RE: Name Calling vs. Ad Hominem

From: gts (gts_2000@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri May 09 2003 - 10:15:48 MDT

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    Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:

    > Perhaps, of course, you feel that the undesirability of spitting on
    > sidewalks has not been established to your liking. But it
    > may have been established to his, and the audience's, liking.

    Yes, this goes back to my original argument to John about a month ago in
    which I stated that we can call a Nazi "scum" without drawing much
    objection. I wrote that we can do without drawing objection because there
    are already many widely-accepted valid logical arguments in the public
    domain that discredit Nazism as immoral.

    However the fact that most third-parties to the dialogue would not voice
    their objections to the name-calling is not evidence that the name-calling
    is not ad hominem. Rather, it is evidence of intellectual dishonesty on the
    part of those third-party participants. With respect to logical discourse,
    even devil-worshippers deserve a fair trial.

    -gts



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