Kettle Logic
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, he didn't mean to pull the trigger, and that son-of-a-bitch had it coming!"
I think the honest version of this kind of argument is helpful in some cases though. Not everybody agrees on the same set of the facts, and sometimes the conclusion one is arguing for is true regardless.
But under US criminal the defense doesn’t have to do anything, the entire burden is on the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: 1) a criminal act happened, 2) the defendant committed the act and 3) defendant had intent to commit the crime.
Naturally opening/closing arguments actually sound very much like your joke…the government can’t prove a crime happened; if they can they can’t prove my client committed the act; and if they can they can’t prove my client intended to commit the act.
It sounds funny, but logically it makes a lot of sense to say things like we don’t need to a get to the question of if the defendant committed the crime because the government can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt a crime was committed (e.g. no body in a murder case).
The intern had no write access to the production database, he didn't mean to do the commit, and our network engineers had it coming?
(...when presented with a line in the script that randomly hangs the server.)
void *p = NULL;
int i = *p / 0;There is X probability the client was nowhere near the scene of the murder, and Y probability he didn't mean to pull the trigger
That way these are not exclusive and the contradiction disappears. Now suppose the client is convicted because X is too high, years later a hidden variable is revealed that reduces the probability to zero. He is released from jail, but another hidden variable appears that increases Y to 100%.
There should also be a probability for unknown unknowns, when a fair coin falls sideways.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300192377/it-was-long-ti...
"Didn't mean to pull the trigger" does not imply the defendant could pull the trigger.
1. The accused was nowhere near the scene of the murder
2. The accused was at the scene of the murder, and in fact committed the murder, but on accident
3. The accused committed the murder on purpose, because the victim had it coming.It's a subtle distinction. Argument in the alternative considers multiple different possibilities as hypotheticals in order to rule them all out, but isn't that kind of what kettle logic does as well? Can a kettle logic argument be easily rephrased into an argument in the alternative?
I feel like there's a difference between them that's more than just whether the argument is true/valid or not, but I can't quite put it into words.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_in_the_alternative
Kettle logic:
1. I wasn't there.
2. I was there but had no motive.
3. I was there, had motive, but had no means.
Argument in the alternative:
1. I wasn't there.
2. Even if I was there, I had no motive.
3. Even if I was there and had motive, I had no means.
The first makes three conflicting statements. The second makes 3 consecutive arguments: I have an alibi, but if you don't believe my alibi, I still had no motive, and if you don't believe my alibi and that I lacked motive, I had no means.
1. The prosecution must prove I returned the kettle in a damaged state (they can't).
2. They must prove I received the kettle in an undamaged state (they can't).
3. They must prove I received the kettle at all (they can't).
A good example of this is those rarer occasions when someone is accused of rape that never happened; and social media gets wind of it. To everyone who hears of it, mostly at least; the accuser is the honest one. And in some rare occasions, we find out they were not.
I know this specific examples happens, because it was how my mother was born.
Of course, the "argument in the alternative" is only different by a slight technicality: you just put an "and even if I were lying in the previous step, ..." between each subargument.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_in_the_alternative
- I didn't do it.
- (I did it, but) nobody saw me do it.
- (You saw me do it, but) you can't prove anything.
The statements alone, not considering the perspective of the speaker in parentheses, don't strictly contradict each other, but the speaker contradicts himself. He's Bart Simpson; he definitely did it and he would definitely lie about it.
Bob: "Oh, how was it?"
Alice: "How was what?"
Bob: "Your late-night swim?"
Alice: "I haven't been swimming in ages."
Bob: "..."
That didn't happen. And if it did, it wasn't that bad. And if it was, that's not a big deal. And if it is, that's not my fault. And if it was, I didn't mean it. And if I did, you deserved it.
This is just a quick reminder to everyone to check yourself and make sure you aren't falling into the trap of thinking like this, I know it happens to me occasionally.
And there's very little I've seen that damages relationships[0] more.
[0] All kinds, not just romantic.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
For example, 2 days ago I had a dream where I was had to go back to highschool for a year to get a highschool diploma because some technicality or lost paperwork college. Then I find out there was a Spanish requirement that I was scheduled for but was never informed of and that there was a midterm the next day I couldn't fail. Then I'm like okay can I get an exception from the college so I can keep my job? And if I loose this job, how bad is it really? I've already got 3 years at Google, so surely... Wait what? Wake up.
