New debating Law: Common Sense

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

During a debate, argument, proposal, or other discussion, the first person to use ‘common sense’ (or ‘common-sense’) to defend his or her position, loses the discussion.

Examples: ‘We need common sense laws to protect the American People.’; ‘Our plan works because it’s just common sense.’

By stating that something is ‘common sense’, the proponent is implying that anyone who disagrees with him or her lacks common sense. It’s tantamount to saying, ‘If you don’t agree with me, you’re stupid.’ Once upon a time, ‘everyone knew’ the Earth is flat. It’s only common sense. Only the Earth is a spheroid, and ‘common sense’ was wrong. If someone is proposing something, that proposal should be backed up with data. A hypothesis should be formed, and then tested. Merely saying that something is true because it’s ‘common sense’ isn’t good enough.

2

It’s reasonable to use when pointing out a logical disconnect in your opponent’s argument, or when pointing out the simplicity of your own. Debates are exercises in rhetoric, not really meant to resolve anything or change anyone’s mind, because they don’t. So you should expect a lot of rhetorical devices which color the argument.

3

I agree with your points (both of you), but that’s just common sense.

4

I’ve invoked this only once in the thread in GD on the ethics of killing babies, sometimes it has use.

5

I got invited to a jury selection procedure once. A couple of times, the judge mentioned (this was still during the jury selection) that when we get into deliberations in the jury room, the jury should “not leave common sense at the door”. The prosecutor and defense attorneys mentioned “common sense” occasionally.

I spoke up and said:

Everybody in the room (mostly a bunch of other prospective jurors) snickered.

One of the attorneys made an attempt to define “common sense” that I thought was lame: If the defense should try to argue, say, that his client was innocent because the crime was really done by invisible aliens from Mars, then “common sense” suggests we should ignore that argument.

So now you know: “Common sense” means “not something that aliens from Mars would do.”

6

You are awesome.

7

And yet people who’s job it is to administer justice and who one assumes have some experience in that regard think it’s important enough to mention.

So I’ll ask you, define “love”

waits . . .

I guess that’s an absurd notion too.

I rest my case.

8

Maybe I should also have mentioned . . .

As soon as the lawyers got their chance to do a round of peremptory dismissals, who do you suppose was the first to go?

Now that’s common sense!

( Just something handy to keep in mind next time you get the call! )

9

This fact alone should ensure that the first one to mention it as an argument should lose a debate. 100% behind the OPs premise.

If most people actually had common sense, this message board would probably be a lot less interesting.

10

False. Debates are often intended to persuade, and are sometimes successful in doing so.

An appeal to “common sense” in support of (or as an argument against) a proposition is almost always just the fallacy of “Argument from Popularity” wearing Groucho glasses.

11

Thomas Paine would like a word with you…

12

I said ‘really intended’, by which I meant something ambiguous between your statement and mine.

The second part of your statement is not contradictory to my own. You should expect such arguments in debate and not waste time arguing their fallacious nature. Both sides will appeal to common sense on the basis that they are correct, that is the point of taking a side in a debate. No one says their position is justified because it is senseless.

13

His newsletter is the bomb.
I dunno. I think the common sense arguement often actually makes common sense. Yeah, I hate those old “slippery slope” or"appeals to authority" kinda arguement “fallacies” as the next guy but life a continum, not a mathematical equation.

For an example. Sure, nobody wants a nuclear reactor or a garbage dump or an explodiing fertilizer plant in their back yard. But guess what? We need those things and when some jerk is bitching that it shouldn’t be in HIS back yard the common sense question to ask is “WELL, whose back yard should it be in because its gotta be in somebodies?”

14

As someone who grew up constantly being accused, and rightfully so, of not having any common sense, I think it’s valid in the same way that a court will take judicial notice of certain common facts. However common sense involves more than just bare facts which is what makes it so slippery and why I had so much trouble with it.

Common sense is a blending of factual information with things like cultural norms, proximate cause, cause and effect, the difference between natural and supernatural phenomena, plus a host of other topics than just can’t be enumerated. Sometimes you see it in the law as the “reasonable man” standard. What would a reasonable man do under certain circumstances. This is the sort of thing that is generally being invoked when saying ‘common sense.’

edit:

What? No RSS feed?

15

I don’t understand what you’re saying here. People debate lots of things, including things which “common sense” has little or nothing to do with. For example, two physicists might argue over the existence of some particle at some high energy. Is it pointless for them to debate this topic unless they invoke “common sense” in support of their arguments?

16

I agree it would be wholely inappropriate in a physics argument, especially quantum physics where common sense does not apply. But I think the more technical the argument, the more likely the invocation of ‘common sense’ is to point out the simplicity of an argument, or the logical disconnects in the oppposing argument. And the less technical the debate the more likely the invocation of ‘common sense’ is disregarded as noise. However I’m sure there are also plenty of cases that demonstrate your point as well. I just don’t find the need to ban the phrase from debates or judge the debater simply on the use of the words alone.

17

I mostly agree with the OP, but the way I use common sense may not quite be how most people use it. Breaking it down, it should just mean the logic that one would expect to be applied to the situation by a normal person. In that way, sometimes it going to be true, and sometimes it’s not.

Consider the “Earth is flat” concept. We’ve known for thousands of years that it is round, but that wasn’t common knowledge. Without more information, the Earth appeared flat, so common sense would have dictated, incorrectly, that the Earth was flat. Today, we have better information and it’s well distributed, so now common sense dictates, correctly, that the Earth is round. In neither case does common sense lead to the veracity of their conclusion.

So, really, common sense is like an extension of argument ad populum, that we’re making an assertion that this is what most people would believe and thus, by virtue of a lot of people likely believing it, that it’s valid. So, if your argument is just “This is a good law because it’s common sense.” then, yeah, I’d say you’ve basically forfeited the debate.

However, I think there are times where it’s worth mentioning that something is common sense. For instance, to avoid bringing politics into this, if one were to run into a Flat Earth believer, I think it’s reasonable to say that it’s common sense that the Earth is round, not as simply saying that you win, but rather to put the onus on them to debunk the common sense arguments. You shouldn’t have to go find photographs from space and prove that they’re legit, it’s on them to explain either why they’re not proof or why and how they were faked. Basically, I think it can be used in the same way that I don’t need to find a source for common knowledge, like citing a math paper defining the value of pi.

However, even in those instances, it’s not always clear what is common sense, and it’s WAY over used. You’ll see both sides in the gun debate, in immigration, in health care, whatever, claiming that their side is common sense. Common sense, in this regard, is really only useful when debating fringe ideas like conspiracy theories, highly uncommon political ideologies, generally rejected scientific theories, etc.

18

Lessee… since there are no proven “god given” rules beyond physical law all human rules are jerry-rigged. Generally our rules are designed to keep us living, keep society functioning, keep individuals from being enslaved by other people/countries/organizations. Commonsense includes accepting values that promote those things, and it also includes preferring simple, likely explanations over complex unlikely explanations.

People will often invoke “common sense” to elevate their long-held prejudices over actual facts, but that’s not all there is to common sense.

19

I’ve grown quite fond of saying, “Common sense is quite uncommon.”

Many people that use the term “common sense” in an argument are not even intelligent enough to have their own sense, much less share a collective sense with others.

20

“Common Sense” is closely related to “Self-Evident”.