Revision as of 10:43, 19 November 2017

There was various material in an earlier version of the entry on #NameTheTrait which does not seem really to be about the argument, or even the ways in which it has been defended, but seems primarily to be about the behavior of its originator, Isaac Brown, himself. I am thus moving that content here. I believe that much of this material which is relevant to the #NameTheTrait argument itself is already incorporated into other sections, but I will try to return to this material to make sure.

Burden of Proof

The main editors of the article on NameTheTrait feel that the sections on the deductive invalidity of the argument should not be necessary, because the burden of proof to demonstrate how #NameTheTrait is logically valid should fall on Brown. This is true of any argument short of support for the laws of thought themselves (the basis of argumentation which are the minimum necessary assumptions), but much more true for a logical argument. [The alternative editors feel that these sections are very helpful for those who are actually interested in the issues, because very few of them, including Brown, know about deductive validity or what is at issue with it, and the sections on the invalidity of the argument have the potential to enable them to understand why the argument is not deductively valid. Even if Brown is not sufficiently interested or able to learn from this, many others may be]

Beyond the simple "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" (and Brown has provided no evidence, and only assertions that his argument is valid), in logical argumentation it is very difficult to prove an argument to be invalid (this comes down to the difficulty of proving a negative [providing a counterexample?]), but relatively easy to prove it valid if it is actually valid, thus making the burden of proof by practical necessity rest on the advocates claiming it is valid. [Q: is it always that hard to provide counterexamples / models where the premises hold and the conclusion doesn't? Can you elaborate?]

Some are of the view that, he were serious about this argument, Brown could select a formal system, translate his argument (as is attempted to do here) use the rules of deduction to clearly derive his conclusion (or contradiction) and share it with the audience for criticism.

Summary

Many observers would agree that, informally, the "Name The Trait" argument can be a useful tool in starting discussions, a use where it acts very similarly to that from Less Able Humans / "Marginal Cases."

Its greatest strength is the interactivity and thought provoking nature of asking the discussion opponent for a specific response, the titular "trait".

Most of the editors of this entry ['the main editors'] worry, however, that the attempt to create a formal argument from this conversation starter has resulted in a fallacious argument and has undermined its utility when used against any intelligent opponent, as numerous hidden premises are conspicuously left out. Moreover, they worry that, especially the second (less frequently discussed) part of the argument, "for veganism from animal moral value" is particularly unconvincing, as it may appear to bake in dubious deontological assumptions about the inability of benefits to justify inflicting harms - and perhaps even more dubious Marxist-sounding concerns about 'exploitation', made yet further dubious by their application to a context where the beings in question cannot in principle give informed consent. The main editors worry that this may create the appearance of confused thinking and dogma (or perhaps even dishonesty).

The argument creates the appearance of simple syllogisms, but the logic is not deductively valid. What it is for an argument to be deductively valid is for the truth of the conclusion to be guaranteed by the truth of the premises simply in virtue of the logical form (or syntactic structure of the content) of the premises and the conclusion. For instance, an argument of the form

(P1) If consuming animal products causes unnecessary suffering, then we should not consume animal products,
(P2) Consuming animal products causes unnecessary suffering,
Therefore, (C) we should not consume animal products

is deductively valid. This is because it has the (sentential) logical form:

(P1) If U then V
(P2) U
Therefore (C) V

Here, C follows from P1 and P2 simply from this abstract logical form whatever the specific content of U and V may be (this particular way of a conclusion following from its logical form and that of the premises is known as "modus ponens").

One of the main things that this entry shows below is why #NameTheTrait (and in particular its much discussed first part, "for animal moral value") is not deductively valid - the truth of its conclusion is not guaranteed by the truth of its premises simply in virtue of the logical form of the premises and the conclusion. (To show this requires not only looking at its sentential logical form, like that in the above argument, which replaces whole sentences flanking logical connectives like 'if...then', 'and' and 'or' with abstract symbols, but looking at its predicate-logical form, which replaces the predicates within these sentences with abstract symbols, and quantification over entities that can have the properties signified by those predicates, like 'for all x' and 'for some x', as will be seen below).

