The motte-and-bailey fallacy
In a motte-and-bailey castle, the motte is an earth mound with a keep built on top, and the bailey is a courtyard out front closer to ground level, surrounded by a palisade. The motte is easier to defend, the bailey more exposed.
The motte-and-bailey fallacy occurs when someone advances a controversial claimone that's difficult to defendand when challenged retreats to an uncontroversial claim. The bold claim is the bailey, the safe claim the motte.
A: Trans women are not women. [bailey]
B: That's a transparently bigoted comment, functioning as it does to directly negate the gender identities of trans people and thereby deny their claims to equal treatment.
A: Look, all I'm saying is that biological sex cannot be changed and that women's rights need to be protected. And you call me a bigot! [motte]
[This example is inspired by YouTuber ContraPoints, who uses the idea to criticize J.K. Rowling and her supporters in this video, which is worth watching if you're interested in that particular issue.]
The idea was coined by Nicholas Shackel in The Vacuity of Postmodernist Methodology (PDF).
[quote=Nicholas Shackel][...] the desirable but only lightly defensible territory of the Motte and Bailey castle, that is to say, the Bailey, represents a philosophical doctrine or position with similar properties: desirable to its proponent but only lightly defensible. The Motte is the defensible but undesired position to which one retreats when hard pressed.[/quote]
It has been challenged by Randy Harris in his Commentary on Shackel (PDF).
[quote=Randy Harris]He accuses postmodernists of withdrawing to their Mottes rather than hoisting their battle axes to fight it out on the Bailey, but he is just as guilty of avoiding a true fight, systematically retreating to his siege engine, or whatever the offensive corollary of the defensive Motte is.[/quote]
In other words, B might just as often be guilty of a failure to observe the principle of charity in taking A to be in the bailey, i.e., distorting A's position such that they can easily defeat them. This looks like a description of strawmanning. Harris seems to be saying that the accusation of motte-and-bailey is merely a tendentious ploy.
What do you think? Is it helpful and does it do anything that other informal fallacy concepts don't already do?
Comments (91)
Usually if my point cant be fully defended but some aspects can then I bail out, or go Bailey and concede partially.
I would never concede for lack of the other partys inability to understand.
If they strawman, I point it out but dont engage, maybe theyre just baiting you lol
If upon making a claim that you know you wont fully defend then give such concessions at the start of the argument.
I think it is in essence the strawman fallacy.
Nah, a strawman is overly simplifying an opponents argument, and/or making it ridiculous in order to counter-argue it more easily.
This is more of a defensive fallacy, first stating an arbitrary wild concept as an argument, and when the lack of scrutiny is pointed out, retreating back to something that is defined and backed up but has little to do with the first wild statement or in support of it.
I haven't heard of this fallacy before and I think it is helpful.
I think it's vaguely like the moving the goalposts fallacy.
I agree, I like it. I do find it occasionally confusing though, when for some reason Im associating the strong claim with the strong position in the castle.
Quoting Art48
Maybe they overlap. When you move the goalposts you move them to where its more difficult for your opponent to score, which is like retreating to the defendable position.
It seems to be the same principle as a strawman to me, only used defensively, as you state.
I dont think rephrasing an argument into terms that are less crippling for some brains is unwarranted.
I think the difference is that in a strawman the act is to simplify and ridicule, but in this case the act is to retreat to something solid and simple. The difference being a strawman is an attack with simplicity in order to sound more advanced in response, while the other is a retreat to a grounded simplicity in order to sound like there's a good foundation.
I get your point, but I think the application of this fallacy has its own use rather than being the same as a strawman.
Isn't it what we call "moving the goal posts"? I don't think the trans issue mentioned is actually a case of it, though.
Oh, someone already pointed that out. :up:
I agree. Arguments ought to have this hierarchical logic where you "retreat" towards first principles to defend the secondary views you may derive from them. The global axioms grounds the particular local applications of them.
Where the motte-and-bailey image fails is that in a serious argument, both sides would be going back to basics this way.
In the trans women example, the axiomatic basis on one side would seem to be that biological truth trumps cultural fiction. On the other, it would be some version of the reverse.
The stepping back by one side ought to be an invitation to the other to take up the challenge of defending the reverse in good old dialectic fashion.
Interesting point, the Motte and Bailey fallacy could be seen as a kind of reversal insofar as it seems to consist in defending rather than attacking a strawman.
I've seen the accusation that a Motte and Bailey fallacy is being committed used on these forums to strawman the opponent's argument, which kind of complicates things; it's never cut and dried, so we might say claiming a Motte and Bailey fallacy is sometimes itself a Cut and Dried Fallacy or a Strawman Fallacy or a Shifting the Goalposts Fallacy
Then you have the ultimate: the Fallacy Fallacy. Claiming the opponent is committing a fallacy often seems to consist in avoiding the heavy lifting involved in actually mounting a cogent argument or counterargument.
