Spot the Bad Argument

Who can be first to precisely name the type of logical fallacy or thinking error in this: When Google is criticized for acquiescing to china's demand, as it sets up Google China, that it censor and block certain search terms (Taiwan, Tibet, democracy..) from its search engine, its CEO Schmidt offers an argument that will sound fair-minded and reasonable to some people:

"I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning to operate and tell that country how to operate."

Who can see what the thinking error is here in the most basic terms? Why does this Schmidty sentence sound plausible, when it is really a Schitty sentence? What is he doing wrong -conceptually- in that single sentence? Is he committing a standard logical fallacy like baculum, ad hominem?

Is there a certain category of bad argument that we see all the time (we've seen it over and over by -both- sides in the endless Toc-Ari-Branden-Kelley-etc. food fight threads, so it is certainly worth identifying because Oists are not immune from it.)

...The usual Super Generous Coates Grand Prize for the first right answer....

(I took this from the Google in China thread because I want to focus on sophistry, clever but false argument, thinking skills on a separate thread...rather than the politics.)

Post 1

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 2:27pm

Phil,

I think it's some form of begging the question/stolen concept. He's assuming Google should/must operate in China. I've probably not always been immune to this :-).

Jim

Post 2

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 2:42pm

I always fail Phil's exams! I don't even remember registering for this class! ;cp

Schmidt says "arrogance" like it's a bad thing. As if knowing what you know, and acting on what you know, makes one morally inferior somehow.

Is there a certain category of bad argument that we see all the time (we've seen it over and over by -both- sides in the endless Toc-Ari-Branden-Kelley-etc. food fight threads, so it is certainly worth identifying because Oists are not immune from it.)

They're not?? I thought Vallient calling for Campbell's dismissal as associate editor of JARS was a little over-the-top (as well as amusing. That old ARI "purge" mentality is still alive, isn't it?)

I think the food fight threads on SoloP are fun to watch. I noticed you didn't jump into the fray trying to correct anyone! :)

Post 3

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 2:47pm

There seems to be a reversal of cause and effect.

China is telling Google how to operate not the other way around.

Post 4

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:22pm

C'mon you guys!! You're all intellect-tools. Youse can do betta on 'dis quiz.

Teresa, you are -always- signed up for my classes...although I'm still waiting for some back tuition.

> I think the food fight threads on SoloP are fun to watch.

Masochist.

> I noticed you didn't jump into the fray trying to correct anyone!

For a while I kept beating my head vehemently against a concrete wall. Now I've switched to satire. Less Excedrin.

Post 5

Thursday, April 13, 2006 - 11:52pm

Rick Pasotto wrote:

China is telling Google how to operate not the other way around.

Exactly! Also, Schmidt is treating China as if she were an individual with individual rights. In so doing, he is embracing what Rand referring to as "collectivized rights." How can China have a right to make decisions which violate the rights of its own citizens? What makes Schmidt's argument "plausible" is the fact that the average person has already accepted a theory of collectivized rights; he or she has already accepted as fact that countries have the right to do whatever they please to their own citizens, and that anyone who objects is guilty of telling the country what do with its "own property." The assumption here is that the government owns its citizens and can dictate how they live, and that anyone who objects is guilty of intervening in the affairs of a soveriegn nation. It is that collectivist premise that needs to be challenged and rejected. But in today's political climate, virtually no one (except a handful of Objectivists and libertarians) is willing to do so.

- Bill

(Edited for grammar :-P)
(Edited by William Dwyer
on 4/14, 8:33am)

Post 6

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 7:37am

Yes - come on, Phil. Rick got it right!

Post 7

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 8:13am

Yeah, Phil!

How does what Rick said tie into the food fights going on at SoloP? Or doesn't it?

Post 8

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 11:45am

Perhaps Philip is identifying the cultural-relativist fallacy - that cultures are equivalent, value and moral standards relative to "legal" authority, subjective and not objective.

This does seem to be an un-spoken premise. Recently viewed a philosophy documentary on PBS ("Examined Life") and it seems the best the professors could come up with culture and morality is relative, as long as you're not killing people.

Post modernism? Compromise is the cardinal value, and one should only be intolerant of intolerance.

Scott

Post 9

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 12:30pm

Obviously there are plenty of things wrong with that sentence. I like Bill Dwyer's answer. Here are a couple more.

1.) The status of Google (just beginning to operate/arrogant) has no relevance to whether what China is doing is right or wrong.

2.) He's attacking his own credibility to allow for the possibility that China's censorship is okay (strange variant of ad hominem? - ignoring the ideas and attacking the person).

3.) The whole thing is a distraction. It has nothing to do with telling China how to operate. It has to do with actually supporting them.

4.) He's started with the conclusion that Google is going to operate in China, and is focusing on how best it should go about that (even though there is no choice at that point), when the real choice was whether to operate in China given those conditions.

5.) In actuality, he's not really saying that Google is arrogant. He's saying that anyone else who thinks Google should stand up to China is being arrogant. It's an argument from intimidation, intended to shut Google's critics up. It's like saying only a Nazi would agree with that statement. Who wants to agree after that and be called a Nazi?

There's probably more. And given Phil's exact question, these probably aren't the answers anyway.