Using multiple logically inconsistent defenses is generally allowed in the US.
On the other hand, I've seen a ton of "I didn't do x, and even if I did do X it was acceptable because Y" where Y was the worse crime... that somehow still succeeded as a defense. Thankfully not in a court of law, but public opinion is weird.
2. The defence is expected to lie, and if the prosecution cannot prove that every single one of the defence's arguments are lies, then the jury cannot convict beyond reasonable doubt.
3. The jury should assume that the prosecution is lying by default, and acquit if the prosecution does not convince them otherwise.
The defence is expressly prohibited from lying. Lawyers have a so called duty of candor [1] outlining this. Defendants testify under oath to make this clear to them. Defence attorneys must disclose to the court if their client lies to the court (and they can't convince their client to voluntarily disclose it instead) [2].
That doesn't mean people are expected to take defendants at their word during trial, juries are allowed to decide they think that someone was lying, but they aren't expected to lie.
[1] https://definitions.uslegal.com/d/duty-of-candor/
[2] https://www.eiglarshlaw.com/when-clients-liewhat-must-you-do...
(In practice, humans don't consistently compartmentalize well enough to reliably avoid this, though.)
Both sides agreed that the man was in the car with his pants down (defense claimed defendant was looking for a tick on his leg). The defense argued that with the window tinting on the car window, it was not possible to see into the car.
My dad's takeaway from this was that one of these must be true:
1. Someone coincidentally accused someone of having their pants down without being able to see them, and happened to be right
2. The window was rolled down
3. The defense is presenting false evidence
If some charge requires both [A] and [B] for the accused to be guilty, then this argument is that it's neither [A] nor [B], but the defendant is innocent if they can prove either half of the argument, since the condition is "[A] and [B]", not "[A] or [B]".
No, you don't.
It's just if you are charged with an offense that requires intent, the question of self-defense (or any other excuse) is moot if the prosecutor can't prove intent beyond a reasonable doubt in the first place.
If you are charged with an offense that doesn't require intent, like involuntary manslaughter, you don't have to argue intent to kill to use self-defense as an excuse.
And even of you are charged with an intent crime, you don't need to grant intent to argue self-defense.
I definitely understand that we feel a huge need to stigmatize him, that there is an overt resistance, its just rather funny to me that despite that we as a culture take so much of his ideas and concepts and internalize them. We get lots of weird dismissive attitudes like this, while not really arguing the thought itself.
Kettle logic was something he identified as phenomena, initially in dreams, but as we all anecdotally know, its pervasive. Our minds do not run on a principal of noncontradiction, but a logic of its own. I think that's profound and helpful to understand.
As someone who has studied and written about Freud extensively in an academic context, would just love to know where you identified inconsistencies in his thought.
Usually, the affirmative team is proposing a plan that implements a resolution, and the negative team has to present arguments which convince the judge that either the plan, or the whole resolution is a bad idea.
A trivial example of the kind of "Kettle" logic that we had to deal with on the affirmative, is the belief that performative contradictions are simply part of "Competing Interpretations" and are totally fine for the negative team to use. This meant that it was common for a team to simultaneously argue that 1. The affirmative plan crashes the economy and 2. That Capitalism is a fundamentally unjust system and that the affirmative plan reperpetuates it. If you (the affirmative) argued against point 1, the standard plan by the negative was to jettison their arguements and concede to whatever affirmative points and turn them to help their 2nd point ("Well, your plan helps the economy so much that it makes capitalism that much more powerful!")
Smart teams argued that such "Performative Contradictions" and "Competing Interpretations" were fundamentally abusive. This was the correct strategy and by forcing the debate to devolve into these discussions of obscure theory we lost whatever educational value that the activity had about the topic.
Kettle Logic is the first time I've had a name for this that wasn't a debate community term-of-art.
The common explanation was said to be: "I did not write that. They have forced me. And I did not mean it that way."
This is the logic of a sociopath.
I didn't hurt you, but if I did it wasn't that bad, and if it was that bad you deserved it.