The Motte/Bailey Fallcy

BirdMedication · 2023-01-22T04:27:22+00:00

Oh I've seen way more than just that fallacy being weaponized in this sub. I wish people were forbidden from using any of them but that would be near impossible to enforce.

CruelAngelGradThesis · 2023-01-22T09:26:04+00:00

RP theories are vulnerable to individualistic propositions because they put the speaker into the position of being forced to defend absolutes such as AWALT.

If one proposes that an event will always occur, with no exceptions, then the presentation of a single exception is not Motte and Bailey. The weakness lies in the maximalist argument that attracted the anecdotal counterargument.

astronautophilia · 2023-01-22T05:00:31+00:00

While "playing victim" is certainly a strategy some people employ, it's equally as disingenuous to point at these people and overexaggerate how common they are ("pervasive and pernicuous", "single biggest problem", etc), because that only serves to obscure the more relevant and far more common counterarguments made by more serious people. Especially when this strategy is used by both sides; a relevant example might be something like

"Feminists are destroying society by refusing to fuck men"

"Women don't owe you sex"

"I just want lonely young men to be treated with respect and compassion"

That undoubtedly happens, I'm pretty sure I've seen this very thing play out on this sub within the last week, but we don't often point that out as the single biggest problem with RP, do we? Well, I'm sure some do, but generally, we just move on and don't waste time on these people. We certainly can address the actual issues, all we have to do is not pay attention to the loud minority of people who aren't interested in putting forward reasonable arguments.

In that spirit, I'm going to quickly address the examples you put forward.

Person A (into the Bailey): "Trans-women are women,"

Person B: "But women can bare children, men cannot"

The obvious counterpoint to B would be "infertile women are still women".

Jordan Peterson describes this as going from low resolution to high resolution. He has the scientific/clinical knowledge and skills (and evidence to back it all up) that says "Women are more neurotic (anxiety and depression aka. negative emotion) than men" and that "Men are more 'disagreeable' than women"

Jordan would also make the further claim that this is because of an inherent biological difference between men and women, whereas someone else might argue it's mainly due to sociological factors. I don't know enough about the topic to make a claim either way, but I do know it's not as simple as "women are inherently more neurotic, mother nature says so, checkmate liberals". A feminist could easily use the same data to argue that "women are more depressive than men because they're suffering under the patriarchy" or something along those lines. They wouldn't disagree with the data, they'd disagree with JP's explanation for the data.

Raileyx · 2023-01-22T04:36:37+00:00

Person A (into the Bailey): "Trans-women are women,"

Person B: "But women can bare children, men cannot"

Person A (retreating into the Motte): "i just want everyone to be treated like human beings"

First of, it's bear children not bare children.

Secondly, no self-respecting trans-issue debater would retreat into any sort of motte after the response that person B gave.

That aside, motte-and-bailey actually IS a great fallacy to know and expose when you see it, but from my experience it's far from the biggest issue with online discourse.

The biggest issue is that people are way too dumb and lack the knowledge required to have certain conversations in the first place and simply talk past each other half of the time. That's the real problem. Anyone who knows more than just the common culture-war nonsense will agree with me if they've ever tried talking to someone about trans issues. People always have strong opinions, but ask them if they've ever heard of SOC-8 and you'll quickly learn that they actually know NOTHING.

And that's why online discourse is pointless. People are simply unqualified but pretend to be experts regardless. So why even bother? Just point your finger, make fun of all the idiots and enjoy the fireworks. There's nothing else to do.

NationalistGoy · 2023-01-22T13:14:20+00:00

For example:

Topic: n count

Women: "Men too"

Men rarely resort to "Well, women do it!"

Men don't say "Well, women do it!", it sounds like a childish "No YOU" response.

What men do is they find an equivalent that women can relate to, to understand why their opinion is flawed. But the women use a second childish response "But it's not the same".

For example:

Man: "if she makes you wait for sex past a reasonable time frame, then dump her and move on"

Woman: "I make a man wait for sex because I see potential for a long term relationship, the other guys got sex very quick because I didn't care about them, they were just hookups"

A man with a equivalent argument: "Imagine I gave the last girl gifts, bought her a car and took her on trips and parties with celebrities, but with you it's all coffee dates for three years because I see potential for a ltr, I did all that with her because I didn't care about her"

Woman: "but it's not the same"

A lot of arguments go down this route and makes debating pointless.

despisedlove2 · 2023-01-22T06:02:08+00:00

Thanks for the interesting video.

Treat this the same way you would a snake oil salesman (or woman).

Deny them the not so subtle claim over your right and duty to make sense of the world for yourself. The modern Left is academic charlatanism that has grown into a social cancer.

Postmodern "study" is largely divorced from the intellectual rigor that kept classical humanities honest. The few smart ones among them know that they are scamming the faculty, students, and society at large. That is why you have a proliferation of terms like "personal truth", "microaggression", "safety", "systemic racism", etc.

These are all conscious tactics to avoid losing in an argument since the entire tissue of lies is known to be incapable of standing any rigorous examination. So, they use these terms to shame you into not examining them.

It would be amusing if it were not destroying the greatest achievement of mankind - the Western liberal order.

LivingTall2789 · 2023-01-22T04:57:59+00:00

Isn't a motte and bailey like the first stone castle in lord's of the realm?

I like to build one then just auto calc everything. Even when filled with peasants the computer will say you won..

AutoModerator · 2023-01-22T04:11:27+00:00

Attention!

You can post off topic/jokes/puns as a comment to this Automoderator message.
For "CMV" and "Question for X" Threads: Parent comments that aren't from the target group will be removed, along with their child replies.
If you want to agree with OP instead of challenging their view or if the question is not targeted at you, post it as an answer to this comment.
OP you can choose your own flair according to these guidelines., just press Flair under your post!

Thanks for your cooperation and enjoy the discussion!

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

West-Ad-9697 · 2023-01-22T10:59:42+00:00

I find people that want to structure a conversation are never actually interested in having a conversation, they want to win it.

Are trans women women - well no, because they don't fulfil the function of women to me as a heterosexual man.

Now we can take it sociologically and demonize my patriarchal need, and how people are etheric self defining entities and we exist out side of the function we serve for one another.

Or I have legal discourse about rights and interactions not being implicitly corelated - but at the fundamental level - you don't care why I don't see trans women as women, you don't care about my perspective, you want to win a rhetorical. Fallacy or not. Structured debate, or not. Dismissive adhom, or not.

wtknight · 2023-01-22T15:24:34+00:00

I've always thought that it's fairly easy to see when someone is conflating two arguments that should not be conflated. The motte and bailey fallacy mostly seems annoying because people then have to take the time to argue with another person about why two arguments that have been conflated should not be.

Men rarely resort to "Well, women do it!"

Men who make what I consider to be fallacious arguments here tend to make more faulty generalization arguments when it comes to characterizing women. Women seem much less likely to do this, mainly I think because most of them find many men undesirable, but often do not find their partners to be undesirable, so the tendency to generalize the opposite sex is not there. Men here on the other hand seem to have strong views on "universal female nature".

RIPGeorgeHarrison · 2023-01-24T05:56:27+00:00

I don’t like calling it a fallacy to be honest. Because really it’s something that is done very deliberately which is what makes it so hard to argue with.

People doing this usually should just be ignored

Title	The Motte/Bailey Fallcy
Author	Atomic_Thr0away
Upvotes	17
Comments	82
Date	January 22, 2023 4:11 AM UTC (3 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/10iankr/the_mottebailey_fallcy/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/the-mottebailey-fallcy.1149404 https://theredarchive.com/post/1149404

Comments