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ZorbaTHut  2yr ago (text post)   31616 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 17, 2022

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By the logic in your last sentence a lot of things not typically considered violence would fit the definition. Let's say you have surgery to destroy a tumor. The tumor is "something" and the surgery is a behavior that destroys it, is that violence? if you say yes your definition is broken, thats not how people use the term

I think it's not unreasonable to call surgery violence toward a tumor. Certainly more reasonable than "silence is violence" woke type usage.

Why do people keep making this argument? "My enemies, who I also think are lying hypocrites, made <ridiculous and unjustifiable claim>. And my claim is slightly better than theirs, so I get to make it, and you can't object it's nonsense."

...Because it's a straightforward appeal to justice? If the bar for accepting claims is low, then why should I volunteer for a higher bar than is generally applicable?

"Those other guys are jumping off of bridges. Why shouldn't I be able to do that too?"

Because the point of 'accepting claims', in this context, is to actually figure out if abortion is good or bad, what relevance that has to law, and use that knowledge and the way one comes to it in other areas as well. "Abortion is domestic violence" doesn't mean anything other than "i don't like abortion for some other reason", and throwing terrible justifications at each other is pointless. Believing it makes you dumber, and less able to figure out the right approach to abortion, and anything else. What about children transitioning? Domestic violence! AI art? Theft from the WORKING CLASS. Banning affirmative action is LITERALLY jim crow. TheMotte isn't a TV ad for a state senate race, and the latter shouldn't even exist.

"Abortion is domestic violence" doesn't mean anything other than "i don't like abortion for some other reason",

I'm not saying the domestic violence argument is the best ever, but your claim here is flatly untrue. The basis of the analogy is the claim that abortion, like domestic violence, is violence within a context where there is a special duty of not committing violence, specifically, within the family. You may disagree with this claim for any number of reasons, but it is not contentless.

like domestic violence, is violence within a context where there is a special duty of not committing violence, specifically, within the family

Yeah, but that's only held to be true in cases like 'beating' or 'spanking', not for murder. I don't think anyone recognizes the idea that murder should be punished more because it's against a family member. And most people would find it very strange to call 'a father killing their 5yo child' domestic violence. The bad parts of domestic violence - the idea that a husband can 'psychologically manipulate' a wife or something, the battered wife, or the vulnerable child - don't make any sense in abortion, given that a hospital is administering it, the fetus can't talk or take action, etc.

Yeah, but that's only held to be true in cases like 'beating' or 'spanking', not for murder. I don't think anyone recognizes the idea that murder should be punished more because it's against a family member.

I would think this would be cultural? This would definitely be seen as qualitatively different in other societies and/or in the past (depending on where).

You can make a good case that a bit of further nuance is needed, but here's a different example: an amputation. Cutting off Joe's foot would be very violent in some contexts (assault/maiming), but not generally considered violent in others (surgical removal of a gangrenous foot).

In the case of surgery, you could view it as "intending to hurt Joe's foot" or "intending to help Joe." In the case of maiming, there is clearly an intent to hurt, regardless of whether you're looking at Joe or Joe's foot.

But wouldn't that apply to abortion as well? The way I see it is if you count the fetus as an agent abortion is violence if you don't it's not so just calling abortion violence is assuming the conclusion. It's perhaps good rhetoric to rally people who are already pro life but it's not really an argument.

I think there are three problems here.

First, argument-by-analogy is a poor strategy generally, because analogies often work as an attempt to explain a position, but not as an attempt to persuade. If you're trying to persuade, the other person can always point out differences between the object case and the analogy (there are always differences, otherwise it's not an analogy), and then you're just arguing over whether a given difference is material.

Second, abortion is an unusually distinct object case. In most cases, you can say "this is really close to that, so we should treat them similarly" and objections concern whether you're jumping an important line in the process. But there aren't other object cases that are "pretty close" to abortion; when you're comparing it to a different thing, it's not hard to come up with multiple distinctions that might justify different treatment.

Third, the fundamental values involved in any given position in the abortion context are right there. There just aren't many inferential steps from values to policy for mistake theory to have room to maneuver; it's all conflict of values. At that point, it's down to persuasion that one set of values is preferable to another, and appeals to, say, emotion or aesthetics are perfectly valid argument types.

because analogies often work as an attempt to explain a position, but not as an attempt to persuade

Huh? How are these different? If you listen to political speeches or debates, both often attempts to persuade, there are tons of analogies.

Let's say I'm making an argument, and the other person doesn't understand what I'm getting at. Quite often, I could use some shared reference point as an analogy to make my line of argument more clear.

Alternatively, I'm making an argument, and the other person firmly disagrees. I could use an analogy, but it usually won't be persuasive, because analogies are never perfect 1:1 matches to the original subject, and the other person can just say, "oh, your analogy is different here and that's a material difference, so your analogy is flawed and not good support for your position."

it's rare for someone to disagree, hear an analogy, and respond, "oh, I was wrong the whole time, but now I agree." If the other person was on the fence beforehand, and not committed to disagreeing? Might work.

I could use an analogy, but it usually won't be persuasive, because analogies are never perfect 1:1 matches to the original subject,

But they don't have to be. They just have to be relevant in some way to be convincing.

Obviously the interlocutor can just say "but apples aren't LITERALLY orange, checkmate republikkan", but they can do that for any argument that isn't an analogy.

it's rare for someone to disagree, hear an analogy, and respond, "oh, I was wrong the whole time, but now I agree

Yeah, but that's also true for non-analogy arguments. Analogies and similar things are plenty useful in persuading people who firmly disagree, but it's generally hard to do so.

Female circumcision: domestic violence or not? Is a baby more similar to healthy tissue or to a tumor?

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