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This essay originally appeared in Steven J. Bartlett and Peter Suber (eds.), Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987, pp. 41-66. Copyright © 1987, Peter Suber. In March 2000, and again in January 2002, I corrected a small number of typographical errors.
[SIZE=+2]Logical Rudeness[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College [/SIZE]
Consider the following exchanges:
1. Gerda: So you believe that all belief is the product of custom and circumstance (or: childhood buffets, class struggle...). Isn't that position self-limiting? Mustn't you see yourself as reflecting only a single complex of circumstances?
Grobian: Your objection is inapplicable, for it is merely the product of blind forces. Moreover, your childhood buffets were pernicious and regrettable, for they have set you against this truth.
2. Gerda: So you believe that all knowledge comes from God in proportion to our virtue or worth, and that all ignorance, error, and uncertainty come from the Devil in proportion to our vices. May I ask what evidence you have for this remarkable thesis?
Grobian: I pity you infinitely for your sins.
3. Gerda: Doctor Grobian, I am not crazy! I stole the bread because my children were hungry. Why do you assume that every crime is caused by illness?
Grobian: Why do you deny it?
Gerda: I am not playing a game. I really want an answer to my question.
Grobian: Obviously your ego cannot cope with the truth and you display this inadequacy in hostility to your doctor. I will not recommend your release.
4. Gerda: So you believe x, y, and z. But you are mistaken. Consider evidence a, b, and c. What do you say?
Grobian: It's a mystery. If I could understand it, I wouldn't believe it. I can't help it if it's the truth. One day perhaps you'll see the light too.
In each of these cases something has gone wrong with the process of debate. In his self-insulating replies Grobian has raised the ire of more open and more dogged inquirers. We are put off, perhaps indignant or angry. What's more, we feel justified in taking offense. We may concede for the sake of argument that Grobian's positions are strong candidates for truth on their merits, and that he has only good faith to motivate his use and defense of them. Yet we feel that strength on the merits and good faith do not justify his responses. We wish he would, like us, concede the strength and good faith of his opponents, if only for the sake of argument. But must he do this to be called rational, or merely to be called polite?
Does our sense of justified indignation derive from principles that we are willing to defend in the open? Or are we merely offended by seeing "our side" lose an exchange? Has Grobian committed any sort of fallacy that might be generalized and generally proscribed? Or does his offense lie simply in hurting our feelings? Or in his maneuvering to escape criticism or disagreement? Can we complain if a theory can evade refutation? Is that a sign or truth, or merely a source of friction? May we say that a theory that authorizes its proponents to use such arguments in self-defense is therefore false? Inadequately defended? Undebatable? If Grobian has violated norms of debate, might it be because debate is one game and he has chosen to play another?
I will call Grobian's offense "logical rudeness". Specifying its nature will not be as difficult as explaining why it is objectionable and discovering whether it is unavoidable. I deliberately use the alogical term "rudeness" to avoid prejudicing the question of its logical status. Logical rudeness may not be fallacious. But at least it is offensive. "Rudeness" captures this sense of impropriety. The word derives from the same root as "erudite", which literally means "not rude" in the original sense, not rudimentary or rough-hewn. The question of this essay is whether erudition can always be achieved, or rudeness avoided, by honest, logical, good faith inquirers for truth. The informality of the term should not hide the fact that the topic is the ethics of argument. In the final section I ask what our disdain for rudeness reveals about the activities we cherish under the names of reasoned inquiry and debate.
[SIZE=+1]2. Preliminary Description of Rudeness[/SIZE]
Logical rudeness resembles a bald petitio principii, but the resemblance is imperfect. Rude replies presuppose the truth of the theory being rudely defended, like a petitio. But rudeness is usually a defensive weapon only. It is a form of self-defense that turns away all objections, or at least all objections of a certain kind. Unlike a petitio, it does not purport to justify a conclusion or belief; it purports to justify believers in disregarding criticism of their beliefs as if such criticism were inapplicable, irrelevant, or symptomatic of error. This is not self-justification in the manner of a petitio, in which assumed premises can validly imply the disputed conclusion. It is self-justification for the human proponent of the conclusion, who finds a license, authority, or justification in his theory itself for refusing to answer objections. Its success at insulating the believer and the belief of which it is a part seems independent of the merits or truth-value of the theory. That is one of the rudest jolts. It strikes us that theories that are false or implausible could use a rude defense as well as true or plausible theories. For this reason we suspect that the license to brush off objections is not a sign of truth or even a supporting argument. It is a gimmick, a piece of insolence that "civilized" and "reasonable" people will not stoop to use.
A related reflexivity is the self-licensing of debating behavior by the theory being debated. Rudeness highlights the sense in which beliefs authorize believers to act in certain ways, solely by virtue of the content of the beliefs and the mechanics of good faith and loyalty. If I believe that fast talkers are usually liars, then that belief will guide my responses to a fast-talking critic. But this is merely a psychological or descriptive observation. Normatively, we tend to want it this way. We want people to have freedom of inquiry and belief; and when people come to conclusions, we want them to be free (within limits) to act accordingly. Such a free society is a society of self-licensed actors. If we respect freedom of conscience in our laws and in our own minds, then these self-licensed actors are genuinely licensed; what good faith belief authorizes, we believe, is authorized
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This essay originally appeared in Steven J. Bartlett and Peter Suber (eds.), Self-Reference: Reflections on Reflexivity, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987, pp. 41-66. Copyright © 1987, Peter Suber. In March 2000, and again in January 2002, I corrected a small number of typographical errors.
