In the last lecture we looked at one of the main fallacies of vacuity.
That was begging the question. Recall that an argument begs the question
whenever your justification for believing the premises are your justification for
believing that the premises imply the conclusion.
Depends on your already having a good reason to believe the conclusion.
You have to already be justified in believing the conclusion in order to be
justified in believing the premises, or believing that the argument from the
premises to the conclusion is any good. And if that's the case, then the argument
begs the question. But that's not only fallacy of acuity
there is. There's another fallacy of acuity I want
to talk about today. And that's what we're going to call
circularity. An argument is circular just in case the
conclusion of the argument appears as one of the premises of the argument.
Now I know, you might think well wait a second.
How could anyone be fool enough to make an argument that's circular or to fall
for an argument that's circular. I mean, if the conclusion itself appears
as one of the premises of the argument, Argument.
Then isn't that an obvious problem. The argument isn't really doing any work.
It's not getting you anywhere because the conclusion that you're trying to reach
was already in there among your premises. So how could anyone be guilty of
circularity in their reasoning? Normally people are guilty of circularity in their
reasoning Because the circularity isn't obvious.
And it's not obvious because the appearance of a proposition as the
conclusion of the reasoning is far away spatially or temporally from its
appearance as a premise in the reasoning. Let me give you an example of that
distance to try to illustrate how Naturally it would be for someone to fall
for circular reasoning. So suppose I argue as follows.
The only way that we can protect ourselves from violent criminal offenders
is to execute them because If we don't execute them, we leave them alive, then
no matter where we put them, what prison cell we put them in or what distant
island we put them on, they can escape, and the can come back and perpetrate
violent criminal offensive yet again. Therefore.
The only way to protect ourselves from violent criminal offenders, is to execute
them. Now, notice the conclusion of that
argument is the only way to protect ourselves from violent criminal offenders
is to execute them. And what premise did I appeal to in
reaching that conclusion? Well, one of the premises was this.
If we leave them alive, then wherever we put them they could come back and
perpetrate violent criminal offenses yet again.
But what reason did I give you to believe that? What reason did I give you to
believe the claim that if we leave them alive, then they could come back and
perpetrate violent criminal offenses again? It looks like the only thing I
said that could possibly give you a reason for believing that was the first
statement that I made namely, the only way to protect ourselves from violent
criminal offenders is to execute them. But that was the conclusion that I was
arguing for. So it looks as if, I argued for that
conclusion by appeal to a premise, and the only reason I gave you to believe
that premise, was that very same statement that I was arguing for.
In other words the conclusion appears as the premise, of an argument.
For another premise which is itself the premise of an argument for the
conclusion. That's circularity where the conclusion
that you're arguing for appears as one of the premises in your argument for that
conclusion. And that's a kind of circularity that
people can fall for. Because the appearance of the proposition
as a conclusion is distant from its appearance as a premise.
They're separated by another premise. In addition to begging the question in
circularity. There's another kind of fallacy of acuity
that we're going to call self sealing. An argument is self-sealing, or as we'll
sometimes say, as self-sealer. Just in case it's irrefutable by any
possible evidence. There's no evidence that you could bring
forward to show that the argument is unsuccessful.
Let me give you an example of a self-sealing argument.
Suppose I say other people have lived to be 100 years old and you might too.
Okay. Now, even though that sounds like a
conjunction, I was saying other people have lived to be 100 years old and you
might too. Really, although it sounded like a conjunction, it was an insinuated
argument. The idea was this.
I first, bring up the fact, which admittedly is a fact, that other people
have lived to be 100 years old. And then I suggest on the basis of that
fact, I suggest as a conclusion to be inferred from that fact.
That you might also live to be 100 years old.
So that's an insinuated argument. Is that argument any good? Well, what
evidence could you bring forward to show that that argument isn't any good.
How could you bring forward evidence to show that it's not true that you might
live to be 100 years old? Of course, if you don't live to be 100 years old, then
I could say well, that just shows that you didn't actually live to be 100 years
old. It didn't show that I was wrong when I
said you might live to be 100 years old. It could still have been true that you
might have lived to be 100 years old. Even though you didn't actually live to
be 100 years old. So, what evidence could you possibly
bring forward to show that it's not true that you might live to be 100 years old?
