I like the first answer. The second one uses rather mystical “higher place”. It decouples logic from the real world, making it “true” without regard to observations. But logic is represented in human brains which are part of the world. The third answer seems too much instrumental. I don’t think punishment plays important role in establishing the status of logic. After all, “contraband” methods of persuasion are rarely punished.
Expanding on your first answer, it seems that logic is based on the most firm intuitions which almost all people have—maybe encoded in the low level hardware structure of human brains. People often have conflicting intuitions, but there seems to be some hierarchy which tells which intuitions are more basic and thus to be prefered. But this is still strongly related to persuasion, even if not in the open way of your third answer.
If this view of logic is correct, the generalisation to ethics is somewhat problematic. The ethical intuitions are more complicated and conflict in less obvious ways, and there doesn’t seem to be a universal set of prefered axioms. Any ethical theory thus may be perceived as arbitrary and controversial.
After all, “contraband” methods of persuasion are rarely punished
Contraband methods of persuasion are weakly punished, here and elsewhere, by means of public humiliation along with repudiation of the point trying to be made. Some people go so far as to give fallacious defenses of positions they hate (on anonymous forums) in order to weaken support for those positions. Interestingly, the contexts where we think logic is most important (like this site) are much less tolerant of fallacies than the contexts where we think logic is less important (politics or family dinner). So while I’d love to dismiss that cynical explanation, I can’t quite so easily.
People often have conflicting intuitions, but there seems to be some hierarchy which tells which intuitions are more basic and thus to be preferred.
Actually, there is indeed such a hierarchy in moral reasoning, and it has been better studied/elucidated (by Kohlberg, Rest, et al) than logical reasoning has.
I like the first answer. The second one uses rather mystical “higher place”. It decouples logic from the real world, making it “true” without regard to observations. But logic is represented in human brains which are part of the world. The third answer seems too much instrumental. I don’t think punishment plays important role in establishing the status of logic. After all, “contraband” methods of persuasion are rarely punished.
Expanding on your first answer, it seems that logic is based on the most firm intuitions which almost all people have—maybe encoded in the low level hardware structure of human brains. People often have conflicting intuitions, but there seems to be some hierarchy which tells which intuitions are more basic and thus to be prefered. But this is still strongly related to persuasion, even if not in the open way of your third answer.
If this view of logic is correct, the generalisation to ethics is somewhat problematic. The ethical intuitions are more complicated and conflict in less obvious ways, and there doesn’t seem to be a universal set of prefered axioms. Any ethical theory thus may be perceived as arbitrary and controversial.
You are certainly at least partly right. But:
Contraband methods of persuasion are weakly punished, here and elsewhere, by means of public humiliation along with repudiation of the point trying to be made. Some people go so far as to give fallacious defenses of positions they hate (on anonymous forums) in order to weaken support for those positions. Interestingly, the contexts where we think logic is most important (like this site) are much less tolerant of fallacies than the contexts where we think logic is less important (politics or family dinner). So while I’d love to dismiss that cynical explanation, I can’t quite so easily.
Actually, there is indeed such a hierarchy in moral reasoning, and it has been better studied/elucidated (by Kohlberg, Rest, et al) than logical reasoning has.
So do you think aliens would develop a non-isomorphic system of logic?
I think it is possible.