Re: Why believe the truth?

From: Dan Fabulich (dfabulich@warpmail.net)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 12:57:48 MDT

  • Next message: Robert J. Bradbury: "RE: greatest threats to survival (was: why believe the truth?)"

    Brett Paatsch wrote:

    > Dan Fabulich writes:
    >
    > > In particular, I consider it a fact of ethical logic that,
    > > for any X, we shouldn't believe the claim *:
    > >
    > > (*) Although X is false, we should believe X anyway.
    >
    > What about where X = "This drug will relieve your illness"
    >
    > When
    >
    > (1) The drug is a placebo and no real medication is available.
    >
    > (2) 40% of patients with the particular illness have improved
    > as a result of the placebo effect in the past.

    Yes, even then. Because, what I think you're arguing here is that, in
    this case, we should believe X, and hence, we shouldn't believe (1), which
    just says ~X.

    Hence, we shouldn't believe that ~X, so we shouldn't believe "~X & we
    should believe X", which is *.

    Eliezer suggests that I weaken my position. I actually think my position
    is already and automatically weakened by making it a "logical" argument as
    such: it's only a fact about our definitions, not really about the world.
    So it's already weak enough, and hence defensible enough.

    -Dan

          -unless you love someone-
        -nothing else makes any sense-
               e.e. cummings



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