A.j. Kreider

In typical critical thinking texts, hyperbole is presented as being largely “argumentationally innocent” - it’s primary role being to express emotion of to bring desired emphases to a particular point. This discounts its prevalent use in argumentation, as it is also used as a device to persuade, and in particular, to persuade an interlocutor that they should take or support a course of action. When it is so used, the exaggerated claims would, if true, provide greater support for the conclusion. But since the claims are not fully accurate, this “greater support” is only illusory. Its use is thus deceptive and counts as fallacious reasoning.

A consequence of adopting an ethics of care is that society would reorganize itself in a way that directs greater resources to more vulnerable people. This is surely a good thing. However, something that has been largely ignored in the literature is the relationship between empathy and a caring attitude, rights, and the burdens that we place on one another. The view I will defend here suggests that while a caring attitude will generally work to enhance the lives and opportunities of vulnerable members of society, there are some cases wherein the opposite will result – that in some cases an ethics of care demands that these more vulnerable members eschew a focus on their interests, even if they have a right to society’s resources. The reason is that accepting these resources places too great a burden on the rest of society, and that failing to recognize the burden reflects a lack of empathy.

I think the basic intuition behind textualism correct – that the meaning of a law is fixed by referencing the meaning of its words according to the meaning common to the law’s ratifiers. However, even if true, it does not follow that interpretation of a law goes through the original ratifiers. Rather, a citizenry continually ratifies the laws to which it subjects itself, and as the meanings of those words change over time, so will those laws. Concerning, say, the U.S. Constitution, though the text may be very nearly the same now as in the 18th century, a different constitution is in effect.

All who teach logic are familiar with informal fallacies such as ad ignorantium and ad populum. While it is easy to give clear examples of poor reasoning of this sort, instructors are also cognizant of what might be called “exceptions”: when it is legitimate to appeal to popularity or to an absence of evidence. The view I defend here is that appeals to popularity and ignorance should best be viewed as instances of abductive reasoning, or inferences to the best explanation. Thus, determinations of whether these types of arguments are good ones will rest on the criteria that determine good reasoning for abductive arguments generally.