This post had an odd effect on me. I agreed with almost everything in it, as it matches my own logic and intuitions. Then I realized that I strongly disliked the logic in your anti-meat post, because it appeared so severely biased toward a predefined conclusion “eating meat is ethically bad”. So, given the common authorship, I must face the possibility that the quality of the two posts is not significantly different, and it’s my personal biases which make me think that it is. As a result, I am now slightly more inclined to consider the anti-meat arguments seriously and slightly less inclined to agree with the arguments from this post, even though the foggy future and the lack of feedback arguments make a lot of sense.
EDIT: Hmm, whatever shall I do with 1 Eliezer point and 1 Luke point...
what we call the genetic fallacy when we agree with its usage
I was about to ask whether you actually meant to say “disagree”, then I noticed that English has an ambiguity with predicative nominals over the object in relative clauses I hadn’t noticed before. :-/
I’m having trouble parsing the version with “agree” to anything simultaneously non-tautologous (i.e. when we use a name, we generally agree with our own usage) and reasonable; what reading did you notice?
To switch your brain back and forth, read it with emphasis on “fallacy” for the wrong reading, emphasis on “call” for the intended reading. (at least for me)
This post had an odd effect on me. I agreed with almost everything in it, as it matches my own logic and intuitions. Then I realized that I strongly disliked the logic in your anti-meat post, because it appeared so severely biased toward a predefined conclusion “eating meat is ethically bad”. So, given the common authorship, I must face the possibility that the quality of the two posts is not significantly different, and it’s my personal biases which make me think that it is. As a result, I am now slightly more inclined to consider the anti-meat arguments seriously and slightly less inclined to agree with the arguments from this post, even though the foggy future and the lack of feedback arguments make a lot of sense.
EDIT: Hmm, whatever shall I do with 1 Eliezer point and 1 Luke point...
+1 for correct, evenhanded use of the genetic heuristic (what we call the genetic fallacy when we agree with its usage).
I was about to ask whether you actually meant to say “disagree”, then I noticed that English has an ambiguity with predicative nominals over the object in relative clauses I hadn’t noticed before. :-/
I’m having trouble parsing the version with “agree” to anything simultaneously non-tautologous (i.e. when we use a name, we generally agree with our own usage) and reasonable; what reading did you notice?
My first reading: ‘We call the genetic heuristic “the genetic fallacy” when we agree with its usage.’
The intended reading: ‘We call the genetic fallacy “the genetic heuristic” when we agree with its usage.’
To switch your brain back and forth, read it with emphasis on “fallacy” for the wrong reading, emphasis on “call” for the intended reading. (at least for me)
Another example here.
+1 for sharing your cognitive process in detail.