Andrew Denton, an Australian journalist, did a podcast about the question of euthanasia ( well worth the listen https://www.wheelercentre.com/broadcasts/podcasts/better-off-dead). During this process he attended a right to life conference. During the conference speakers spoke openly about the fact that the arguments they used in public against voluntary euthanasia were not at all their own reasons for opposing it.
In summary their actual reason for opposing VE is that in Christian theology you are not allowed to die until Jesus decides to take you / that you have suffered enough. Because this reason is unacceptable to most people, they said that they would try on various arguments and use the ones that seemed to resonate e.g. Hitler used euthanasia as an excuse to murder people, people will kill granny to get the inheritance, people will kill the disabled and other “useless eaters” , governments will encourage euthanasia to save aged care dollars.
In American politics Donald Trump started using the phrase “Drain the Swamp” frequently when he noticed that people responded to it. I leave it to the reader to judge whether it was his intention to drain the swamp, or whether he even thought it was possible.
In general IMHO people often advance bogus arguments because they know their real reasons will not be acceptable. In fact there is some evidence that confabulation is a core competency of the human brain. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
One interesting point is that arguments that people use internally with their own group are more likely to be truthful than arguments that people use in a public-facing context. If you suspect people might be advancing false arguments, it can be useful to do as Denton did and investigate their own internal communications as well as the outward-facing arguments. That said, I think these scenarios are comparatively rare.
This is the point at which “ingroup-outgroup” has to get more nuanced. Groups have sub-groups, and it’s absolutely NOT the case the the arguments used “internally” are all that “truthful”. There’s definitely a tendency to use DIFFERENT arguments with different groups (in the example, “God says” with one group and “no way to avoid bad incentives” with another), but the actual true reason may well be “it’s icky”. Or rather, a mix of all of the given reasons—most of the time people (ingroup or out-) don’t actually think they’re lying when they use different reasons for a demanded/recommended policy, just that they’re focusing on different valid elements of their argument.
I think this is sometimes true but often not.
An example:
Andrew Denton, an Australian journalist, did a podcast about the question of euthanasia ( well worth the listen https://www.wheelercentre.com/broadcasts/podcasts/better-off-dead). During this process he attended a right to life conference. During the conference speakers spoke openly about the fact that the arguments they used in public against voluntary euthanasia were not at all their own reasons for opposing it.
In summary their actual reason for opposing VE is that in Christian theology you are not allowed to die until Jesus decides to take you / that you have suffered enough. Because this reason is unacceptable to most people, they said that they would try on various arguments and use the ones that seemed to resonate e.g. Hitler used euthanasia as an excuse to murder people, people will kill granny to get the inheritance, people will kill the disabled and other “useless eaters” , governments will encourage euthanasia to save aged care dollars.
In American politics Donald Trump started using the phrase “Drain the Swamp” frequently when he noticed that people responded to it. I leave it to the reader to judge whether it was his intention to drain the swamp, or whether he even thought it was possible.
In general IMHO people often advance bogus arguments because they know their real reasons will not be acceptable. In fact there is some evidence that confabulation is a core competency of the human brain. See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split-brain
One interesting point is that arguments that people use internally with their own group are more likely to be truthful than arguments that people use in a public-facing context. If you suspect people might be advancing false arguments, it can be useful to do as Denton did and investigate their own internal communications as well as the outward-facing arguments. That said, I think these scenarios are comparatively rare.
This is the point at which “ingroup-outgroup” has to get more nuanced. Groups have sub-groups, and it’s absolutely NOT the case the the arguments used “internally” are all that “truthful”. There’s definitely a tendency to use DIFFERENT arguments with different groups (in the example, “God says” with one group and “no way to avoid bad incentives” with another), but the actual true reason may well be “it’s icky”. Or rather, a mix of all of the given reasons—most of the time people (ingroup or out-) don’t actually think they’re lying when they use different reasons for a demanded/recommended policy, just that they’re focusing on different valid elements of their argument.