I pit "If x happened, y would say z"

y would say mx + b if he wanted to throw a curve at you

The thing is, it’s not an argument at all. There are no facts to support it. I can say anything in any form like that, and it’s equivalently useful.

On the other hand, if I give an historical example (“Last time we talked about whether a political scandal should end the politician’s career, you said it should. Why the double standard for this guy?”), then it is useful: it shows a person that they might be allowing their judgment to be influenced by such irrelevant details as the party of the politician in question.

True, it opens itself up to defense (“The double standard is because last time we were talking about a scandal involving bribery, which fundamentally corrupts the political system, whereas this time we’re talking about a scandal involving sex, which isn’t the public’s business.”). That’s what good arguments do: they use facts, and are therefore vulnerable to fact-based defenses. That such arguments are rooted in facts, not speculation, is their strength, not their weakness.

Again, it’s one thing to ask someone how they would respond to a hypothetical (“If this politician were a Democrat, do you still think you’d be calling for his resignation?”). That’s legit and can advance debate. But an accusation of how someone would act in a situation that’s contrary to fact is meanspirited and useless.

Daniel

One thing doesn’t necessarily rule out the other. For example:

“If politician X were a Democrat, then the conservatives would likely be screaming for his resignation. Just look at how prominent conservatives reacted when Bill Clinton did Y.”

Spot on rant, Max. There’s a rather good example of it here:

-Where it’s not enough to complain about what a group actually does - the OP has to express outrage against what it is alleged they would do in some ridiculously hypothetical situation.

ETA: I posted this youtube link in that thread, but it’s relevant here, so I’ll repeat it:

In your quote, check out the switch between “the conservatives” and “prominent conservatives.” This is a related problem: folks paint with too broad a brush. I will not be held accountable for not reacting to a Democratic politican’s scandal in a manner equivalent to how Michael Moore reacted to a Republican politician’s scandal.

That said, if you fix this problem and talk about the same subject in the first and second sentence, you’re closer to saying something useful. Assuming that a person has commented in the thread in question, and has not screamed for the Republican’s resignation, you may point out that in a similar thread about a Democrat, they did scream for that Democrat’s resignation. You may then ask them why they had the different response.

The ball is then in their court. They can give a lame difference between the two cases, and thereby show that they’re being blinded by partisanship. They can give a significant difference between the two cases, and then you’ve learned something interesting. They can say, “You’re right. If I’m going to be consistent, I should call for this guy to resign, too.”

The difference is that you’ve presented them with facts and asked for an explanation. That’s totally completely different from presenting them with a fantasy and claiming that their actions in the fantasy demonstrate their hypocrisy.

Daniel

Fine, so the point is that one should have a factual basis for one’s assertions. Somebody who says “If X happened, Y would do Z” should be prepared to offer facts about how Y’ did Z’ when X’ happened.

My god your people are sooooooooo predictable,i was wondering how long it would be before one or the other of you would come up with this point.

But I notice that theres a deafening silence when you guys do it.

Typical,just typical!

Precisely! And one should be further prepared for the other side to point out why the current X is substantially different from the previous X, because that’s how such matters naturally progress.

It may be worth rereading the OP; it sets out all these points really well.

The argument is legitimate when the person you’re talking to actually has behaved differently when relevantly similar events have unfolded. It’s completely illegitimate when this isn’t the case.

Daniel

Ummm, this is from the OP:


Looks like you disagree with the original poster.

If “I pit ‘If x happened, y would say z’” happened, then MaxTheVool would say

Sort of, and sort of not. The form in which it’s legitimate is, “When x happened, y said z.” That’s a different argument from the one the OP pitted.

It’s very similar, and the OP suggests that it’s fundamentally flawed because no two X’s are identical. I disagree that this is a fundamental flaw: all that’s required is that the X’s be relevantly similar. Someone who objects to a Republican’s shady deals with lobbyists, but who doesn’t object to a Democrat’s shady deals with lobbyists, is open to a charge of partisan bias, even if the two cases are not identical. If such a person cannot point out a principled difference between the two, they ought to admit that it’s not a highminded principle that guides their judgment here.

Daniel

Lol. Maybe I should recap.

Here’s what the OP said:

Here’s what I said:

And here’s what you said:

No it didn’t. The OP was in flat contradiction to my point above.

