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percy-l - Fallacious but true? Re: Re[2]: [percy-l] homosexuality, redux

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Subject: Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion on Walker Percy

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  • From: Ken Armstrong <armstron AT ohiou.edu>
  • To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Fallacious but true? Re: Re[2]: [percy-l] homosexuality, redux
  • Date: Mon, 22 Sep 2003 15:49:54 -0400

At 09:28 PM 9/21/2003 -0500, you wrote:

Some may say that I'm presenting a slippery slope argument, but just
because an argument is fallacious, doesn't mean that it is untrue. For
example, some argued (fallaciously) that if we permit a woman to abort her
child (due to incest or rape), we open the door for abortion as a way of
birth control (and that is what happened--last I heard was that 96% of
abortions had nothing to do with incest or rape).

David,

Though I get farther and farther away from my grad school philosophy minor, I'm sure hoping that if an argument (not it's conclusion) is fallacious, it is not "true." Off the top of my head, I can't speak to the example you give because I don't know what made the original argument fallacious. But it seems to me that if the argument is faulty (any argument), it is not a good argument. It doesn't stand. Period. If the conclusion, illogic of the argument notwithstanding, is true, it is true because it is the legitimate conclusion to a different, if unstated, good argument. Emotionally charged issues, I think, attract bad arguments. Which is not to imply anything except the necessity for caution in analyzing them, as ends never justify means, etc.

Ken A






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