Hacker News Reader

Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

There has to be some kind of term for making your case against the absolute least sympathetic adversary ("We're allowed to boycott giant corporations right?") while using the same word that describes the absolute most sympathetic cases ("Are all companies allowed to get together and jointly refuse to sell food to farm animal rights activists?")

View on HN

I've heard it called a "non-central example". That has a negative connotation though, I wish there was a more neutral term. The statement "all natural numbers are greater than 1" is false, and it's not helpful to object that 0 and 1 are noncentral examples.

(It's not a motte-and-bailey, that's about a particular sort of shifting goalposts)

Nitpick, I don't think 0 is a natural number

Zero is sometimes a natural number and sometimes not. N is written as N_+ or N_0 sometimes to indicate which one is being used.

Ah, that's annoying.

Matter of taste/notation. Both definitions 0,1,2,... and 1,2,3,... are very, very common.

1 is still not strictly greater than 1, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy ?

"Motte and Bailey" is the term you're looking for - although I wish there were a less pretentious term (or at least one that didn't have two words that you then have to define when you use it).

When using the same word is the main problem, that’s equivocation. When the problem is treating distinct situations as if they’re the same, that’s false equivalence.

How does one define "distinct"? When I hear the term "false equivalence" is used, it seems to be a stand in for selectively-favored arguments - even non sequiturs - rather than an objective evaluation of relevant differences. And when that doesn't work, the arguer would move the goalposts.

If we take the example given by gp, is there a relevant distinction between the between animal rights activists and corporations selling food in their respective right to boycott?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com