[SIZE=+2]Logical Rudeness[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]Peter Suber, Philosophy Department, Earlham College [/SIZE]
- Overture
- Preliminary Description of Rudeness
- What Sort of Delict is Logical Rudeness?
- Must Some Theories Be Rude?
- What is Debate?
Consider the following exchanges:
1. Gerda: So you believe that all belief is the product of custom and circumstance (or: childhood buffets, class struggle...). Isn't that position self-limiting? Mustn't you see yourself as reflecting only a single complex of circumstances?
Grobian: Your objection is inapplicable, for it is merely the product of blind forces. Moreover, your childhood buffets were pernicious and regrettable, for they have set you against this truth.
2. Gerda: So you believe that all knowledge comes from God in proportion to our virtue or worth, and that all ignorance, error, and uncertainty come from the Devil in proportion to our vices. May I ask what evidence you have for this remarkable thesis?
Grobian: I pity you infinitely for your sins.
3. Gerda: Doctor Grobian, I am not crazy! I stole the bread because my children were hungry. Why do you assume that every crime is caused by illness?
Grobian: Why do you deny it?
Gerda: I am not playing a game. I really want an answer to my question.
Grobian: Obviously your ego cannot cope with the truth and you display this inadequacy in hostility to your doctor. I will not recommend your release.
4. Gerda: So you believe x, y, and z. But you are mistaken. Consider evidence a, b, and c. What do you say?
Grobian: It's a mystery. If I could understand it, I wouldn't believe it. I can't help it if it's the truth. One day perhaps you'll see the light too.
In each of these cases something has gone wrong with the process of debate. In his self-insulating replies Grobian has raised the ire of more open and more dogged inquirers. We are put off, perhaps indignant or angry. What's more, we feel justified in taking offense. We may concede for the sake of argument that Grobian's positions are strong candidates for truth on their merits, and that he has only good faith to motivate his use and defense of them. Yet we feel that strength on the merits and good faith do not justify his responses. We wish he would, like us, concede the strength and good faith of his opponents, if only for the sake of argument. But must he do this to be called rational, or merely to be called polite?
Does our sense of justified indignation derive from principles that we are willing to defend in the open? Or are we merely offended by seeing "our side" lose an exchange? Has Grobian committed any sort of fallacy that might be generalized and generally proscribed? Or does his offense lie simply in hurting our feelings? Or in his maneuvering to escape criticism or disagreement? Can we complain if a theory can evade refutation? Is that a sign or truth, or merely a source of friction? May we say that a theory that authorizes its proponents to use such arguments in self-defense is therefore false? Inadequately defended? Undebatable? If Grobian has violated norms of debate, might it be because debate is one game and he has chosen to play another?
I will call Grobian's offense "logical rudeness". Specifying its nature will not be as difficult as explaining why it is objectionable and discovering whether it is unavoidable. I deliberately use the alogical term "rudeness" to avoid prejudicing the question of its logical status. Logical rudeness may not be fallacious. But at least it is offensive. "Rudeness" captures this sense of impropriety. The word derives from the same root as "erudite", which literally means "not rude" in the original sense, not rudimentary or rough-hewn. The question of this essay is whether erudition can always be achieved, or rudeness avoided, by honest, logical, good faith inquirers for truth. The informality of the term should not hide the fact that the topic is the ethics of argument. In the final section I ask what our disdain for rudeness reveals about the activities we cherish under the names of reasoned inquiry and debate.
[SIZE=+1]2. Preliminary Description of Rudeness[/SIZE]
Logical rudeness resembles a bald petitio principii, but the resemblance is imperfect. Rude replies presuppose the truth of the theory being rudely defended, like a petitio. But rudeness is usually a defensive weapon only. It is a form of self-defense that turns away all objections, or at least all objections of a certain kind. Unlike a petitio, it does not purport to justify a conclusion or belief; it purports to justify believers in disregarding criticism of their beliefs as if such criticism were inapplicable, irrelevant, or symptomatic of error. This is not self-justification in the manner of a petitio, in which assumed premises can validly imply the disputed conclusion. It is self-justification for the human proponent of the conclusion, who finds a license, authority, or justification in his theory itself for refusing to answer objections. Its success at insulating the believer and the belief of which it is a part seems independent of the merits or truth-value of the theory. That is one of the rudest jolts. It strikes us that theories that are false or implausible could use a rude defense as well as true or plausible theories. For this reason we suspect that the license to brush off objections is not a sign of truth or even a supporting argument. It is a gimmick, a piece of insolence that "civilized" and "reasonable" people will not stoop to use.
A related reflexivity is the self-licensing of debating behavior by the theory being debated. Rudeness highlights the sense in which beliefs authorize believers to act in certain ways, solely by virtue of the content of the beliefs and the mechanics of good faith and loyalty. If I believe that fast talkers are usually liars, then that belief will guide my responses to a fast-talking critic. But this is merely a psychological or descriptive observation. Normatively, we tend to want it this way. We want people to have freedom of inquiry and belief; and when people come to conclusions, we want them to be free (within limits) to act accordingly. Such a free society is a society of self-licensed actors. If we respect freedom of conscience in our laws and in our own minds, then these self-licensed actors are genuinely licensed; what good faith belief authorizes, we believe, is authorized
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