In that case, I have veto power over what and what is not a “claim” by your definition. For example, I reject the assertion that higher vitamin B content makes avocado seem more likely to be the best food.
So that I can understand where you are coming from, can you provide your explanation/evidence/argument as to why it is false to claim that “generally speaking, it is inappropriate to gamble.”
What are some facts that make “green is the best color” either more likely or less likely to be true?
What about for “avocado is the best food”?
I disagree with your definition, but I will re-phrase: Please provide evidence or argument for your (apparent) claim that the appropriateness of criticism is to be judged on utilitarian grounds.
Not if you refuse to explain what the correct criteria are and to provide evidence or argument for the correctness of those criteria.
So your position is that “avocado is the best food” is indeed a “claim” which is true or false?
Ok, so using this definition of “appropriate,” you agree that your earlier statement – A criticism based on incorrect beliefs about the situation is inappropriate – is incorrect?
So the following statement is plainly, non-nitpickingly false?
Basically, I think that the judging the appropriateness of criticizing a low level worker requires you to balance competing values so to a large extent it’s a matter of opinion as to when it is and isn’t appropriate. Frylock disagrees with this and believes that there is a Correct Answer to the question. I am attempting to demonstrate that his reasoning leads to absurdities. For example, his reasoning would seem to lead to the position that “avocado is the best food” is not an opinion but is a statement that is true or false.
Note that, in the snippet you were responding to, I wasn’t defining “claim” but “rational dispute.” If you are a party to a dispute, you do indeed have the power to affect whether the dispute is a rational one or not.
There is no generally applicable principle which would require that I may not play low-stakes poker with my son and my wife assuming we are all wealthy. Since there is no such generally applicable principle, there is a case in which it is appropriate to gamble. Hence it’s false that it’s always inappropriate to gamble.
If I were in a rational dispute about this, someone might reply by naming a general principle–such as “never gamble.” Subsequently, (if I were in a rational dispute,) I would ask them to provide support for that claim. If I am in a rational dispute, they will do so. And the claim is amenable to rational dispute because it is possible for me to be in a rational dispute about it, as defined in my previous post.
See below.
The appropriateness of criticism turns on whether it makes you a jerk or not. “Whether it makes you a jerk or not” is a utilitarian ground, since it’s a phrase describing a consequence. Hence, the appropriateness of criticism is to be judged on utilitarian grounds.
My position is that when the person in your scenario said “avocado is the best food,” he was making a claim which is true or false. This is not to say that everyone woh says “avocado is the best food” is making a claim which is true or false. We know that the person in your scenario was making a claim which is true or false, because his subsequent offer of reasoning in support of the declarative statement shows he intended it with the force of a claim, i.e. amenability to judgments of truth or falsehood. What he was trying to say, in other words, was something that can be true or false. But not everyone who says “avocado is the best food” is trying to say the same thing as the person in your scenario.
Not quite, but just as good: Using the new language I’ve introduced by making the distinction between legitimacy and appropriateness, I’d say that my previous claim that those criticisms are “inappropriate” should be understood to have had the sense of those criticisms being “illegitimate” instead.
No.
“‘Socrates is mortal’ is just a reasonable assumption.” <— plainly, non-nitpickingly false.
“‘Socrates is mortal’ is a reasonable assumption.” <----Not plainly, non-nitpickingly false. In fact, I’d say it’s pretty plainly true.
Well in that case, every last opinion is actually a “claim” since a pair of people could in theory satisfy your A, B, C, and D. And therefore, by your reasoning, every last opinion is either true or false.
Sure there is – for example, the principle that it’s harmful to one’s soul to gamble.
Whoa, please show me where I talked about “always inappropriate to gamble,” as opposed to “generally speaking.” Failing that, please admit that I said no such thing and apologize.
Why?
Where is the necessary negative utility in being a jerk? Are you saying that there is nothing inherently bad with being a jerk per se?
So whether or not a statement is a “claim” depends on the intentions of the persons making the statement?
Not quite, but just as good: Using the new language I’ve introduced by making the distinction between legitimacy and appropriateness, I’d say that my previous claim that those criticisms are “inappropriate” should be understood to have had the sense of those criticisms being “illegitimate” instead.
That’s ridiculous. For example, if somebody says “‘Socrates is mortal’ is just a reasonable assumption,” the principle of charity requires that the statement be interpreted in such a way as to be correct and reasonable. i.e. in line with the second statement which you concede is true.
