I associate claims of ‘Devils Advocacy’ with a tendency to use whatever clever rhetorical gambits seem most effective. That is, I associate Advocacy, including ‘Devil’s advocacy’ with bullshit. This I hold in low esteem and more so because this kind of debating is highly respected in many contexts. If the impressiveness of arguments was more reliably correlated with quality of arguments this association would be weaker.
ETA: I can only assume that someone objects to the use of ‘bullshit’ as a descriptor as a distaste for the kind of advocacy I mention is not uncommon here. I tend to use the term to capture a rather precise philosophical concept that we don’t have a better word for. The term is ‘woo’ is the closest approximation.
It seems not entirely unrelated to your issue with advocacy in this context that advocate is also another word for lawyer...
I can vaguely recall a conversation here a while back in which someone was advocating a lawyer, judge and bailiff metaphor for rational discourse and also professing devil’s advocacy in a nearby context. I suspect I disagreed with him.
I associate claims of ‘Devils Advocacy’ with a tendency to use whatever clever rhetorical gambits seem most effective. That is, I associate Advocacy, including ‘Devil’s advocacy’ with bullshit. This I hold in low esteem and more so because this kind of debating is highly respected in many contexts. If the impressiveness of arguments was more reliably correlated with quality of arguments this association would be weaker.
ETA: I can only assume that someone objects to the use of ‘bullshit’ as a descriptor as a distaste for the kind of advocacy I mention is not uncommon here. I tend to use the term to capture a rather precise philosophical concept that we don’t have a better word for. The term is ‘woo’ is the closest approximation.
Personally, I thought you were referring to Frankfurt’s theory of bullshit.
Well spotted.
It seems not entirely unrelated to your issue with advocacy in this context that advocate is also another word for lawyer...
I can vaguely recall a conversation here a while back in which someone was advocating a lawyer, judge and bailiff metaphor for rational discourse and also professing devil’s advocacy in a nearby context. I suspect I disagreed with him.