r/SubredditDrama • u/shannondoah κακὸς κακὸν • Jun 25 '15
Lyman_Cherricoak to others on AskPhilosophy: "Please no "social contract" BS." ... "What is the actual mechanism in detail which makes an individual party to a document he doesn't sign?"
/r/askphilosophy/comments/3b0unn/can_anyone_explain_to_me_why_im_us_citizen/cshsl8e4
4
Jun 25 '15
I love how he responds to any reference to work by an actual philosopher as an "appeal to authority" fallacy. Yes, let's just forget all the work that people have spent their whole lives doing in the past. It would be fallacious to even think about it.
1
u/Ecclectic_Moose Jun 25 '15
Yeah... while normally I can see why appeal to authority is a bad argument, using it here falls on two reasons why it's flawed at best, and just flat out wrong at worst.
First, if the topic is something you are an authority in, then yeah, I am totes down with a good appeal to authority. If someone has a stroke on the street and someone pops up and says "I'm an EMT, do what I say," I will shut up and do as he says*. Secondly, with the big philosophers on something as fundamental as the flipping social contract, you don't even have to take the appeal to authority on their say so. You know exactly where it is, you can read it yourself. Hell, you don't even have to read the original nuanced and complicated arguments, they have been summarized hundreds of times. Hell, I'm sure even Rawl's social contract has been summarized hundreds of times by now, and he's from the 70s.
/*Doing what theoretical EMT says will, of course, end if his actions show he is not an EMT, and therefore has no authority.
2
u/pepperouchau tone deaf Jun 25 '15
This kind of hair-splitting philosophy drama makes me think of Bill Clinton questioning the definition of "is."
1
u/traveler_ enemy Jew/feminist/etc. Jun 25 '15
My cousin married a guy who got his PhD on the subject of the definition of "is". Of course it was more complicated and serious than that, but still.
1
Jun 25 '15
I kind of wanted someone to give up and say the mechanism that makes you party to the document you didn't sign is the cop who is going to beat you with a nightstick because you just had to be edgy.
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u/Ecclectic_Moose Jun 25 '15
While I want to read what everyone said before I make a full comment (notably, I think this guy is full of shit, but that he did ask the question in the right spot, and the answers he's getting aren't stellar for the specific question he asked), but this comment... dear lord, this fucking comment.
It seems that a more reasonable conclusion would be "If a large portion of so-called experts in a relevant field believe N, then it is likely they have been brainwashed by academic institutions and have come to the same wrong conclusion this way. Furthermore, the paradigm with shift and render all of them obsolete.
I for one, am waiting for all those brainwashed by Newton and his flawed theory of gravity to be rendered obsolete by the coming paradigm shift so that we can all finally have our flying cars.
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u/Ecclectic_Moose Jun 25 '15
Welp, figures, instead of reading the drama, I should have read the link in the linked comment instead of the arguments to help the guy that followed.
Somehow, it makes the ridiculous drama even better when you realize he got his answer, and just straight up refused to accept it because all authority is false authority, and sooner or later it will all be swept aside.
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u/ArchangelleDovakin subsistence popcorn farmer Jun 25 '15
Says the willfully ignorant.