Why Preach?

KillerPoodle wrote: You remind me of the guy in the blond pony tail in this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azM6xSTT2I0

I hereby challenge AJ to a formal debate to be done privately and posted on the forums. Topics shall consist of land claiming, free speech, bullying, and war in Illy. 

You remind me of the guy in the blond pony tail in this scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azM6xSTT2I0

Wisdom is waffling on a video game forum?

Edited by Princess Botchface - 19 Jan 2016 at 06:04

Of course you may be right.  But then again, if even a moderate level college basketball player showed up at the local YMCA and proceeded to compete it might very well appear that he was tooting his own horn.  And if he offered any advice to the younger or less experienced players, would his advice be worth anything less even if he were?  If the dust on my shoes shows that I've walked down the road a bit farther should I pretend otherwise and dust off my shoes before I show up?

Along those same lines, suppose I am "showing off" in some way and my motives ARE other than stated.  Does that mean, if it were true, that the ideas I present are reasonable or unreasonable because of my motives for presenting them?  Wimsatt and Beardsley have a nice commentary on a related fallacy, titled "The Intentional Fallacy" which, in short, says that what counts is not what the author intended, but what was received by the reader.  And while their point is restricted to literary criticism, the same could be said of any argument I present.  Motives do not effect reasoning (except perhaps to cloud judgement which is usually easily revealed without an appeal to the motive of the speaker) and thus, if you can look past the supposed motives and deal with the content that would be useful to yourself and many others, no doubt.

Along these lines though, another idea occurs to me which I shall call the "Single Motive Fallacy."  It's probably been noticed by scholars far more advanced than I, but often we try in our ad hominem remarks to focus on a single motive of the speaker as if it accounted for the entire effort put into what was said.  "Oh, he's just in it for the money...." when a Senator votes a certain way, would be one possible example.  That Senator may stand to make millions from the passage of the bill, but even if it was a reason for his or her voting the way he or she did, it does not therefore mean that the bill was a bad one.  It may be that I have motives other than self-aggrandizement or ego boosting at the same time I may think that what I do may, in fact, boost my standing in certain circles.  Thus, the Single Motive Fallacy usually serves to do little but attempt to deflate the force of the argument being made by deflating the authority of the speaker, rather than actually address the argument at all.  (BTW, Kenneth Burke's "A Rhetoric of Motive" would be a good read on this subject).

So, by way of recommendation I might suggest two things: first, if you like philosophy, as I do, ignore whatever negative motives you may find in my missives and deal with the subjects themselves; and second, write some things yourself as that will, no doubt, demonstrate by example, how to better come across as less a pedant.

Thanks for your reflections.

AJ