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Sir, if I preoperly recall, that's exactly how you discard premises. Taking a premise and applying it to a more extreme situation just battletests it. It's done

Sir, if I preoperly recall, that's exactly how you discard premises. Taking a premise and applying it to a more extreme situation just battletests it. It's done in justice and law courses, etc. "If the common good justifies killing X agent, then it must be ok for a doctor to kill a patient in their sleep, take his organs and save three people with his two kidneys and heart." Also, what Yale did wasn't right, and the students just defend themselves... If, for example, you were robbed wouldn't you care? "Oh but there are thousands more people poorer than me, I shouldn't bother".

iamdave 13y ago
"If the common good justifies killing X agent, then it must be ok for a doctor to kill a patient in their sleep, take his organs and save three people with his two kidneys and heart." Isn't that a variation of a semantic shift fallacy? [1] --- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change
- vanattab 13y ago
  I just read the link and I am not following your reasoning. Please explain.
- wfn 13y ago
  Just an FYI: that wiki link does not seem to lead to an article about the fallacy in question, or any kind of fallacy for that matter. You might have been thinking about the continuum fallacy[1], false equivocation, straw man, or red herring. In any regard, I agree that the reasoning in question falls within the bounds of one or other informal fallacies[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy
justjimmy 13y ago
"Taking a premise and applying it to a more extreme situation just battletests it. It's done in justice and law courses, etc." I'm really interested in this sentence/concept - is there a term for this or anywhere I can read more about the concept behind this statement?
- superpatosainz 13y ago
  I based that statement on what I saw in Michael Sandel's HarvardX (edX partner) Justice course. There's a lot of thought experiments and hypothetical situations premises are tested against to see if they still hold to be moral; really interesting.

iamdave 13y ago

"If the common good justifies killing X agent, then it must be ok for a doctor to kill a patient in their sleep, take his organs and save three people with his two kidneys and heart." Isn't that a variation of a semantic shift fallacy? [1] --- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_change

vanattab 13y ago
I just read the link and I am not following your reasoning. Please explain.
wfn 13y ago
Just an FYI: that wiki link does not seem to lead to an article about the fallacy in question, or any kind of fallacy for that matter. You might have been thinking about the continuum fallacy[1], false equivocation, straw man, or red herring. In any regard, I agree that the reasoning in question falls within the bounds of one or other informal fallacies[2]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuum_fallacy [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informal_fallacy

justjimmy 13y ago

"Taking a premise and applying it to a more extreme situation just battletests it. It's done in justice and law courses, etc." I'm really interested in this sentence/concept - is there a term for this or anywhere I can read more about the concept behind this statement?

superpatosainz 13y ago
I based that statement on what I saw in Michael Sandel's HarvardX (edX partner) Justice course. There's a lot of thought experiments and hypothetical situations premises are tested against to see if they still hold to be moral; really interesting.