I think fallacies are most useful in self-reflection. It's good to point them out in that spirit -- rather than in an attempt to prove something.
Another fallacy similar to the motte-and-bailey I've seen is "unreasonable request for proof".
There are well-established facts let's say (the Earth evolves around the Sun, etc.). Let's say the claim is that "most people" cannot be used as a defense because it is an appeal to popularity fallacy. For example, "most people" throughout history have had different notions as to whether slavery is an acceptable practice (almost all empires, tribes, early modern states, thought this acceptable etc). Thus, appealing to notions of what's popular would be wrong as a basis for morality.
However, the other person claims that this is not the case, and that a majority of people indeed did think this practice was wrong. Now, the levels of proof are raised to a much harder level. The interlocutor has to defend the premise that people viewed slavery differently throughout history by searching many examples of historical texts for primary and secondary sources just to show the established fact that people had different notions of the practice of slavery over time. The interlocutor has stalled the debate with unreasonable proof.
Anyway, I see the motte-bailey used a lot. One look at the Wall Street Journal editorial page is a goldmine of it. Take climate change, which usually goes something like this:
Bailey: We can't do a, b, c because of x, y, z. No carbon tax because that's the government picking winners and losers. No banning of oil drilling because people are gonna need oil for years to come. EVs are "losers." It's gonna be way too expensive. Climate is always changing. Etc.
Interlocutor: It'll require drastic changes to keep CO2 levels (and warming) under dangerous levels. You're arguing we can't do anything, essentially. Do you even believe this is an emergency?
Motte: The climate is changing. Something should be done. We're not climate change deniers!
A good example is Bjorn Lomborg - a monument to this fallacy.
I know it's just an example, and I don't want to go off about transgenderism, but just so I'm clear: The more correct statement would be that "trans women are not female," yes? Since "woman" (and "girl") can often relate to gender identity.
It's true that people making statements like (A) are probably bigoted. But in the cases where a person is meaning to express the corrected statement, it may just be an honest mistake. I would put myself in this camp, although I see no reason to make either statement.
:up: I agree.
A lot of times the target is moved. I am not sure if that is Motte-and-Bailey but I think this is...
"There are too many guns to try to get rid of any or put restrictions now. it's too late."
"But each time there are specific cases where purchasing X firearms was due to the circumstance that could have restricted that person's access."
"Well, it's a right, so it doesn't matter anyway. What can you do?"
The target went from a consequentialist argument "It's useless to try because it will not be effective" to a deontological one about rights, "It's simply built into the Constitution so what can you do?".
It could be simply a red herring fallacy. Intentionally diverting the argument to a different one.
mtf literally stands for male to female. So no, its just arguing in a circle. You'd have to have specific empirical claims which begins to discriminate against others. eg: intersex, those without gametes ect.
A good example. :up:
The gun debate is egregiously bad.
A's statement is more than an appeal to emotion to B. Notice A's shift from a cultural/societal statement to a factual (biology) claim. You can't argue against facts. See below:
Quoting apokrisis
Quoting NOS4A2
I agree.
I dont entirely go along with this. Examples of more correct statements in this kind of context would be trans women were not born female and perhaps trans women are not biologically female. (I imagine that a small minority of trans people would dispute the latter two, but I won't get into that).
Quoting Mikie
The point of the example is that A retreated from a claim when challenged, probably knowing full well that it was controversial. In these debates it is usually effectively bigoted, even if you can interpret it charitably to be referring only to biological sex. Having said that, youre no doubt right that people still confuse and conflate sex and gender. But if one wants to distinguish between trans women and non-trans-women, we already have a term thats better than men, which is trans women.
We can see Bs response as a bad one. If A meant it more innocently, just to mean biological sex, without having thought about the issue carefully, then Bs response was unfair and counterproductive. And even if A was aware of the all the issues, B could have given a more direct and measured response, like I think you ought to more carefully distinguish between gender and biological sex etc. But in the example, Bs response just functions as a challenge that causes a retreat.
You could argue then that the example isnt a good one, because its complex, and its meant to show the fallacy of A while B is not totally blameless either. But its complexity is why I like it.
Quoting Jamal
Fair enough. I almost always consider female to refer to sex, and hence biology but I suppose thats not always the case for others.
Quoting Jamal
Also fair, but this implies to me that trans women is distinguishing from something else What would that something else be, though? If trans women are women, as is often said, then arent we simply in a confused state?
Trans women are women, but not biological females. So then woman doesnt necessarily mean an adult (biological) female, as is often meant and that leaves many, including myself, rather annoyed at the semantics.
