-Maybe I’m applying the principle of charity way too hard here, but I think you totally misread the first woman’s letter. I think her point was more about the “take responsibility for their own actions” bit. In other words, binge drinkers are dodging responsibility for the aspects of binge drinking that spill over onto others (medical bills they don’t have to pay, disruptions at bars, drunk driving, etc.), and the law should force them to pay restitution and/or endure full prison sentences and license suspension (“take responsibility”), thus shoving in their collective face the consequences don’t they personally bear. Which is a plausible change.
Now, with that said, I do frequently see the kind of fallacy you were describing about terrorism. It’s most common when talking about rush hour congestion, where some genius suggests, “the solution is for people to carpool!” (Um, yeah, but the question is how to get those people to carpool.) Even more frustratingly, when you propose a method that would clear congestion—like very high tolls—they respond as if buses would be competing against the pre-toll level of traffic and therefore still more time-consuming for any individual to do.
-In discussing political change, I have seen libertarians suggest the strategy in the Communist scenario. When discussing the FairTax, the exchange went like this:
me: “Okay, even if the FairTax would take the same money for me, isn’t the greater simplicity and related labor savings a good thing?”
them: “I don’t want taxes to be simple! I want them to hurt! So people see why they suck and demand real change!”
Which is a consistent position, I guess, except that everyone who took that position on the FairTax also voiced quite a lot of opposition to anti-libertarian proposals that would conceivably also “make things worse so they can get better”. Go fig.
ETA: And of course, those same libertarians’ other arguments against the FairTax were reasons why it would be harmful in general, which was supposed to be a good attribute for a tax...
Maybe I’m applying the principle of charity way too hard here, but I think you totally misread the first woman’s letter.
In charity to Yvain I don’t think ‘totally misread’ is quite credible in this case. The writer threw her ‘shoulding’ at the binge drinkers in this letter. She sounds like she would also throw her ‘should’ at the government to make them enforce her will too but she doesn’t go there in this letter.
Asking that someone “take responsibility” for a wrong, can mean either a) an individual decision, OR b) that they be obligated to fix said wrong. “Bob should take responsibility for the mess he made when he sprayed graffiti on the wall.”
Given that ambiguity, the principle of charity obligates us to assume she meant they be forced to bear the consequences, and the following remark that “they should learn other ways to have fun” must be understood in this light: i.e. having to pay for what you’ve done would make you consider alternatives to binge drinking.
Well, all we have is Yvain’s paraphrase of what she said. And considering how much he piled on, and how he compared her to a much stupider suggestion, I think more caution was appropriate.
I don’t see what’s so creative about my “spin”; I frequently hear people use the term “take responsibility” as a euphemism for “take punishment”. E.g., “They should take responsibility for what they’ve done” = “they should receive the appropriate punishment”, not “they should privately admit to themselves that they could do better”.
A few points:
-Maybe I’m applying the principle of charity way too hard here, but I think you totally misread the first woman’s letter. I think her point was more about the “take responsibility for their own actions” bit. In other words, binge drinkers are dodging responsibility for the aspects of binge drinking that spill over onto others (medical bills they don’t have to pay, disruptions at bars, drunk driving, etc.), and the law should force them to pay restitution and/or endure full prison sentences and license suspension (“take responsibility”), thus shoving in their collective face the consequences don’t they personally bear. Which is a plausible change.
Now, with that said, I do frequently see the kind of fallacy you were describing about terrorism. It’s most common when talking about rush hour congestion, where some genius suggests, “the solution is for people to carpool!” (Um, yeah, but the question is how to get those people to carpool.) Even more frustratingly, when you propose a method that would clear congestion—like very high tolls—they respond as if buses would be competing against the pre-toll level of traffic and therefore still more time-consuming for any individual to do.
-In discussing political change, I have seen libertarians suggest the strategy in the Communist scenario. When discussing the FairTax, the exchange went like this:
me: “Okay, even if the FairTax would take the same money for me, isn’t the greater simplicity and related labor savings a good thing?”
them: “I don’t want taxes to be simple! I want them to hurt! So people see why they suck and demand real change!”
Which is a consistent position, I guess, except that everyone who took that position on the FairTax also voiced quite a lot of opposition to anti-libertarian proposals that would conceivably also “make things worse so they can get better”. Go fig.
ETA: And of course, those same libertarians’ other arguments against the FairTax were reasons why it would be harmful in general, which was supposed to be a good attribute for a tax...
In charity to Yvain I don’t think ‘totally misread’ is quite credible in this case. The writer threw her ‘shoulding’ at the binge drinkers in this letter. She sounds like she would also throw her ‘should’ at the government to make them enforce her will too but she doesn’t go there in this letter.
Asking that someone “take responsibility” for a wrong, can mean either a) an individual decision, OR b) that they be obligated to fix said wrong. “Bob should take responsibility for the mess he made when he sprayed graffiti on the wall.”
Given that ambiguity, the principle of charity obligates us to assume she meant they be forced to bear the consequences, and the following remark that “they should learn other ways to have fun” must be understood in this light: i.e. having to pay for what you’ve done would make you consider alternatives to binge drinking.
That word ‘responsibility’ can be used ambiguously. It was not in this case.
The assertion that Yvain has ‘totally misread’ something based on this creative spin makes a mockery of the concept of ‘charity’.
Well, all we have is Yvain’s paraphrase of what she said. And considering how much he piled on, and how he compared her to a much stupider suggestion, I think more caution was appropriate.
I don’t see what’s so creative about my “spin”; I frequently hear people use the term “take responsibility” as a euphemism for “take punishment”. E.g., “They should take responsibility for what they’ve done” = “they should receive the appropriate punishment”, not “they should privately admit to themselves that they could do better”.