> Well, then I probably don't care? I care whether it was a bad idea, not whether it was a bad idea coming from a bad philosophy or a bad idea standing on its o

> Well, then I probably don't care? I care whether it was a bad idea, not whether it was a bad idea coming from a bad philosophy or a bad idea standing on its own. If your goal is to prevent such a "bad idea" in the future, then not caring could easily work against you. You'd end up having to expend energy challenging each bad idea on its own, possibly failing even to make inroads because there's a bad philosophy that makes it seem like a good idea (maybe even obviously so, rendering your challenge easily dismissed and a wasted effort). Instead, if you focus your energy on challenging the bad philosophy, you both get to the heart of the matter right away, and you cover all the new bad ideas it enables all at once (and even ahead of time). You also won't have to start from scratch, as the philosophy, unlike every new bad idea, isn't unique, and there's likely plenty of literature out there already that you can use as ammunition.