I think woman when referring to a trans woman is fine. No need to be technical. But if people are trying to convince others that theres no difference whatever between a trans woman and a biologically female adult, I think thats at least a blunder politically for the trans movement (which I otherwise wholeheartedly support).
Anyway any more discussion on this Ill move to the transgender thread. My posts, I mean.
It's made clearer in the OP:
Quoting Jamal
So the motte-and-bailey fallacy and the straw man fallacy seem to be two sides of the same coin. One is the reverse of the other. I think @Janus said this too.
M&B: A, putting forward claims, moves from a bold to a safe claim
SM: B, in interpreting A's claim, moves it from a safe claim to a bold claim
That is, in a straw man fallacy B interprets A to be saying something much easier to defeat.
It's a good example.
What now?
You haven't posted anything arguing that it's a poor example.
Yes. However, it's not the motte-and-bailey image but rather the participants themselves who sometimes fail. Motte-and-baily identifies one way in which people fail in debate, and isn't that exactly what the identification of informal fallacies is meant to do?
But A's second statement is not just a different way of putting the first statement. If A is fully aware of the issues, they know that the word "woman" is about gender, or about both sex and gender, or is at least ambiguous and controversial; whereas the second statement is explicitly about biological sex and thus represents a retreat. The first statement is a categorical proposition that relies on an equivocation and therefore cannot stand up to scrutiny.
But as @Mikie pointed out, (A) might not in fact be aware of all that. The reason I chose the example is precisely because under a certain light it's not crystal clear who is in the wrong and why.
Quoting Jamal
So when someone's vacillating, one of the determinants of their position will be the broader context their position comes from. Someone really could believe "trans women aren't women" if they understood "woman" to be identified entirely with "natal sex" - which I'm pretty sure they're factually wrong about, and I don't believe there's necessarily any bigotry associated with that position in isolation.
Nevertheless, the kind of person who makes that statement in the kind of context that it tends to arise is justifiably expected to be making a prejudiced comment and defending it disingenuously. If the person really really wanted to engage in the "what is gender identity" discussion in good faith, that's a bit different from the motte and bailey thing above. It might just highlight a gap in their understanding - or at least a lack of awareness of where the ideas can lead (and I think should lead).
Exactly. Richard O'Brian, who is non-binary, says trans women aren't real women. I know what he means. He's not suggesting their rights should be violated. He's just saying that we can't really dispense with the "trans" part. I think we all know that.
Yep.
Quoting fdrake
Totally. You might say it was irresponsible of me to so casually take it out of context and use it as an example, since without knowing about the contextthe common situations that ContraPoints describes at lengthone could look at the example and think that (A) is being reasonable or at least innocent of bigotry, which would make B look unreasonable.
In which case, your post functions as a necessary corrective. :up:
I don't think it was bad of you. This is a Philosophy Forum and you were clearly acting in good faith. I think it highlighted the context sensitivity. A discussion about how the motte and bailey is context dependent would be interesting in itself. I don't have any ideas about necessary and sufficient conditions for the context to be apt for ascription.
On the third hand, those people can be countered here in a way that exposes their biases in a way that wouldn't come to light otherwise, at the same time as exploring context dependence.
They probably knew that the word woman is defined as an adult female person, which is about biological sex. The meaning is probably shifting these days due to misuse, so a little leeway ought to be expected, but B was insinuating that A was doing something wrong, namely bigotry. So I think As natural response is to be defensive because such accusations could mean ostracism and violence, and I dont think hes retreating as if B had the better argument.
Even if thats the case it doesnt matter. Its a retreat to a more defensible position.
It seems more of a push than a retreat, is all Im saying, like he was being bullied into being politically correct rather than correct.
(A) was pushed, yes, pushed into retreat.
Youve simply reasserted the claim that his argument was a retreat, so I tried to phrase it another way that might be understandable. If that itself is a retreat then so be it. Its retreats all the way down while the interlocutor stands firm.
What needs to be appreciated is that the concept of debate itself presupposes in principle accessible facts of the matter that can be separated from values, motives, affects and other sources of subjective distortion. This assumption leads to the application of the label of fallacy to a wide range of statements. This leads further to the question of to what extent the notion fallacy is an appropriate or useful way to describe the construction of arguments in a debate. For instance, there are a wide variety of rhetorical strategies that manifest responses to the realization that oneself and ones opponent are talking past one another, that is, are conceiving the terms of the debate according to incommensurable schemes. Seen in this light, Motte-bailey can be a useful and necessary means for finding a bridge, a code of translation , between the two worlds.
Its no coincidence that the OP mentions postmodern arguments as an inspiration for the motte-bailey fallacy , while posters on this thread mention right -wing climate change deniers. The polarizing nature of the ideas these positions represent lead many to blame the form of argument ( fallacious reasoning) and miss the real culprit , incommensurable worldviews.