The main editors are concerned that the deductive invalidity of #NameTheTrait is a significant problem; they consequently call #NameTheTrait a non sequitur and accuse it of committing a fallacy. To explain the primary non sequitur fallacy simply: in the first part of #NameTheTrait, C does not follow from P1 and P2 because nothing in the argument asserts that moral value must be based on the material traits mentioned in P2. One can thus agree with P1 and agree with P2 and still reject the suggested conclusion (that animals are of moral value) without any logical contradiction. That is, one can accept the premises and reject the conclusion without believing any set of things that cannot all be true simply in virtue of their logical form.

That this lack of deductive validity is actually a significant problem is something that has been challenged by others [who some pejoratively call 'apologists' but might be more neutrally termed 'the alternative editors']. For their views, see sections on criticism of criticism below.

As this entry also shows, the #NameTheTrait argument CAN be made deductively valid, or "corrected" (see correction) by adding in missing premises and clarifying the meanings of certain terms. Most observers would agree that this is a useful exercise, since showing how the argument can be made deductively valid plays an important role in explaining both the views of the main editors as to why its deductive invalidity is a serious problem, and those of the alternative editors who do not share this view. The view of the main editors is that, unfortunately, as seen in the correction, the argument remains confusing and cumbersome due to the workarounds needed to articulate its central idea. The main editors are also of the view that apart from the issue of deductive invalidity, even were the argument corrected by adding in necessary hidden premises and fixing other fallacies and ambiguities (All outlined below) #NameTheTrait would still be a bad argument.

While the main editors and the (so far existent) alternative editors disagree about the extent to which it matters that #NameTheTrait is not deductively valid, they agree that there are two other deep problems regarding the argument. First, they agree that there are serious problems with the justification of P1 and P2 (in the first, "for animal moral value" part of the argument) that has been offered by certain proponents of #NameTheTrait such as Brown. These proponents are mistaken that one's simply having a propensity to resist being harmed or a desire not to be harmed in a situation commits one to thinking that one would be of moral value in that situation. But one's resisting or being averse to being harmed is actually consistent with one's not having moral value in a sense that entails that others have moral reasons not to harm one, or would not be justified in harming one.

The main editors and the (so far existent) alternative editors also agree that the second part of the #NameTheTrait argument, "for veganism from animal moral value," has serious substantive problems. It appears to require dubious deontological assumptions about the irrelevance of the possible benefits of inflicting harm (or even just harmlessly using someone, if 'exploitation' can be harmless) to the justification of inflicting harm (or 'exploiting'), as well as poorly thought out ideas regarding "exploitation," which have dubious Marxist connotations and seem in any event dubiously applicable to the case of our treatment of beings who cannot give informed consent. As such, the current editors are all of the view that a much more philosophically sound and convincing argument from the moral considerability of non-human animals to the case for veganism will look very unlike that employed in #NameTheTrait, and will for instance involve some empirical weighing of cost vs. benefit (although it need not commit to consequentialism, or the view one is always permitted and required to bring about the most good for all concerned). The main editors at least are of the view that vegan advocates making the second part of the #NameTheTrait argument, for veganism from non-human animal value, actually does more harm than good to the vegan cause.

The main editors do not feel that anything in this article constitutes an argument for veganism that is superior to #NameTheTrait: in their view, the purpose of this page is not to outline good arguments for veganism, but to debunk a bad one to prevent it from supplanting better arguments already in use. In the future, see Arguments for veganism for outlines of better arguments. The main editors will also in the future include a page on ideas about the optimal role of philosophical arguments in vegan advocacy. While the views of the alternative editors will be discussed more below, it should be noted that they think it will be unclear to vegan advocates how this page contains any useful criticisms of #NameTheTrait - or at least the deductive invalidity of its more widely discussed first part, "for non-human animal moral value" - unless it says something about why technical deductive invalidity is supposed to be such a serious problem in practice and how vegan advocates are supposed to give better (including more effective and more compelling) arguments. Absent such an explanation and set of alternatives, the alternative editors do not feel that anything about the more widely discussed first part of the argument has been "debunked" in virtue of showing it to be invalid (except perhaps one interpretation of claims that #NameTheTrait is 'valid', or that accepting its premises but denying its conclusion involves accepting a 'contradiction' when made by people who do not understand what philosophers and logicians mean by 'deductively valid' and 'contradiction'. The value of such "debunking" is one thing that is challenged by the alternative editors). The alternative editors therefore endeavor to say something in this entry about why any of this should matter to vegan advocates, how sound and rationally compelling are various of the alternatives discussed, and even what evidence we may have about the possible effectiveness of various strategies for arguing for veganism (or reducing the consumption of animal products more generally). See Proving Formal Arguments for more details on this.