Post 10

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 1:20pm

When reading Scott's post a lightbulb just went off in my head. The author is indeed committing the cultural-relativist fallacy but that is a subspecies of the virtue/value dichotomy or a separation of the moral and the practical. In the case of Google, they think they can obtain a value, participation in the Chinese market, at the price of their virtue (i.e. actively collaborating with the Chinese authorities). The Objectivist foodfights tend to be of the opposite variety, people tend to pursue virtue (or self-justification more accurately) at great cost in value.

There seems to be no realization in Objectivist circles that when people are making a bad argument or acting with less than perfect integrity or acting in ways that are self-destructive, they may be doing so for psychological reasons that don't preclude their commitment to the Objectivist philosophy or their status as a generally good person.

I've also belatedly come to a realization that many conflict-resolution techniques that I use that yield results at work or with non-O'ist friends work abysmally poorly with Objectivists. Encouraging constructive confrontation almost never works with Objectivists. This is because so much is at stake concerning people's personal virtue in Objectivism and Objectivists almost never compromise.

Jim

Post 11

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 1:34pm

Along with what others have stated you can add: Arrogance be damned! This looks to be a chicken crap way of trying to justify trading principles-of free speech- for money.

Post 12

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 9:54pm

Everyone has named something wrong with what the Google CEO said. And they were all valid points!

I'm looking for something *far more general*, however, a widely applicable thinking error *independent of the case of China/censorship*. And, remember, I stipulated it has to be a mistake made also by Oists in the various foodfight threads which have nothing to do with China...and not even with i) a reversal of cause and effect - an error that could be made even when causality is not discussed or in contention, or ii) cultural relativism - an error in discussions where no cultures are involved.

Something on the abstract level of begging the question or ad hominem that applies to MILLIONS of people arguing issues, proving things, making errors throughout history, even back to the earliest civilizations.

Anyone have an idea on this?

(I'll let this competition go on another day and will have LLoyd's of London and the Pinkerton's lock away "The usual Super Generous Coates Grand Prize for the first right answer" overnight in the underground vault.)

Phil

Post 13

Friday, April 14, 2006 - 10:15pm

Phil,

The only other thing I can think of is argument from authority, that experience and/or tradition substitute for an actual argument.

Jim

Post 14

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 1:22am

"I think it's arrogant for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning to operate and tell that country how to operate."

The fallacy is that of staking the claim that human nature does not exist. If there is such a thing as human nature, then it would not matter whether we "are just beginning to operate" there -- because human nature is not a malleable thing; instead, it is the same for all humans.

We do not need 'time of operation' in order to evaluate what is right for mankind (anywhere) -- we need only noncontradictory integration. Man is a certain type of being (and not other types). This prescribes certain types of actions (and not other actions). Familiarity with a country is not a plausible variable -- when determining what is right for the being known as 'man.'

Everbody, in virtue of their humanity, is 'ready' for freedom and individualism.

Ed

Post 15

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 6:55am

I'll just throw this last thing in -- the argument that 'might makes right'.

Post 16

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 7:28am

I like James point about negotiating with an objective or principled person. Most, too many Americans are utilitarian, and will sacrifice their principles cheap. In contrast it becomes a matter of pride to sacrifice a compromise to one's principles, even at the expense of a pyrrhic victory.

Philip is being too vague for me, but one last attempt:

"I think it's arrogant [attitude of entitlement] for us to walk into a country where we are just beginning to operate [initiating a relationship] and tell that country how to operate. [usurp autonomy]"

So what is being said? An [attitude of entitlement] is not justified when [initiating a relationship] because it [usurps autonomy].

What isn't being said? After a relationship is initiated, after the initiator has their foot in the door, they will earn the right to dominate by an object lesson demonstrating superiority?

Yes, this is said by someone with a feminine attitude towards passive-aggressive control. Groping for a corollary to the argument from intimidation - "Those that are not for us are (necessarily) against us?". A little further - "Don't make me kick you're ass!".

Cialdini in a book on Marketing gives an amusing account of sociologists that find they are apt to get people to put a large political poster in their lawn, if they first get them to put a small sticker in their window.

I don't buy that argument regarding technology. Perhaps it is Google that will be hacked - after the Chinese convince Google to filter renegade sites, next they will have Google collecting lists of dissidents that visit contraban sites, or install spyware on dissident computers.

Information technology is a special kind of tool - like viri, it can take on a life and character of its own.

Scott

Post 17

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 10:04am

"argument from authority."[James HN] "the claim that human nature does not exist."[Ed T] "that 'might makes right'." [LW]

Yes, but none of these would apply much outside of this particular censorship case. They are fairly situation-specific or issue-specific. They wouldn't apply to multiple threads of objectivist 'partisanship foodfights' (toc-ari, toleration, branden....) as well would they?

(Edited by Philip Coates
on 4/15, 10:10am)

Post 18

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 10:40am

Wait a minute, we're not "telling them how to operate" -- we're maintaining personal integrity (fidelity to our own values). Or we're selling out.

Is this what you're getting at Phil, that Objectivist food-fights have been about what's wrong with another -- rather than what is right with oneself?

Ed

Post 19

Saturday, April 15, 2006 - 10:58am