Instead, you are choosing ways to interpret my language so as to make the things that I say less reasonable. Please stop it.
You’re still not keeping straight the fact that ABCD define “rational dispute,” not “claim.” Two people can mistakenly have a rational dispute about matters which are not amenable to rational dispute. A claim is an utterance which is amenable to rational dispute, as defined by me above.
Sorry, by that I meant “generally applicable and correct.”
I take “generally speaking” to mean “always” in the context of formulating principles for action. What do you take it to mean?
I’m telling you what I mean when I call a criticism “inappropriate” under the new distinction drawn recently between appropriateness and legitimacy. The answer to “why” is just “This is what I mean when I use the word.”
I didn’t say anything about necessary negative utility. But you do not owe me an apology as I understand misunderstandings are innocent.
Being a jerk usually, probably, in most cases, tends to reduce the amount of happiness in the world.
It depends on what they’re trying to say, which is determined in part by their intentions.
I disagree. “X is a reasonable assumption” and “X is just a reasonable assumption” are so distinct in meaning that it would not be reasonable for a person to think you meant the former by the latter. But now you’ve clarified you meant the former, so that’s taken under advisement. Can you explicate what that changes about the strength of either of our lines of reasoning?
Note that each and every definition of “generally” contains the idea that there may be exceptions to the rule.
And yet you chose your own non-standard definition of “generally” which allowed you to interpret my statement in a much more unreasonable way.
You’ve done this 2 or 3 times now.
I have my own rules of debate, and one rule is that I do not engage with people who strawman me, i.e. people who insist on pretending I have said something different from what I actually said.
The fact is that “generally speaking it is inappropriate to gamble” is different from “it is always inappropriate to gamble.” Any intellectually honest person would recognize this fact.
The fact that you believe that you have actually demonstrated something here speaks volumes about your character and intellect.
I’ll give you this, though: there are few people on this board better at reigniting basically moribund threads with ridiculous arguments. The idea that “it’s harmful to one’s soul to gamble” is some sort of generally-applicable principle is one of the more hilarious claims i’ve read recently.
You keep building that list there, douchebag. Believe me, everyone around here knows that the list says more about your own dishonesty than about the people you are ignoring.
You’ve shut this interesting conversation down based on a mistake. You see misunderstandings as malicious when they’re not. You clarified your meaning concerning “generally,” and, like Bricker, I definitely see the two claims as distinct and could easily continue the conversation knowing which you meant. (If I were malicious, I’d insist on misunderstanding you instead of accepting your corrections in good faith. Contrary to the word you used, I have not “insisted” on misunderstanding you.) But you have chosen for things not to be that way. What can I do but respect your choice?
Thanks for the interesting conversation, in any case. I’d even say I found it to be edifying–I had to think twice and one occasion even had to deal with a genuine contradiction in my thinking.
I’m not sure he intended to use that argument to express his own thoughts on the matter–I think he was offering the first premise as an example of a claim which is neither true nor false.
My response to him would have been to give reasons to disbelieve the claim, thereby giving evidence that it is a claim which is false, rather than one which is neither true nor false.
But, he has decided not to continue the conversation.
But the term has no meaning then. If something truly is a “generally applicable principle,” it needs to attach, at some level at least, to the ways in which people actually think and act. Simply adding (or implying) the word “always” to a statement does not magically turn the assertion into a generally applicable principle.
The funny thing is that, when Bricker said that he disagreed that “it’s harmful to one’s soul to gamble” is a generally applicable principle, brazil84 responded that “I think what you are trying to say is that you disagree with the principle itself..”
And yet, brazil84 has demonstrated nothing about his “generally applicable principle” that would, in fact, make it generally applicable.
Brazil was saying that Bricker was wrong to think that, just because he thinks the principle isn’t true, he thereby thinks it’s not generally applicable.
What I gather Brazil means by “generally applicable principle” is “principle which is intended to apply in most cases.” On that definition, there can be true generally applicable principles, and false generally applicable principles.
But, in my opinion, the two phrases that you have equated in your first sentence are not, in fact, equivalent, and equating them makes a nonsense of the whole exercise.
The fact that someone might intend or hope or argue for a principle to apply in most cases does not mean that the principle necessarily does, in fact, apply in most cases. This is precisely the difference between a “generally applicable principle” and “something that i think should be generally applicable.”
I have no doubt that some people believe that gambling is harmful to the soul, and that they believe that this principle applies to everyone that gambles. But this doesn’t make it a generally applicable principle.