Lolzers! Didja read any of post 51 besides the part you quoted? I am well aware of that stuff you recapped, and I accounted for it in the rest of post 51.

Daniel

Yep.

Then I don’t understand why you said “sort of.” The fact is that the OP was in flat contradiction to my point.

Note the difference between the conditional and the indicative: the OP railed against the former, I said the latter was acceptable.

Daniel

Dude, the OP criticized EXACTLY what you said was acceptable.

I’m the OP and I think I know what you guys are squabbling about.

Politician 1 (a democrat) has an ethics scandal.
Later, Politician 2 (a republican) has an ethics scandal that is at least superficially similar. In a thread about this, poster 3 (a liberal) says nasty things about politician 2. Poster 3 was nowhere to be found back when politician 1 had his scandal.

Is that what you are talking about? Or the stronger case:

Politician 1 has an ethics scandal. In a thread about it, poster 3 defends politician 1 and stresses how minor the scandal was. Then later on, politician 2 has a superficially similar scandal, and poster 3 attacks him.
Even in the stronger case, I think attacking poster 3 is pretty weak, for at least three reasons:
(1) Even superficially similar scandals are often really not that similar at all, and it’s entirely possible that the differences between them are in areas that really matter to poster 3. In fact, even if the scandals are identical, poster 3 may be complaining about a larger issue. For instance, there’s a general belief that Republicans who get involved in gay sex scandals are more pittable than Democrats, because of the extra hypocrisy involved.

(2) Whether or not some random doper is a hypocrite has nothing to do with how serious a particular scandal is. If poster 3 posts a 5 part list of reasons why this scandal is serious enough that the politician should be impeached, pointing out that poster 3 is a hypocrite doesn’t really address his 5 part list one way or the other

(3) So what if poster 3 isn’t totally objective? None of us are.
So, part of the time an attack of this kind is groundless. And nearly all of the time, it’s pointless.

Wow. Who’d he blow?

I agree that part of the time, an attack of this kind is groundless, and I said as much. Virtually every format of argument is sometimes groundless.

I disagree that it’s nearly always pointless. The point of making such an argument is to point out to a poster that their professed reasons for reaching a conclusion may not be their actual reasons. If someone values the principle of justice (treating relevantly similar situations in a relevantly similar fashion), it may be helpful for them to see when they’re not attaining that principle’s goals.

It can be helpful, in other words, to poster 3, not to posters 4 and 5 who are watching the debate.

This depends, of course, on poster 3’s willingness to entertain the possibility that they’ve got biases of which they’re not aware. If they’re not willing to do so, then you’re right, it is pointless.

And there’s another situation in which the indicative form of the argument is indispensable. If you’re trying to detect bias in third parties, you simply can’t do it without this form.

For example, Greg suspects that Mountain Trash Apartments refused to rent to him because he was black. He contacts the Fair Housing Authority (or whatever they’re called), and gives them his information. The FHA investigates, sending black and white renters with equivalent credit histories and other relevant data to Mountain Trace. If X (Mountain Trace) says Y (you can rent from us) when Z (a white renter approaches) occurs, but not when Z-prime (an equivalent black renter approaches), that establishes a strong prima facie case that X is biased.

This principle is used in virtually every investigation of bias that I’ve heard of. Surely you’re not pitting it as a tool of argument?

Daniel

I guess it’s entirely a matter of context. If someone starts a thread, and the purpose of the thread is to prove that MaxTheVool is a hypocrite, and they dig up two very similar partisan situations in which I have reacted totally differently, well, they got me, I’m a hypocrite. But if someone starts a thread about the evil thing that Joe Republican Senator just did, and I post in that thread, then responding to my post in that thread with an accusation of hypocrisy, no matter how well supported, is at best a distraction. (Although your point is well taken that it might be helpful to ME, assuming I’m intellectually honest. Thing is, posts of that sort almost always coming off as attempts to discredit or distract, directed at third parties, rather than attempts to inform and educate.)

So yes, it is logically entirely possible to give good evidence of hypocrisy by pointing out someone’s varying reactions to two incidents, but:
(a) it’s also possible to try and fail due to difference between the incidents
(b) doing so is often just an attempt to obfuscate the actual issue under discussion
and
© so some random SDMB poster is not totally objective. So what?

All of that of course is assuming that the reaction being pitted actually existed and was not an assumed you-would-say-X.