Argumentum ad Consequentiam and Ethics

[lennybound]

An Appeal to Consequences is a logical fallacy that can take either of the following forms:

If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, P is true.

If P, then Q will occur.
Q is undesirable.
Therefore, P is false.
 Such an appeal is considered fallacious because no matter how desirable or undesirable the outcomes of a belief are, that has no

Comments

[ame0toko]

Hey, that's why I smoke! That's actually why I take drugs in the first place. I think it makes me more in tune with my muses/music. It doesn't hold true ALL the time, but it holds true a lot of the time. I guess that makes it false?

Hooray for logical fallacies!

[ww0308]

I'm afraid this reply may sound colossally stupid, but what the hell, I'll post on the off-chance anyone cares

[ww0308]

Addendum: As for logical fallacies that should be considered valid within certain fields of study, all logical fallacies can sometimes be useful in rhetoric, courtroom law, and politics, in theater, film, and literature, and in advertising, sales, and marketing, but I imagine that's not what you meant. Non-Euclidean geometry is a useful historical example of how treating "fallacies" as assumptions led to the discovery of new areas of math and science, and I can explain that more thoroughly if you like. But other than that, I can't think of any logical fallacies that would be considered valid within certain fields of study.

And the question of whether ethical theories are truth-apt also seems to depend on whether you already have a goal in mind for your ethics.

[lennybound]

Word

[ww0308]

Hmm, yeah, that does make sense.

To nitpick, I'd say that "there is an X" is simply false, and it's just "we should claim there is an X" or more broadly "we should lie sometimes" that's ethically true, but your point still stands just fine.

Maybe I could harden up my ideal utopia by specifying that all the inhabitants seek truth fearlessly. That could conflict with the other goals, but the other goals are already going to be conflicting with each other and need some balancing. Truth seeking would also fix the question of what is and isn't gratuitous.

Giving up the search for truth to attain safety, comfort, and the other goals would be awful. Same goes for giving up various other values-- music, say, or painting, or romantic love. I see now that my idea of utopia is more complex than is immediately apparent, and I'm more wedded to the nice things about the world as it is than is immediately apparent, too. Three cheers for discourse increasing self-knowledge!