I was thinking of Thomas Kuhns discussion of incommensurable scientific paradigms in his postscript to the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. There he clarified that this incommensurability doesnt amount to a total breakdown in mutual understanding, because paradigms are islands of divergence surrounded by a sea of shared cultural understandings. We can draw from such shared notions (the bailey?) to bridge the disparity in our scientific conceptions ( the motte?).
In his example, Shackel rebukes Foucault for arbitrary redefinition of elementary but inherently equivocal terms such as truth and power in order to create the illusion of giving a profound but subtle analysis of a taken for a granted concept. Yet, what does render the motte's discourse a kind of preponderance over the bailey's one? There is not a simple confusion or a deliberate misinterpretation of 'elementary but inherently equivocal terms' such as gender identities and bigotry. What is at stake are political claims of what to do with others in a complex society. The 'motte-and-bailey' discussions function to embed identity politics into consensus-building processes. So, Foucaults redefinition of relations between truth and power is not the example of the erroneous rhetoric but the effective explanatory framework.
X asserts B and/or argues for B.
Y refutes either B or X's argument for B.
As if to pretend that neither B nor X's argument for B were refuted, X instead either asserts a more defensible M and/or argues for M.
X is dishonest not to concede that B and/or X's argument for B were refuted.
Strawman
Y asserts M and and/or argues for M.
As if to to refute either M or Y's argument for M, X instead refutes a B that is less defensible than M.
X is dishonest to pretend that either M or Y's argument for M were refuted.
Charity
X asserts a not very defensible B and/or argues for B.
Y does X the favor of addressing a more defensible M instead.
Siege
X asserts a not very defensible B and/or argues for B.
Y refutes B and/or X's argument for B, and Y does not do X the favor of instead addressing a more defensible M.
Steelman Variation
Y asserts B and/or argues for B.
X disagrees with B and/or Y's argument for B, but X provides an even better argument for B and then refutes even that argument.
/
If X resorts to M&B, I think Y's best reply is "I'll address M instead, as long as you are clear that B was refuted and that we're moved to talking about M instead, which is different from B." That is to say, "I'll extend Charity but you need to not resort to M&B."
/
In high-minded academic debates one expects that the participants don't commit M&B or Strawman. And that truly high-minded participants extend Charity, even Steelman Variation and don't commit Siege. To me, that is a mark of intellect and enlightenment
On the other hand, in a forum such as this, one can count on M&B and Strawman being posted ubiquitously. Sometimes Siege too. But Charity or Steelman Variation only rarely. In my opinion, cranks rarely deserve Charity or Steelman Variation.
Quoting TonesInDeepFreeze
Theres a tension here, dont you think?
But maybe its like the problem of democracy: do we extend democratic rights to radical anti-democrats, e.g., fascists? Surely not, and this itself necessitates anti-democratic elements, like written constitutions. Similarly, precisely because we value the principle of charity we shouldnt extend charity to irrational interlocutors, those who hold bigoted positions or, perhaps, those whose rhetorical tactics undermine the rationality of discussion, e.g., with motte-and-bailey, strawmanning, etc.
Im interested in both the abstract and the concrete, and how they relate. So the answer is something like: the latter, and both, because we can only properly understand M&B in the light of concrete examples, whose content, I contend, cannot simply be put to one side. This itself is controversial, I suppose, but its at least interesting I hope.
Refraining from sophistry is a basic requirement. Charity and Steelman Variation are "going the extra mile".
Quoting Jamal
I don't know why you say that. On the contrary, usually it is recognized that democratic rights extend even to people who advocate against democratic rights.
Quoting Jamal
I'm not familiar with the notion that constitutions are anti-democratic. On the contrary, usually it is recognized that democracies need to have constitutions.
Quoting Jamal
By Charity in this context I only mean the form of discourse. While Charity may be charitable in the general sense of 'charity', I don't think that's its main attraction, which is that Charity contributes to better enquiry as it may go more directly to finding of truth, as it is may be more informative to hear a refutation of a defensible claim than a refutation of a preposterous claim.
.
Your entire reply is preposterous, performatively contradicting your stated ideal debating behaviour of high-minded participants.
In the concrete.
Typical lawsuit I deal with:
A sues B for B having crashed his car into hers. In her suit, A argues the herniated spinal disk found on her MRI was caused by the collision. The radiologist however presents testimony the herniation pre-existed the collision. A then argues the herniation might have preexisted the collision, but the pain is new, so the collision caused the herniation to be symptomatic. Prior medical records are then shown to reveal similar symptoms before the collision. A then argues there still are some decipherable distinctions between the pre and post collision symptoms.
The argument though always remains: "This collision damaged me terribly." Regardless of whether the stronger claims (the collision caused objective, measurable injury) to the weaker claims (the collision caused subjective vague change) prevail, she still fights from the motte position of having extreme compensable injury.