As long as he didn't set out to reinvent logic as he seems to be trying to do, for the most part Brown could just learn to follow established rules (no need to reinvent the wheel), which are generally far less complicated than most fields of mathematics. An intelligent person could figure out the minimum in a couple days given any interest in philosophical argumentation, and Brown has also had many standing offers for help on this issue for free which he has rejected.

Unfortunately, Brown has consistently failed to engage with formal and symbolic examinations of his argument, instead trying to shift the burden of proof away from himself by calling the latter equivalent to "Chinese" and insisting on blind faith that they have been translated incorrectly without understanding them. It must be stressed that his inability to back up his argument and respond to criticism is not an excuse for failing in his obligation to do so.

Beyond that, he has also engaged in blocking critics and misrepresenting arguments presented in the "plain English" he asks for against #NameTheTrait, responding selectively when he does by dismissing them as "retards" or just by repeating the same arguments that those critics have already addressed as fallacious. That is, he is doing the exact opposite from what one would expect if his argument were valid and he could back it up.

Even in merely practical terms as an outreach argument, the burden of proof for answering criticism from a growing number of vegans and non-vegans and demonstrating how this argument is sound falls upon Brown.

If people perceive the argument as invalid (or even tricky/deceptive), it fails at its goal regardless of its validity: that is if the argument's purpose is to convince people to go vegan.
[this is challenged by the alternative editors in the sections on criticism of criticism in the entry of NameTheTrait]

Unfortunately, the outreach purpose seems less and less to be the case, as when challenged with criticism of his off-putting and alienating behavior (which may prevent people from going vegan) Brown has even stated that he doesn't care if people go vegan and that he is not an activist but an entertainer (he earns an income for his videos from Patreon, and claims they are his intended audience). This convenient deflection is reminiscent of the claims by charlatans like Uri Gellar or John Edwards to defend themselves against allegations of fraud. [A more pressing concern for some, who are interested in promoting veganism as effectively as possible, is simply that having someone who lacks concern for the effectiveness of advocacy for veganism do a lot of advocacy and spread methods of advocacy to others might not result in the most effective advocacy]

If the intention of #NameTheTrait is providing the basis for operating a cult, then as with internal theistic arguments it does not need to be sound, it only needs to be confusing enough for people to convince themselves it is sound if they want to believe it in order to establish the necessary self-congratulatory in-group who sees "the truth", and an out-group of deniers. In that case, likewise, Brown does not need to provide arguments against it, he only needs to disparage people who disagree and insult their intelligence for being able to see what is so obvious (which is in practice what he does).

This is what seems to be happening with Brown's fan-base; an eerie echo of the Raw til' 4 and 30 Bananas a day cult of Durianrider and Freelee that recently collapsed. This is what happens when people suspend skepticism and critical thinking, and let charismatic personalities pass the burden of proof elsewhere and substitute arguments with insults.

If you are a follower or fan of Brown: Be the needle that pops that echo chamber, and hold him to the same standards of proof that he demands from others. Ask that he address the arguments presented in the entry on #NameTheTrait properly, and provide evidence that his argument is valid. For example, if his argument is a valid syllogism, ask him to #NameTheSyllogism[1], if it isn't, ask him to rewrite it so that he can name the valid form it takes. This kind of proof would not be difficult, even in "English".

