1 00:00:02,560 --> 00:00:07,527 The second common move in arguments that's supposed to solve the skeptical 2 00:00:07,527 --> 00:00:11,699 regress problem is guarding. The basic idea of guarding is very 3 00:00:11,699 --> 00:00:16,998 simple. It's just making the premises of your argument weaker so that there will 4 00:00:16,998 --> 00:00:22,163 be fewer ways in which your opponents can raise trouble for them, or show that 5 00:00:22,163 --> 00:00:24,481 they're false. So, here's an example. 6 00:00:24,481 --> 00:00:29,250 Suppose someone says, we ought not to build any new nuclear power plants 7 00:00:29,250 --> 00:00:33,160 because they'll explode. Now, wait a minute. 8 00:00:33,160 --> 00:00:37,105 How do you know that any of them really will explode? 9 00:00:37,105 --> 00:00:42,316 How can you tell that in the future? You don't even know what kinds of 10 00:00:42,316 --> 00:00:48,544 standards they're going to be built to. So, someone can object to that argument 11 00:00:48,544 --> 00:00:54,279 by saying, you're not justified in asserting that premise that these new 12 00:00:54,279 --> 00:00:59,464 nuclear power plants will explode. So, how do you stop that problem? 13 00:00:59,464 --> 00:01:05,043 Well, you simply say, we ought not to build any new nuclear power plants 14 00:01:05,043 --> 00:01:11,171 because some of them might explode or even weaker because I believe that some 15 00:01:11,171 --> 00:01:15,047 of them might explode. Now, we've got a premise. 16 00:01:15,047 --> 00:01:20,290 I believe that some of the new nuclear power plants might explode. 17 00:01:20,290 --> 00:01:23,791 That's going to be hard to deny. Okay, what's an opponent going to do? 18 00:01:23,791 --> 00:01:26,841 Show that you don't really believe it? Show that it's not true that they might 19 00:01:26,841 --> 00:01:30,060 explode, that there's no possibility that they'll explode? 20 00:01:30,060 --> 00:01:34,013 Or that any of them will explode? You're not claiming all of them will, 21 00:01:34,013 --> 00:01:38,570 just some of them. So, by guarding the premise in this way, 22 00:01:38,570 --> 00:01:45,468 you make it more likely to be true and less subject to objection, and that's 23 00:01:45,468 --> 00:01:50,915 what guarding does. It enables you to start an argument with 24 00:01:50,915 --> 00:01:57,360 that premise if other people agree that it's true because it's so weak. 25 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:01,840 You get them to agree to share your assumption by weakening your premises. 26 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:06,098 Now, of course, what happens now is someone says, wait a minute. 27 00:02:06,098 --> 00:02:09,868 They might explode. Sure, and the sun might not come up 28 00:02:09,868 --> 00:02:13,289 tomorrow. All kinds of things might not happen or 29 00:02:13,289 --> 00:02:16,849 might happen. Might's too weak to establish that we 30 00:02:16,849 --> 00:02:22,294 shouldn't have new nuclear power plants. So, what you're suggesting is not just 31 00:02:22,294 --> 00:02:25,924 that it might happen, but that it's likely to happen. 32 00:02:25,924 --> 00:02:31,700 And, if the chance of it happening really is so slight as to be negligible, then 33 00:02:31,700 --> 00:02:36,439 you weaken the premise too much. And it's not going to follow that we 34 00:02:36,439 --> 00:02:41,659 shouldn't have nuclear power plants. So, the issue's going to come down to, is 35 00:02:41,659 --> 00:02:46,733 the risk of them exploding or some of them exploding enough to justify the 36 00:02:46,733 --> 00:02:51,311 conclusion that we ought not to have them? And that's going to depend on 37 00:02:51,311 --> 00:02:56,397 exactly how much risk there is. And by looking at the guarding term at the might 38 00:02:56,397 --> 00:03:01,038 term, and questioning it, and saying, can we replace might with probably or 39 00:03:01,038 --> 00:03:04,726 something like that? Then, we're going to have a better handle 40 00:03:04,726 --> 00:03:09,525 on how to asses the argument. So, when you see someone using guarding 41 00:03:09,525 --> 00:03:13,768 like this, you need to ask, why did they put in the guard? 42 00:03:13,768 --> 00:03:19,602 And, have they put in too much guarding that has weakened it so much, that the 43 00:03:19,602 --> 00:03:24,317 conclusion no longer follows? So, the general trick of guarding is to 44 00:03:24,317 --> 00:03:27,802 weaken the premise so it's going to be harder to deny. 45 00:03:27,802 --> 00:03:32,900 And that's how your argument gets going. But there are at least three different 46 00:03:32,900 --> 00:03:34,255 ways to do this, okay? 47 00:03:34,255 --> 00:03:37,031 One is the extent, the other is probability, 48 00:03:37,031 --> 00:03:42,960 and the other is mental. First, guarding by extent. 49 00:03:42,960 --> 00:03:49,427 We need a new alcohol officer on our campus because all students drink too 50 00:03:49,427 --> 00:03:52,100 much. Well, that's clearly false. 