In a courtroom, this is easy enough to combat. You point out to Group C, the neutral jury, that A doesn't seek the truth (i.e. justice), but just seeks a preferred outcome regardless of the facts and is therefore not to be trusted.
In real life, we have very few Cs, but just have those cheering in either camp A or B. For that reason, when you hear disingenuous arguments where a Group A refuses to admit their stronger claim has failed and that their position is admittedly objectively weaker, there isn't the proper repercussion where a controlling Group C meaningfully condemns them. Instead, Group A just grows stronger, each member proud of their group's shameless advocacy of a desired outcome.
My observation here then is that this is less a fallacy than a strategy in getting a desired outcome.
First, I don't claim always to live up to the being a most high-minded discussant.
Second, I don't know what you think is low-minded about my saying:
Quoting TonesInDeepFreeze
And I don't know why you think my entire reply is preposterous.
Nice example. My observation is that in a debate, if the strong claimthe claim that (A) wants to prevailfails, then retreating to a more defensible position is a tactic still to make the strong claim prevail. I think its fair to call this a fallacy.
In a court of law, everything is sophistry anyway, therefore there are no fallacies.
That's an interesting example. And excellent for illustrating M&B.
This is getting away from the purpose of your example, but I want to show another angle on it too:
Suppose, after reducing and reducing, she does finally support a reduced argument M that is still sufficient for her case. Then, as a juror, I might also reason this way:
Yes, she resorts to M&B, so her trustworthiness is in doubt. However, no matter her trustworthiness, she did finally support M, and that, more than her trustworthiness, is what finally counts. (Also, it's pretty much a given that the defense team also is not so much interested in the truth unless the truth happens to support their defense, so that, while the defense team presumably wouldn't lie, it probably wouldn't refrain from specious arguments if they helped and it could get away with them.)
Quoting Hanover
That is well said. It is a vitally important point. In all kinds of "discourse" [scare quotes because it is more like noise and not coherent discourse], especially in politics and public affairs, people get away with massive amounts of dishonest argumentation all the time. It is heartbreaking.
Quoting Hanover
They're separate. There's the fallacy and there is the motivation for deploying the fallacy.
Quoting TonesInDeepFreeze
What is it like to employ a motte and bailey fallacy. I think it feels like this.
1 ) I believe X.
2 ) Another person tries to show X implies Y.
3 ) I believe Y is bad.
4 ) I now defend not(X implies Y)
5 ) The other person tells me that I am defending Y by defending not(X implies Y).
6 ) I believe Y is bad.
7 ) I now defend not( not(X implies Y) implies Y)
8 ) The other person now tells me that defending not( not(X implies Y) implies Y) implies Y.
9 ) I believe Y is bad.
10 ) I defend not ( (not( not(X implies Y) implies Y) implies Y) implies Y)
And so on.
I don't think anyone ever gets to stage 7. So in its real form it goes like:
1 ) I believe X.
2 ) Another person tries to show X implies Y.
3 ) I believe Y is bad.
4 ) I now defend not(X implies Y)
5 ) The other person tells me that I am defending Y by defending not(X implies Y).
6 ) I still believe Y is bad.
7 ) I now defend not( not(X implies Y) implies Y)
8 ) The other person now tells me I believe Y.
I don't believe any of this depends upon any of the contained statements being true. As in X, Y, X implies Y, and the perverse negations like not(X implies Y). I also don't trust that it's rightly construed as just a fallacy of inference. Why? It seems also to be about assigning inconsistent meanings to positions. Rather than just about defending a precisely articulated position incorrectly. In that regard I think cognitive dissonance plays a key role in that dynamic. And as a corollary, trying to point the fallacy out will appear as castigation.
I don't think I've ever seen that.
Anyway, that starts as a reductio ad absurdum (or modus tollens, whatever) argument against a bailey X, which is common, but not the only form of argument against X.
Quoting fdrake
I don't think t it is a fallacy of inference, in a strict sense. It's a form of dishonest argumentation.
Quoting fdrake
What can one do then? Not flagging it is letting the other party get away with dishonest argumentation. I see that a lot: Person A commits M&B and person B just keeps rebutting each successive M, but it's never made explicit that the person A is trying to pull a fast one on us. I wish journalists and such were more explicit:
Jake Blitzer Anderson: Senator Sneakyspeak, your bill mandates that everyone with chronic indigestion will be forced, without due process, to move to the Aleutian Islands, but that's unconstitutional.
Senator Sneakyspeak: No, I'm just saying that those people can get better medical care there.
Jake Blitzer Anderson: But medical care in the Aleutian Islands is no better than in the rest of the country.
Senator Sneakyspeak: No, I mean they have nutritionists there to help with chronic indigestion.
