Thread by @EveKeneinan

Speaking as a philosopher myself, I propose instead of “beyond the pale,” the standard of Socrates: some beliefs, he said, were “tied down by bands of iron and adamant”—that is, he could not imagine a case where they would be refuted—but he would listen.

@BenjaminABoyce

https://twitter.com/BenjaminABoyce/status/1135948816140496896

@BenjaminABoyce I can see value in all these things.

∙ "Adults having sex with children.”

Seeing the arguments could clarify errors in argument we otherwise accept, if it should turn out they seem to work. This is not uncommon in philosophy.

@BenjaminABoyce For example, there have been numerous arguments for the moral permissibility of abortion that end up working for infanticide as well.

This seems to be good ground to REJECT those arguments.

@BenjaminABoyce Because one can always run a modus tollens:

1 This argument justifies adult-child sex
2 Adult-child sex is unjustified
3 So this argument is bad
4 So this argument does not justify other thing Y, which it is often used to justify. We must stop using it.

@BenjaminABoyce ∙ "Preferential hiring of men over women.”

Again, I’d like to see the case. It seems prima facie obvious that men are better at some things that women, e.g. military service.

Defaulting to “absolute equality” is a new concept. Why is it “beyond the pale”?

@BenjaminABoyce Because a Congressman in 1965 slipped the words “or sex” into the Civil Rights Bill in an effort to sink it, which failed?

@BenjaminABoyce ∙ “Torture"

I’m on the anti-torture side, but I think almost all utilitarian philosophers will argue for it, at least in some cases. This one is not beyond any pale I can see—at least as fair argument.

There’s an obvious “for the greater good” argument to be made.

∙ “Slavery”

Again, serious philosophical arguments about the justice or injustice of slavery could CLARIFY the issue. Aristotle makes a fairly compelling case for slavery, that as far as I know, can be defeated robustly only on the basis of revealed Christian premies about man

To say it again, ENTERTAINING an argument for something that seems abhorrent can be a very useful exercise, because it forces us to CLEARLY and PRECISELY formulate the objections and counterarguments.

This is a very good thing, because if, say several centuries go by and we have FORGOTTEN why slavery is morally wrong, someone, eventually, will attempt to bring it back, and we won’t be able to give good reasons not to.

∙ “super gross stuff”

I don’t really think I need to answer this one, do I?

“I don’t have to read those works to know they are harmful,” may be true, but the conclusion, from our “very good philosopher” that “there is therefore no reason to or value in reading these works” does not follow.

One of the big philosophical fetishes of the 20th and 21st centuries is “naturalizing” consciousness.

This is absurd, but a lot of professional philosophers think it can be done.

I agree with Peter Geach:

There are indeed some arguments that we can know with almost a priori certainty that the only worthwhile question is “How well has the fallacy been concealed?”

But a well-concealed fallacy wrapped inside a powerful rhetorical argument can do a lot of damage.

That is reason enough to take any serious philosophical attempt to advance a position that seems absurd or reprehensible seriously.

Of course, if the argumentation is bad, then it’s a waste of time, but that is true of all topics, not just seemingly absurd or reprehensible ones.