@kennethamy,
kennethamy wrote:
A "red herring" is, of course, an attempt (intentional or not) to divert discussion from the real issue to an issue that appears to be the issue at hand, but is not. A shining example of that is President Obama's recent speech which supported building a mosque by a group of Muslims very near the site of the 9/11 attack which murdered so many people. President Obama argued that just as any members of a religion have the right to build a religious structure at the site, so do Muslims.
But that argument is a red herring, for no one is disputing the legal or constitutional right of Muslim (or any other group) to build whatever they please to build at that, or any other site. What is being disputed is whether it is right for them to do so. Whether they ought to build such a structure so near that particular site. And whether or not they have the legal or constitutional right to do so is clearly irrelevant. There is an important distinction between having the right to do something and its being right to do that something which President Obama's speech ignores, and it is just that distinction that lies at the heart of the dispute.
Now, for another illustration of critical thinking consider the following argument:
Either President Obama realizes that his argument is irrelevant and so, is a red herring, or he does not. If he does, President Obama is being disingenuous. If he doesn't, the President is confused. So, either the President is disingenuous, or he is confused.
The above is an illustration of what logicians call "constructive dilemma".
In a conversation with Wittgenstein reported by Norman Malcolm in a memoir, Malcolm tells of how he made some political remark to Wittgenstein that infuriated him. Wittgenstein thought that the remark was stupid and it showed a lack of critical thought. And he asked Malcolm (rhetorically) what was the good of Malcolm knowing philosophy with all of its subtleties, but when it came to thinking about real life matters, Malcolm failed miserably?
Something to think about.
I'm a bit confused. After reading the past few pages of posts of the thread you started about President Obama's logical fallacies, I felt like I was reading a thread about the ethical value of building a mosque near the destroyed Twin Towers. How odd. Do your recent posts imply that your original post was written to make a different point than that explicitly made? Were you making a pointed attack on our current president only to make a different political point about the morality of American Muslims, all the while simultaneously casting unwarranted moral aspersions on the Chief Executive? My earlier accusation of hypocrisy was obviously a mistake on my part. Let me make it up to you by making this slightly more explicit argument:
kennethamy wrote:
You don't mean, I hope, that because this is America people can do any damn thing they please, do you? Since that is certainly not true. And you don't mean, I hope that just because a person has the right to do something, but that I think that in the particular circumstances, even if he has the right to do something, he ought not to do it, what I should not do whatever I think I should to stop him from exercising that right, like speak out against his doing so. For that, of course, would conflict with my right of freedom of expression. If a person (say) has the right to build so that it blocks my view of the ocean, then I have a right to go to the town council to ask them to prevent him from exercising that right because it interferes with me. Or can't you understand that? Let me make it easy for you: there are many times conflicting rights which have to be settled. The builders of the building have the right to build. On the other hand, the people who are offended by the building have a right not to be offended. So, this conflict of rights needs to be settled. And in America this is often settled by controversy, and by competing pressures. And, of course, if that cannot settle the conflict, then if the two parties feel strongly enough, they may have to go to the courts. I hope you can get that.
Well, i suppose i feel compelled to ask, in what way does the building of the mosque
interfere with the lives of the people living in the area? i don't expect that that you will insist that it interferes with their view of the ocean? Also, there is no such thing, legally speaking, as the "right not to be offended" (if anything, that is precisely the sort of thing that the First Amendment is meant to prevent. Incidentally, the 1st Amendment also proscribes prohibiting the exercise of religion or interfering with peaceful assembly). In other words, the courts would have very little to say regarding the rights of the offended parties.
A logician you may pretend to be, Ken, but you will never be much of a constitutional lawyer. i am way too drunk, and i totally lack the patience at the moment, to respond to all of the absurdities that you have enunciated in the course of this thread. But I will say this, although you obviously have the right to express your disapproval of this build, you have no right to prevent it. Your moral reservations are ultimately irrelevant, unless you are willing to violate the rights of the individuals that are so intent on offending you, which is obviously their purpose.
Something to think about.
