This is a good point (and I think I occasionally make this mistake of giving far too unrealistic or rare counterexamples), but I do want to say that sometimes there is substantive disagreement about whether the counter-example is an extreme case or a relatively central one.
I think of people who are willing to accept very non-central counterexamples as relevant as being very conservative on the dimension of trusting their own taste, in that they are trying to avoid using their own judgment about what counts as central. (Mostly this seems good to me in cases of strong philosophical uncertainty — I would accept a bizarre counterexample from Nick Bostrom in one of his papers more so than I would about (say) whether a particular salary policy is good for my company.)
Overall I am reminded of a quote by Daniel Dennett that I am failing to find, about hypothetical examples being useful to think about in proportion to how far away they are from the real world.
“No,” says the philosopher. “It’s not a false dichotomy! For the sake of argument we’re suspending the laws of physics. Didn’t Galileo do the same when he banished friction from his thought experiment?” Yes, but a general rule of thumb emerges from the comparison: the utility of a thought experiment is inversely proportional to the size of its departures from reality.
This is a good point (and I think I occasionally make this mistake of giving far too unrealistic or rare counterexamples), but I do want to say that sometimes there is substantive disagreement about whether the counter-example is an extreme case or a relatively central one.
I think of people who are willing to accept very non-central counterexamples as relevant as being very conservative on the dimension of trusting their own taste, in that they are trying to avoid using their own judgment about what counts as central. (Mostly this seems good to me in cases of strong philosophical uncertainty — I would accept a bizarre counterexample from Nick Bostrom in one of his papers more so than I would about (say) whether a particular salary policy is good for my company.)
Overall I am reminded of a quote by Daniel Dennett that I am failing to find, about hypothetical examples being useful to think about in proportion to how far away they are from the real world.
IIRC, he says that in Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking.
You’re right. Thanks!