י Professor Hallie on Conservatives Being Liars. Cornell philosopher Benjamin Hellie wrote in his weblog a rather silly argument to show that conservatives are liars, and Brian Leiter posted it and invited comments. Professor Lawson of BU replied well. I thought I'd post my comments here, improved a bit. They can, I think, be read independently of the original Hallie and Leiter posts, which do, however, have some other points and some interesting evidence on how the leftwing mind works.
Hallie says:
"So suppose that Lawson's parallel argument runs like this: D. left- wingers support things that are against the alleged property rights of a tiny minority E. if the vast majority knew this, what left-wingers support could not exist F. therefore left-wingers are liars.
"What I actually argued was A. right-wingers support things that are against the interests of the vast majority B. if the vast majority knew this, what right-wingers support could not exist C. therefore right- wingers are liars.
Lawson's parallel argument is not that at all, though. It states Hallie's original argument rather better than Hallie did himself. Let me try. The ABC formalism is helpful.
Hallie:
B. People dislike injustice, and would not support someone they knew was unjust.
B1. Rightwingers value support more than the truth.
C. Therefore Rightwingers lie about their positions.
A. Right-wingers support injustice (because the current distribution of wealth is unjust)
Parallel Hallie:
BB. People dislike injustice, and would not support someone they knew was unjust.
BB1. Leftwingers value support more than the truth.
CC. Therefore Leftwingers lie about their positions.
AA. Left-wingers support injustice (because redistribution of wealth is unjust)
Lawson points out that Premises A and AA are parallel, and the Hallie syllogism doesn't have any value for someone who believe premise AA. I suppose what value the Hallie syllogism has is in making the argument that if someone disagrees with you about income redistribution, you should believe he is a liar, whether you start with the leftwing premise or the rightwing one. Even then, we need to include B1 and BB1 to make the argument complete. Other comments besides mine noted that mistaken beliefs will invalidate the argument-- if, for example, rightwingers believe people like injustice instead of disliking it. (Also, I might add, it might really be true that most people like injustice, as defined here, rather than disliking it.)
I might point out that premise BB1 is actually more plausible than premise B1. Rightwingers tend to believe in absolute truth, divine retribution for wrongdoing, and such things, so they have a reason to value truth. Leftwingers tend to believe that truth is relative, that power is what matters, that morality is flexible, and that what is important is to advance good causes. If so,then a rightwinger values truth but a leftwinger does not think truth is even a coherent concept, so "lying" is nothing objectionable.
[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/04.01.27b.htm . Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]
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