Jake Blitzer Anderson: Okay, that's all the time we have. Tomorrow we'll interview Governor Doublecross about his election promise to turn litter on city sidewalks into freshly minted doubloons.
That's not the way it should go. Jake Blitzer Anderson should say, "No, Senator, don't switch what we're talking about. Your bill would move everyone with chronic indigestion to the Aleutian Islands. You have to defend THAT, not some weaker idea."
Depends on the context? Sometimes someone really won't know what they're doing. And sometimes it'll be a case of misunderstanding your interlocutor.
So a mereological nihilist and a compositionalist walk into a bar. The bartender says: "Do you want a drink?"
The nihilist knows it wasn't said to both of them.
The compositionalist knows it wasn't said to either.
The bartender goes to another customer.
The compositionalist says: "They must have missed us"
The nihilist says: "They couldn't have!"
Something like that, eh?
Of course. I'm not claiming to talk about every possible context. This is at the level of some generality that we would understand not to be completely universal.
In a court of law, there is a clear winner and loser, unlike in a debate or in an academic context. A fallacy in this courtroom pragmatic context is measured therefore on the result of the jury, not on an academic measure of whose arguments were most sound.
Where I disagree though is in the suggestion that there is no correlation between the two (i.e. (1) logic and reason and (2) juror decisions), as if jurors don't recognize the sounder of the arguments and rule accordingly.
As in my example, my counter to A's arguments was to show empirical counter evidence and then to call them on their logical error of shifting their arguments to meet the contradictory evidence.
This isn't to suggest that logic and reason alway prevail in the jury room, but it is to question the notion that logic and reason aren't part of the process. I do think an important part of B's argument was to point out the fallacy to the jury you've identified in this thread. Had B failed to do that, it would have been poor advocacy on B's behalf.
Do you find that jurors can usually be counted on to reason logically? I don't know about the courtroom, but I find that in everyday life, people are very often extremely irrational when discussing matters of public controversy. I'm curious what you find in the courtroom.
Quoting Hanover
No doubt about that. But the flip side of that: If a lawyer sees that he or she could get an advantage by using sophistry (not falsehoods, but rather fallacious reasoning that would trick the jurors), should the lawyer do it on behalf of the client? If the lawyer doesn't and even though it is the best chance for the lawyer's client, then isn't the lawyer failing to provide the most effective advocacy? I've always been curious how lawyers and the "art of the law" view this.
The old cliche is "The facts and the law". But it should be "The facts, the logic and the law".
Looking at the example again, I dont think motte-and-bailey models it well. With M&B, (A)s unsafe claim is the one she wants to prevail but is forced to retreat from. In your example, this is The collision damaged me terribly, which she doesnt retreat from. The tactical retreats occur when trying to make a case for this proposition, and the successive retreats do not function to allow the previously defeated evidential claims to prevail; they function as successively weaker evidence for the proposition that The collision damaged me terribly, deployed in transparent sophistry.
So yes, I guess Im agreeing that its not fallacious.
However, fallacy and strategy are not mutually exclusive. Its just that in this case, we see the latter and not the former. Maybe.
Quoting fdrake
Pretty sure Ive been there a few times.
Quoting fdrake
Certainly. In terms of form, content, and context, M&B is maybe fallacious in its context, because of the way the argument is assigning inconsistent meanings to positions: (A) might argue validly for the motte position, but since thats not the position they take themselves to be arguing for (or, if they are being devious, the one they want to prevail), theres a mismatch between argument and context.
Or from the dialogical perspective, its a violation of dialogue rules.
Now she has a herniated spinal disk.
to
Now she has symptoms.
to
Now the symptoms are different.
/
Anyway, with informal fallacies, I like to take them in greatest generality while still within an essential characteristic. I don't think it's about checking for adherence to particular varying definitions of them, but rather to their basic structure. Some people might says that strawman is claiming an opponent said something he didn't say, while other people might say that strawman also extends to attacking only incidental elements of an argument that are weak. Both the strict and the less strict definitions share the essential feature of knocking down an easy target while not confronting the main force of the opponent's argument.
M&B, "moving goal posts", and "no true Scotsman" may have distinctions among them, but they're all of a shared genus.
Or is it the motte itself that is your real target, and you are attacking that, by way of first taking the bailey? In that case the dissimulation is on your own side.
The Mottians and Bailiians are on the same team, so that's why they don't attack one another, but I suspect a surprise attack from the motte would devastate the bailey.
By the same token, if the motte were defeated, but the bailey still stood, I do agree with you, it's survival would only be momentary. Whatever it was that destroyed the motte would crush the bailey.
Quoting unenlightened
The fallacy is in suggesting you've destroyed the motte by destroying the bailey.
