A Metaphor for ... What?

Thursday, September 17, 2015

Some time ago, I learned about a descriptive term for a common phenomenon in intellectual discourse, invented by Nicholas Schackel of Cardiff University. Commenting on the phenomenon and providing examples of "Motte and Bailey Doctrines", Scott Alexander describes them as follows:

[A] motte-and-bailey doctrine is when you make a bold, controversial statement. Then when somebody challenges you, you claim you were just making an obvious, uncontroversial statement, so you are clearly right and they are silly for challenging you. Then when the argument is over you go back to making the bold, controversial statement.

Some classic examples:

1. The religious group that acts for all the world like God is a supernatural creator who builds universes, creates people out of other people's ribs, parts seas, and heals the sick when asked very nicely (bailey). Then when atheists come around and say maybe there's no God, the religious group objects "But God is just another name for the beauty and order in the Universe! You're not denying that there's beauty and order in the Universe, are you?" (motte). Then when the atheists go away they get back to making people out of other people's ribs and stuff...
As I read the above example and some of the others, I had an "Aha!" moment, because Schackel has definitely characterized a common form of responding to challenges. That said, I am not so sure about referring to these examples as doctrines so much as tactics, or even reactions. Nor am I sure there is a single phenomenon being observed here. I say this after reading the following from Alexander's analysis:
[I]n motte and bailey, you're unfairly replacing a weak position (there is a supernatural creator who can make people out of ribs) with a strong position (there is order and beauty in the universe) in order to make it more defensible.
I wouldn't call that a strong position because that's hardly a position at all. It seems that in some cases, as in this, the motte relies on the opponent filling in whatever (probably) warm fuzzy meaning he will for the "strong 'position'", while in others, there may well be a strong position, but any of the following might apply (See PS.):
  1. The strong position supports the extravagant-sounding claim and the individual sees how it does, but also sees a need to lay the groundwork for arguing in favor of the claim. But his challenger storms off in a huff before he can get a word in edgewise.
  2. The strong position supports the extravagant-sounding claim and the individual sees how it does, but he does a poor job of articulating that support, or otherwise helping others see the value of that point,
  3. The extravagant-sounding claim again follows, but the individual does not really understand how. He further may or may not really grasp the strong position.
  4. The strong position does not actually support the extravagant or extravagant-sounding claim. The individual may or may not realize this.
On considering such cases, I am even more unsure about calling something a "motte and bailey doctrine" or of whether the label is even a useful description, covering as it does (or I think it does) an entire range of common responses to intellectual challenges, from proper to mistaken to evasive.

-- CAV

P.S.: This assumes, based on a comment I ran across, that this can sometimes be observed when an extravagant-sounding claim follows from a true premise. Alexander's use of "unfairly" seems to rule this out, but Schackel cautions against calling this a fallacy. (Not that it not being a fallacy necessarily makes the description "motte and bailey" apply to my first category.)

8 comments:

Snedcat said...

Yo, Gus, you quote, "[A] motte-and-bailey doctrine is when you make a bold, controversial statement. Then when somebody challenges you, you claim you were just making an obvious, uncontroversial statement, so you are clearly right and they are silly for challenging you."

A good example is the ever-so-common dodge of saying feminism is simply and only the belief in the equality of the sexes. Mind you, this is often false (radical feminists who say men are inherently and incorrigibly violent and wicked are still often classified as feminists and required reading in feminist studies) and it is also inexact and slathers over essential differences between different varieties of feminism (equality in what sense?), showing that the question of the nature of the difference between the sexes is logically dependent on the basic philosophical issue of the nature of humanity.

However, it also does not actually hold in practice--feminism is usually trotted out as equality of the sexes pure and simple, but you just have to look at the frequent charges that people who don't hold other beliefs, usually Marxist and always anti-individualist, aren't "real feminists" to see that equality of the sexes tout court is the motte and other philosophical views are the bailey.

Thus, "motte and bailey" is one useful way of identifying some of the philosophical mess that is contemporary academic feminism--it clarifies some of the package-dealing rife in feminist doctrines.

Gus Van Horn said...

Snedcat,

Thanks for showing me how this idea can be useful. Perhaps, using it as mental shorthand can aid formulating a more complete response to some of the shenanigans one observes. I'd never just call something a "motte-and-bailey doctrine" and leave it at that. I can see that term being twisted to all sorts of dishonest, argument-preemting uses.

Gus

J Zeise said...

Motte: There is an overwhelming scientific consensus about the direct effect of warming due to CO2.

Bailey: This known warming will cause catastrophe, famine, climate refugees and mass extinction. We must plunge ourselves into energy poverty and support a smorgasbord of leftist political policies to avert armageddon.

Gus Van Horn said...

Nice example of what Snedcat pointed out.

Steve D said...

"motte and bailey, you're unfairly replacing a weak position...with a strong position"

Motte and Bailey unfairly replaces a weak position with a strong position in order to defend it.


Sounds to me like the 'opposite' of a straw man argument which replaces a strong position with a weak one in order to attack it. So the essence of both arguments is the same and they are based on the same premise/mistake.

Gus Van Horn said...

Steve,

For defense, yes, and that's regardless of whether the "strong" argument really is strong, which is what I had issue with from the example I read for the original post.

For cases in which the strong position really is a strong one, your idea that this is a kind of inverse straw man is interesting.

Gus

Steve D said...

As far as I can tell that is the intent of Motte and Bailey; to replace a weak argument with an argument that the user believes his opponent will accept. So the user must either believe it is stronger or more cynically believe it isn’t but will fool his opponent anyway. Interestingly, it’s not as common as a straw man argument, perhaps because it’s easy to come up with a weaker argument to make your opponent look bad; however in the opposite case; constructing a ‘stronger’ argument is harder, as your analysis of Alexander’s example shows.

Incidentally, I don’t think the climate example is the same thing, since it adds an emotional appeal to a logical argument, rather than putting forth a logical inversion. Motte and Bailey as defined by Alexander is a logical fallacy. If we decide M and B refers to something broader, then that fallacy still exists and needs a name.

Gus Van Horn said...

"As far as I can tell that is the intent of Motte and Bailey; to replace a weak argument with an argument that the user believes his opponent will accept."

I have no trouble confining my use of that term -- if I ever adopt it -- to that meaning. Given the switch in arguments and the fact that lots of things I see as included in the phenomenon, I think the bailey is frequently (even usually) a non-sequitur of the motte. As such, I have no trouble including poorly-constructed arguments as mottes since the people inclined to do this are disinterested or ill-practiced in argument.