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The arguments made should stand on their own, regardless of motivations. If I'm a selfish prick who wants to attend pool parties but I'm giving valid reasons fo

The arguments made should stand on their own, regardless of motivations. If I'm a selfish prick who wants to attend pool parties but I'm giving valid reasons for ending the lockdown, it does not follow in any way that the lockdown is justified. So, who cares what my motivations are? The bedfellows argument can be made about both sides of the equation and we can just go ahead and consider it implied, to dispense with legaleze-like formalities and focus on what truly matters, which, to put it crudely is: will the lockdown save more people than will die as its consequence? The answer is far from obvious to me.

MereInterest 6y ago
Suppose you are the world's best rhetorician, and can create convincing arguments to support any conclusion. To exercise this skill, each day you pick a topic, roll a die to determine what position to support, and argue for that position. These arguments are clear, concise, self-consistent, grounded in concrete observations, and emotionally persuasive. However, you could have created similarly effective arguments for another side of the debate, had the die roll gone a different way this morning. Examining somebody's motives is a way of having a meta-debate. The quantity and quality of arguments on different sides of a topic is a function not only of the correctness of one side, but also of the time invested into coming up with those arguments. If somebody has an ulterior motive to their arguments, then they may be arguing in bad faith, attempting to persuade with arguments they know to be false, in order to gain support.
- riskneutral 6y ago
  You need a refresher on logical fallacies from debate class.
  - MereInterest 6y ago
    I chose my words rather deliberately here. This is not about the world's greatest logician, the person who can best determine true statements about the world. This is about the world's greatest rhetorician, the person who can best convince others of a statement, regardless of the veracity of those statements.

MereInterest 6y ago

Suppose you are the world's best rhetorician, and can create convincing arguments to support any conclusion. To exercise this skill, each day you pick a topic, roll a die to determine what position to support, and argue for that position. These arguments are clear, concise, self-consistent, grounded in concrete observations, and emotionally persuasive. However, you could have created similarly effective arguments for another side of the debate, had the die roll gone a different way this morning. Examining somebody's motives is a way of having a meta-debate. The quantity and quality of arguments on different sides of a topic is a function not only of the correctness of one side, but also of the time invested into coming up with those arguments. If somebody has an ulterior motive to their arguments, then they may be arguing in bad faith, attempting to persuade with arguments they know to be false, in order to gain support.

riskneutral 6y ago
You need a refresher on logical fallacies from debate class.
- MereInterest 6y ago
  I chose my words rather deliberately here. This is not about the world's greatest logician, the person who can best determine true statements about the world. This is about the world's greatest rhetorician, the person who can best convince others of a statement, regardless of the veracity of those statements.