And it's also a confirmation bias issue, assuming it's being submitted in good faith. In the legal context, it has the used car salesman feel, where, no matter the objection, they've got a response because their goal is talk your money out of your pocket.
But assuming good faith, where I sincerely believe what I'm arguing, if I am conclusion based, meaning I insist upon reaching the same conclusion regardless of the evidence, that points to a confirmation bias.
And that is where the MB issue is most frustrating, especially when charlatans encounter the gullible because some are sincere while others disingenuous.
"The election was stolen" was "proven" by successively weaker and weaker claims (from the voting machines being hacked, to the ballot boxes being stuffed, to just saying that maybe someone accessed a drop box). Tucker Carlson, for example, said it but didn't believe it, so he was disingenuous, but many sincerely did believe it, meaning theysuffered from from extreme confirmation bias.
An example was on the coronavirus thread where the bailey was "people don't need to take the vaccine" and the motte was "drug companies are making a profit off of it."
If you're strongly inclined to connect those dots, you'll be persuaded. Otherwise it makes no sense.
A lot of the time some blatantly wrong and monstrous arguments are couched in "concern for the children" (famous motte line but it's an obvious mask) when really it's more just using that as a siege engine for the real hate and bigotry they're trying to push.
It's the same line trotted out when blacks fought for civil rights, or gay men, and now trans people. The motte is always the concern for children, because who would really argue against the safety of minors. But the real point is the bailey, the wild position. But they can't do that so they always retreat to the motte.
"free speech" is the famous motte when it came to misgendering trans people or using pronouns, or making violent threats to others.
In modern discourse you will rarely see bigots sincerely peddle their true argument (the bailey) because it's not only wrong and clearly fallacious, but often times monstrous. The problem however is trying to expose the bailey instead of fighting on the motte, because the motte is the shadow, it's never really about that.
Yes indeed. I think we see this from white supremacists, motte-and-bailey not so much as a fallacy but as a long-term strategy.
@fdrake talked about it here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3976/the-cooption-of-internet-political-discourse-by-the-right/p1
So, those who aren't used to a lifestyle couldn't even express their own feelings without being called a bigot and homophobic. The woman, btw, is active on social media and she gets all her "own" opinions from her social media friends. They don't have tolerance towards feelings that express a different attitude.
I'm sure the man needed some adjustment to his new environment -- I'd give him some time. But I wouldn't call him homophobic or bigot. (I know how he is professionally).
Just an example of motte-and-bailey true-to-life experience.
So, the woman's calling the other a bigot and homophobic represents the motte, and the man's expression of his discomfort about same sex marriage represents the bailey.
The woman just sounds narrow minded.
Quoting fdrake
Thank you for your post, the logical analyses, and the broad conclusions. As you rightly noted, there are no consistently articulated meanings of defended positions, so there is not just a fallacy of inference. However, I can't entirely agree with your point that cognitive dissonance primarily animates the debate's dynamic. Nicholas Shackel qualified 'the motte-and-bailey debate' as a fallacy. Following Habermas, he brought Foucault's "arbitrary redefinition" and confusion of "elementary but inherently equivocal terms such as 'truth' and 'power'" as the principal example of the motte position. But, from the other side, he also attributed the Foucauldian methodology to our postmodern conditions. So, his argumentation could be more consistent. The systematic and widespread confounding of different types of rationality, formal rationality, and value-rationality reveals a sweeping collective tendency. For Foucault, there are certain discursive regularities that govern what can be legitimately said. The unconscious structuring of discourse sets the character and boundaries of the debate and disposes the fluidity and inconsistency of its subjective positions.
I had a similar experience on another forum. I made a comment about how wonderfully women had progressed in a certain sport, given an opportunity to do so by Title IX. I am 86, so fair game for age discrimination. Two women replied, calling me misogynistic and demeaning, and referring to me as "puffing on a corncob pipe through withered lips" and avoiding the civil and women's rights movements in the 1960s. To which I replied I was on campus and had demonstrated against George Wallace as he stood in the doorway to the admissions office at the U of Alabama, denying entrance to a black man, and that, actually, I had joined the women's lib movement during that decade.
Age discrimination is thriving.
I agree. Nonetheless, those narrow-minded people, like you said, would make it like he was advancing an argument.
Quoting jgill
Corncob pipe?
What did they expect you to smoke? A smoking dragon?
Just remember, no good deed goes unpunished. Your age included. They were calling you misogynistic and demeaning without knowing you fully well. Did you show them your curriculum vitae? I would keep it with me just in case -- list the campus incident with George Wallace demonstration and the date it happened.
I'm not complaining. If this guy can puff away, so could I !
Quoting L'éléphant
1963. There was turmoil all around, with the Klan playing the crowds. At one point there was an explosion, which someone said was one of the confederate canons at the ROTC building going off. One of the civil rights demonstrators yelled, "I hope they hit the bastard this time!" (meaning Wallace).
