum ad nit-picking?
Here's an interesting bad argument I think we've maybe touched on a few times before. Seems fallacious in the form described, but I'm not sure how to categorize it. Relevance? Ignoratio Elenchi?
1. Critics of W's policy X were right about the overall undesirability of X (because of hypothetical consequences Y).
2. But, those critics were mistaken in predicting the details of actual consequences Z as Y.
3. Thus, they were no more right about X than W.
You were right to tell me not to drink and drive, but not because I might wreck my car. It turns out I killed someone, so we're both right and we're both wrong about drunk driving. (You were right that I should not drink and drive, and I was right that the danger of wrecking my car was not the real reason to not drink and drive.) This would seem to be a nice ignoratio elenchi.
The difference between hypothetical consequences as reasons and unknown unintended consequences as reasons to do something seems to be an equivocation. Even if it turns out that I did not wreck my car, the danger of doing so is still a reason for not drinking and driving.
But the argument is interesting since forms of it seem to be good.
1. You said I had reason Y to do X.
2. I had reason Z to do X.
3. My not doing X is excusable because I didn't know that I had reason Z to do X though I knew that I did not have reason Y to do X.
Seems like sometimes the argument is really an attempt to conceal one failure in deliberation with another.
1. Your argument Y against policy X was a bad one.
2. And neither of us saw that there was a good argument Z against X.
3. Therefore, I wasn't wrong to do X.
In its political employment I suspect that it hangs on the falsity of the second premise, or on a different form of culpability if 2 is true. Either 2 is true and therefore you're incompetent (you ought to have known), or 2 is false, and therefore you're foolish. Though the first side of the disjunction is undermined by the claim "even my critics didn't see this" and so I should not be culpable for not seeing it either."
Anyone recall any good examples of this?
Speaking of Nonsense
Poems that is.
Anyone know of any modern mnemonics for the valid syllogisms?
Anyone set this to a modern tune?
Something I’ve Never Understood
Why is the condition of a conditionally valid categorical syllogism determined by the term in the syllogism that is "superfluously" distributed?
Can anyone give me, or point me to, a simple explanation of why this is so?
Away with me
This NonSequitur poster will be away for a week or so. In the meantime, unless my other colleague posts, please comment here or enjoy the blogroll.
Ch-ch-ch-changes
So it turns out that my dear governor was everything everyone thought he would be. One local media person covering the current and hopefully soon to be former governor's long ago Congressional campaign, said that after talking to him, "you wanted to check your wallet and take a shower." Eugene Robinson feels the same way, more or less, that everyone does. Whether any of the charges are really justified will have to wait for trial, as it should. Nonetheless, Robinson, a member of the liberal media, has found a way to imagine Obama into the middle of this mess.
In handling questions about the arrest of Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich — for allegedly trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's former Senate seat to the highest bidder — Obama has gone strictly by the book. His statements have been cautious and precise, careful not to get ahead of the facts or make declarations that might later have to be retracted.
For most politicians, that would be good enough. For Obama, who inspired the nation with a promise of "change we can believe in," it's not.
The scandal involves Obama in only the most tangential way, as far as anyone knows, and actually seems to cast him in a favorable light. But the longer he leaves obvious questions unanswered, the longer the president-elect will have to talk about the seamier side of Illinois politics rather than initiatives such as saving the U.S. auto industry or revamping health care.
By all accounts, Obama is a pretty careful guy. He's about to be inaugurated President of the United States, so he's justifiably careful about the legal implications of what he says. He's probably also knows that whatever he says will receive heavy amount of interpretation. Regardless, he has called upon his staff to reveal any contacts with Blagojevich, and he has asked the governor to resign from office. What more does Robinson want? What would constitute "change" in this circumstance? Robinson answers:
None of this is likely to hurt Obama in any material way or even dim the glow of his victory and upcoming inauguration. But maybe it can be a lesson. Real "change" would be throwing away the playbook and getting all the facts out now, rather than later.
That's pretty silly. And it's an impossibly stupid standard for "change." It's not unlike asking someone participating in a legal battle not to seek legal counsel–why, after all, would he need legal counsel if he's not guilty?
Holden Caufield Redux
Bashing the institutions that didn't accept your college application might be thought to be a national pass-time in our "class free" nation.There's something oddly satisfying about sneering at the elite schools and the "preppies" "elites" etc. that we suppose inhabit them. But, sometimes the reasons for sneering are more interestingly political and argumentative. Here's a nice example from the "left."
The multiple failures that beset the country, from our mismanaged economy to our shredded constitutional rights to our lack of universal health care to our imperial debacles in the Middle East, can be laid at the feet of our elite universities. Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, along with most other elite schools, do a poor job educating students to think. They focus instead, through the filter of standardized tests, enrichment activities, advanced-placement classes, high-priced tutors, swanky private schools and blind deference to all authority, on creating hordes of competent systems managers. The collapse of the country runs in a direct line from the manicured quadrangles and halls in places like Cambridge, Mass., Princeton, N.J., and New Haven, Conn., to the financial and political centers of power.
Seems like the cause might be a tad oversimplified. There's plenty more ressentiment to be found here, but the conclusion of the piece seems interesting to me.
These elites, and the corporate system they serve, have ruined the country. These elite cannot solve our problems. They have been trained to find "solutions," such as the trillion-dollar bailout of banks and financial firms, that sustain the system. They will feed the beast until it dies. Don’t expect them to save us. They don’t know how. And when it all collapses, when our rotten financial system with its trillions in worthless assets implodes, and our imperial wars end in humiliation and defeat, they will be exposed as being as helpless, and as stupid, as the rest of us.
There's some sort of interesting argument here, involving a sort of argumentum ad "I told you so," or a sort of appeal to fear that provides emotional cover for the unsupported conclusion.
"My view that the products of the ivy league are stupid and helpless will be apparent when the whole system that they are trying to maintain collapses."
1. If the whole system collapses, then the elites were stupid and helpless."
2. The elites are stupid and helpless.
To the degree that we fear that the antecedent of (1) might occur, we might conclude that (2) is true. But, there are other reasons that (1) might collapse other than the collective and stupidity and helplessness of the elites. So, even if we think it is likely that the whole system might collapse that should not provide us with reason to accept the conclusion.
There is sp,e other argument for (2) given throughout–but little of it seems particularly compelling. Some personal experience:
I sat a few months ago with a former classmate from Harvard Divinity School who is now a theology professor. When I asked her what she was teaching, she unleashed a torrent of obscure academic code words. I did not understand, even with three years of seminary, what she was talking about. You can see this absurd retreat into specialized, impenetrable verbal enclaves in every graduate department across the country. The more these universities churn out these stunted men and women, the more we are flooded with a peculiar breed of specialist.
And some anecdotes about how everyone in high school was a phony and not that smart.
I was sent to boarding school on a scholarship at the age of 10. . . These institutions, no matter how mediocre you are, feed students with the comforting self-delusion that they are there because they are not only the best but they deserve the best. You can see this attitude on display in every word uttered by George W. Bush. Here is a man with severely limited intellectual capacity and no moral core. He, along with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who attended my boarding school and went on to Yale, is an example of the legions of self-centered mediocrities churned out by places like Andover, Yale and Harvard.
But, as far as I can see, there's not much more argument here than an oversimplified cause, a lot of Holden Caufield, and the interesting "I will have told you so" argument.