What evidence could you possibly bring forward to show that the fact that other
people have lived to be 100 years old doesn't support the claim that you might
live to be 100 years old? This is an example of an argument that can't be
refuted, can't be criticized by appeal to any evidence that you could bring
forward, and because of that feature, the argument is one that we're going to call
a self-sealer. Let me give you another example of a
self-sealer. Suppose that I present you with a lot of
evidence concerning the power of the automobile executives who live in
Michigan. Right now.
And I say on the basis of this evidence that the whole world, all if it's
financial institutions, it's political institutions, and it's miliitary forces
are controlled, secretly controlled, by a nefarious network of Michiganders.
Now, you might wonder, well, aren't there some other people in the world, some
non-Michiganders who have some say over the operation of our financial
institutions, or Political institutions or our military forces.
And I say, nope, nope. It's just that this network of powerful
Michiganders is so covert, that they have planted evidence to the effect that there
are some other non Michiganders who are responsible for some of the important
things that happen in the world. But this evidence is all planted.
This is all evidence that the Michiganders, have arranged for us to
see, so that we'll be led off their path. In fact, it's these few Michiganders, who
control all of the flow of money, and power and military force.
In the world. Now, admittedly, you might be very
skeptical about my contention. But, how are you going to refute me.
How are you going to provide what I'm saying is false? Could you bring up
evidence of some non-Michiganders who have some financial or political or
military power? Well, if you do, I'll just say that evidence was planted by
these powerful Michiganders. So my argument is a self-sealer.
Because, no matter what evidence you offer to the contrary, I can counter your
evidence. I can make some claim to the effect that
the evidence that you've offered is misleading or irrelevant.
That is another example of a self sealing argument.
Now, let's consider some further examples of arguments.
Which may or may not be self sealers. You decide.
Finally, let me give you one more example of a self-sealing argument.
The kind of self-sealing argument that I want to conclude by discussing is a kind
of argument that commits both a falacy of accuity and also a falacy of ambiguity.
Consider the following arguement. Suppose, I, describe to you various
events that happened, and I give you an explaination of why they happened.
And then I conclude, by saying, you see, everything happens for a reason, and I've
supported that conclusion, by describing cases in which one or another thing Did
happen for a reason. So I conclude by saying, everything
happens for a reason. Now, suppose I then proceed to draw the
further conclusion about some events that are taking place right now, I say see we
might not know why these events are happening or what purpose they serve.
But everything happens for a reason. And in time The reason why these things
are happening will be disclosed. Okay, now notice what's happened.
First of all, I've inoculated myself from counter evidence.
So if you present me with counter evidence, let's say a year from now We
still haven't found out what purpose was served by the events that are taking
place right now. I could say okay.
So, we still don't know what the reason was but there was a reason and we'll find
out eventually. Well, I've just inoculated myself against
any future evidence. Right? Because no matter how long.
We continue to wait. I could still stay, yep we haven't found
out what the reason was yet, let's wait some more.
So, that's one way in which the argument is a self sealer.
It's a self sealer because I've inoculated myself against refutation by
counter evidence. But that argument also commits a fallacy
of ambiguity. Ambiguity.
When I was arguing that everything happens for a reason, I was giving
examples of events that happened, because something caused them to happen.
And it might be true that everything that happens is caused to happen.
There was some cause or other of its happening.
But then, after I reach the conclusion that everything happens for a reason.
I then reinterpret the term "reason" to mean everything happens in the service of
some other purpose, in the service of some larger purpose.
So now when I say everything happens for a reason, I don't mean everything happens
Because there is some cause or other of its occurrence.
I mean, everything happens in the service of some larger purpose.
And that's a totally different claim. So, here's a case of an argument that is
both a self-sealer Right, it's irrefutable by counter evidence.
And it also commits a fallacy of ambiguity.
Right, it trades on 2 different meanings of the term, happens for a reason.
Right, things could happen for a reason because something causes them to happen.
Or things could happen for a reason because they serve some larger purpose.
And this argument trades on those 2 meanings.