Edit: That's how I remember the incident, although the Klan perhaps was there before that day and not on the day he stood in the doorway. And the crowds may have been smaller on that day. The canon going off does stick in my mind, however.
Smoking dragon pipe:
Quoting jgill
Wow. I had no idea. Thanks.
I agree with you on your analysis of what you call the motte and bailey fallacy. I would like to extend your analogy of the motte and bailey to describe something I have noticed in recent years when it comes to debate.
Recently I have noticed a lot of people debating and arguing about technical points, that they could not care less about, as a proxy for what they would actually like to argue.
If I may use this thread's analogy, Frank lives in a land that he has grown up in, let's call it Frankia. He believes this is his land and should be run by his rules and values. He builds a motte and bailey to defend this land run by his values.
Someone comes along and proclaims that Frank's values are immoral and this needs changing, let's call this attacker John. He attacks the bailey, and after a brief battle the bailey falls. However the bailey was simply a means to an end for Frank - the end being that Frankia be run my Frank's values. Frank retreats to the motte and still proclaims Frankia to be run by him.
You see even if the motte falls one day, Frank will fall back to a ditch, or fight an asymmetric war from the underbrush, because the motte and the bailey and even the ditch are not the point. The point is that Frank thinks Frankia should be run by his values, not John's.
This is what I have experienced in discussion and debated in the last few years from many sides with many different viewpoint - there are many Franks out there. Frank argues about the bailey and the motte and maybe even the ditch and underbrush. But even if they all fall, he will keep believing Frankia belongs to him and should be run by his values.
In effect people take what they consider to be brute facts about certain value positions, and then argue various technicalities. But no matter of technical arguments are going to make them change their mind over what they see as brute facts (this is from their perspective).
The motte-and-bailey (mnb) argument or fallacy AS PRESENTED IN THE EXAMPLE is a special case not of simply moving the goalposts, in my opinion, but a combination of moving the goalposts with the aid of Aristotle's equivocation. The argument is defended / attacked by using the same word (women) for two different concepts. Hence the argument's origin. This could be any fallacy, which in turn can be applied to mnb. Mnb steps in when a third fallacy is introduced, that is an AD HOMINEM fallacy: "you are a cretin for not seeing my point."
In this sense, mnb is a useful naming of the unmasking of an argument that uses a combination of two fallacies. I think the original clash could be started with any fallacy or even with the truth. Mnb steps in and tries to finish the argument and win via a side-step and a solid argument that defends the side-step. The side-step can only be achieved if there is another fallacy involved.
Thus, a fallacy or a truth in a claim can be defended by sidestepping the claim by employing a fallacy.
I would put it this way: A motte-and-bailey fallacy has the following structure: Claim (of truth or of fallacy) when attacked by counter-arguments, can be motted by employing a fallacy at the same time which is in the service of side-stepping the issue to create a situation in which a solid argument defends the side-stepped issue, instead of the original claim.
In contrast, the NON-FALLACY or non-mnb argument that is valid I would put in this way:
Claim of the truth can be strengthened, when attacked by a counter-argument, by a valid argument.
I was thinking of something similar. I agree that the motte-and-bailey model is useful to overcome incommensurable schemes, but the motte-and-bailey approach may also be an integral ingredient in the natural ebb and flow of philosophical dialogue. If this is correct then it will be difficult to distinguish the fallacy from the natural ebb and flow of philosophical dialogue.
For example, upon reading Plato's dialogues we might reasonably conclude that the motte-and-bailey fallacy occurs on every page, but it is worth noting that this is also just part and parcel of philosophical dialogue. If such dialogue can be compared to martial arts, then there is a way in which each party is constantly alternating between attack and retreat. Part of this involves testing one's opponent by venturing into more controversial territory and then retreating back to a more easily defensible position. It is precisely this ebb and flow which produces philosophical knowledge and understanding.
That's not to say that there is no such informal fallacy as the motte-and-bailey, but it would be easily confused with acceptable ebb and flow. For this reason it is the sort of fallacy that would be useless in the midst of an argument. In the heat of argument the accuser will be likely to misuse the fallacy and the defendant will be unlikely to accept the charge. Yet when analyzing an argument from a third-party point of view the fallacy could be useful.
The core question would be whether the motte and the bailey are equivocal or "analogical" (i.e. interrelated and defensible). Since that question is already an essential hinge of the main argument, leveling the motte-and-bailey accusation in the midst of an argument would seem to be a form of begging the question. The fact that there is widespread disagreement about whether the example in the OP exhibits fallacious reasoning is a case in point. Generally fallacies need to be easily identifiable, and because of this I am wary of fallacies that are too subtle.