On 01/06/2014 09:53 PM, Nick Thompson wrote: > Speaking of shoddy reasoning, I wish somebody would give an example of > shoddy reasoning by a Right Winger that was NOT an example of reasoning from > false premises.
I don't think libertarians really qualify as "right wing". But some people call them that. And I think libertarians tend to employ shoddy reasoning from mostly true premises. The shoddiness of their reasoning lies in it's closedness. In particular, they tend to follow only the _canalized_ core of the reasoning and tend to ignore all the "unintended" side effects. The reasoning tends to be a linear chain rather than an expanding tree. I suppose you might say that they're still starting with false premises in the sense that their premises are insufficiently detailed (only true as over-simplifications). But that would be parsing it too deeply, I think. We all do that because none of us are capable of fully delineating a concrete premise (indeed, I would argue that reality can never be completely represented as rhetoric). But the primary gestalt I get from talking to libertarians is this inability to think about the variety of other consequences that obtain, the consequences they don't want to or can't consider. If you need particular examples, we can pull them from some of the most rational seeming founders, how about this? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/wwjtd/2013/12/the-daily-show-interview-with-forbes-columnist-who-thinks-food-stamps-are-cruel/ Are his assumptions false? Or is his reasoning simply too simple? -- ⇒⇐ glen e. p. ropella ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