51 00:03:52,100 --> 00:03:58,120 Not all students drink too much. Most students drink too much. 52 00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:06,070 Well, not most. Maybe not most. Many students drink too much. 53 00:04:06,070 --> 00:04:09,785 Okay, many, too many because it's too much. 54 00:04:09,785 --> 00:04:16,038 Some students drink too much. Notice that you can guard or weaken the 55 00:04:16,038 --> 00:04:21,006 claim, the premise, from all students drink too much to most 56 00:04:21,006 --> 00:04:27,759 students drink too much to many students drink too much to some students drink too 57 00:04:27,759 --> 00:04:31,095 much. And as you move down that scale, the 58 00:04:31,095 --> 00:04:37,117 premise gets harder and harder to deny. So, whether this counts as guarding 59 00:04:37,117 --> 00:04:42,650 depends on the expectation. If you expect the claim that most or all 60 00:04:42,650 --> 00:04:48,753 students drink too much, then it's guarding to say many or certainly to say 61 00:04:48,753 --> 00:04:52,719 some. But if you don't expect the many or most 62 00:04:52,719 --> 00:04:58,969 or all, then to say some is simply to say that you're talking about some. 63 00:04:58,969 --> 00:05:02,098 So, it's guarding when you weaken it beyond 64 00:05:02,098 --> 00:05:05,541 what would otherwise be expected in the context. 65 00:05:05,541 --> 00:05:10,776 This standard is going to be hard to apply because it might be difficult to 66 00:05:10,776 --> 00:05:15,653 say what the expectations are of the different people involved in a 67 00:05:15,653 --> 00:05:18,594 conversation. But, that's what guarding is. 68 00:05:18,594 --> 00:05:22,826 It's not guarding every time you use the word mini or most. 69 00:05:22,826 --> 00:05:28,707 It's only guarding when you're expecting all in the person, instead merely claimed 70 00:05:28,707 --> 00:05:31,719 mini. The second kind of guarding concerns 71 00:05:31,719 --> 00:05:35,982 probability. Some people would say it's absolutely 72 00:05:35,982 --> 00:05:37,200 certain that O. J. 73 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:41,728 Simpson killed his wife. And other people said, well, he probably 74 00:05:41,728 --> 00:05:45,688 killed his wife. Or it's likely that he killed his wife. 75 00:05:45,688 --> 00:05:49,720 And others will say, there's a chance he killed his wife. 76 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:53,320 And others will say, he might have killed his wife. 77 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:58,288 So, when you change from it's certain to it's probable, or it's likely, 78 00:05:58,288 --> 00:06:03,472 or there's a chance, or he might of, again, you're moving down a continuum. 79 00:06:03,472 --> 00:06:08,656 And the further you move down that continuum, the easier it is to defend 80 00:06:08,656 --> 00:06:12,260 your premise, because you're claiming less. 81 00:06:12,260 --> 00:06:16,761 And the question is going to be whether you've done it too much. 82 00:06:16,761 --> 00:06:22,459 If you simply say, he might've killed his wife, therefore he ought to be convicted. 83 00:06:22,459 --> 00:06:26,680 That's clearly wrong. If you say he probably killed his wife, 84 00:06:26,680 --> 00:06:30,441 so he ought to be convicted. That might be wrong too if there's a 85 00:06:30,441 --> 00:06:35,004 strong burden on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 86 00:06:35,004 --> 00:06:39,937 But you don't want to require that it's certain that he killed his wife, because 87 00:06:39,937 --> 00:06:43,082 then you'll never be able to convict any criminals. 88 00:06:43,082 --> 00:06:45,672 So, you need something like almost certain. 89 00:06:45,672 --> 00:06:49,927 You know, which is a bit of a fudge word, or beyond a reasonable doubt. 90 00:06:49,927 --> 00:06:54,613 In any case, however you assess whether or not he should have been convicted 91 00:06:54,613 --> 00:06:59,361 depending on how you assess how likely it was that he really did what he was 92 00:06:59,361 --> 00:07:03,292 accused of. Apart from all those questions, the point 93 00:07:03,292 --> 00:07:08,621 here is simply that in arguments in general, you can make the argument more 94 00:07:08,621 --> 00:07:14,092 defensible by weakening the premise so there are fewer ways to show that the 95 00:07:14,092 --> 00:07:17,304 premise is wrong. And that's the second type of guarding. 96 00:07:17,304 --> 00:07:22,850 Now, the third kind of guarding we can call mental because it has to do with the 97 00:07:22,850 --> 00:07:26,124 mental state of the person asserting the premise. 98 00:07:26,124 --> 00:07:30,200 You might say, well, I know that the President is 50 years old. 99 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:34,142 But you might say, I believe that the President is 50 years old. 100 00:07:34,142 --> 00:07:39,655 You might say, I tend to believe I or I'm inclined to believe that the president is 101 00:07:39,655 --> 00:07:43,307 50 years old. And there's another continuum as you move 102 00:07:43,307 --> 00:07:46,693 from knowledge to belief to inclination to believe. 103 00:07:46,693 --> 00:07:51,806 Again, you are making the premise weaker and weaker which makes it harder and 104 00:07:51,806 --> 00:07:55,060 harder to question, or deny, or doubt that premise. 105 00:07:55,060 --> 00:07:59,800 So, you avoided a problem for your argument, and potentially this is a way 106 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:01,749 to stop the skeptical regress.