Extraordinary Claims

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"

Any argument needs to be supported with valid logic and empirical evidence, but one making extraordinary claims even more so.

In defending #NameTheTrait Brown makes a number of extraordinary claims which make his arguments less plausible and increase the need for evidence (extraordinary evidence) that these arguments are valid beyond what would be required for more modest arguments which would be more reasonable to accept based on appearances.

Brown believes that he, as someone not educated in philosophy (and who doesn't understand the meanings of philosophical terms like "contradiction"), has at the age of 24 after recently going vegan come up with the best argument ever conceived for veganism, and so has done what no other professional philosopher in thousands of years of history has been able to do (from Pythagoras to Voltaire to Singer).[see McStravick video: include clip if possible]
[citation needed? Also would it be that strange if his argument was rhetorically best for a certain social media environment, in which Pythagoras, Voltaire, and Singer never participated? I would have thought that this sort of innovation in terms of effectively and convincingly getting out the vegan message in a new context was exactly the sort of thing that we would want and reasonably hope to see young vegan advocates, who are digital / social media natives, to be doing?]

As Brown has indicated [see his first video response: find clip when possible], a critical part of this purported superiority is the argument's claimed independence from substantive ethical issues.

According to Brown, it doesn't just not matter if somebody is a realist, an irrealist, a subjectivist, a relativist [which the alternative editors think is probably true]], he goes on to claim that his argument works no matter your assumptions are as long as you believe humans - or even just yourself; you can substitute "I have moral value" in P1 - have moral value, and by that in practice he means that as long as you would protest or resist somebody killing you (this is not something he defined in the argument, but an assumption he sneaks in during debate), and that this value would not be lost if one lost the traits that one has and (sentient) non-human animals lack.

If the latter following of a seriously distinct ethical commitment from a single substantive ethical premise (or indeed, from a mere behavioral tendency or desire were) true, this would be the most revolutionary philosophical argument in history of any kind, not just for veganism, and would send shockwaves around the world. [It should probably be noted that some Kantian or neo-Kantian arguments, like those of Kristine Korsgaard [citation needed] to the effect that we are committed to valuing others simply by the act of deliberating, are quite a bit like this. But almost everyone agrees that they clearly do not work, so for any argument like this working (be it Brown's or Korsgaard's) it would be fair to say of that it was the most revolutionary philosophical argument of any kind.]. The equivalent of building a perpetual motion machine in physics (Interestingly, the people claiming to have built them are, like Brown, almost never experienced in the field). [The fact that Kantians / neo-Kantians are extremely experienced in the field, and sometimes do excellent other kinds of work (like Korsgaard, is not only a serious scholar but has it should be mentioned also done a great job arguing that Kantian position should support veganism [citations needed]) but still seem to present arguments like this seems to be some evidence against this. But there probably are a ton of neophytes like Brown making such claims; academics tends to get unsolicited e-mailed tracts and book manuscripts from them...]

As it turns out, Brown's confidence and confusion are a product of his ignorance (via the Dunning Kruger effect) because he confuses "double standard" in the colloquial sense with "logical contradition" in the philosophical sense, among a series of other mistakes as laid out here (below).

To be clear, within a specific and defined normative ethical or meta-ethical foundation from deontological to consequentialist frameworks, realist, irrealist, naturalist and not, such arguments are relatively common and can be compelling.
Where the nature of moral properties and action is delineated through a number of mutual assumptions, strong arguments can be made leveraging those assumptions and building on them to show either through duty or outcome with the addition of empirical data that veganism is beneficial and morally preferable to certain alternatives.

What is extraordinary about #NameTheTrait is not a claim to be an irrefutable argument for veganism within such a context, but its claim to validity despite a paucity of premises that provide the meta-ethical context to give it weight and make the conclusion follow from the empirical premise, and its attempt to address all actors regardless of their beliefs of morality beyond the assertions of P1: that humans, or that they specifically (as a self-focused alternative P1), have moral value. [a lot of these last two paragraphs will come back into the section on defending the premises]