watzizname 2008-09-15
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Jamie Whyte has given us a very good review of the commonest forms of invalid arguments, well worth reading, despite some flaws:
On page 4, he writes: "It [entitlement] has a political or legal interpretation, by which we are all entitled to any opinion we might have, however groundless. But it also has an epistemic interpretation, that is, one related to, or concerned with, truth or knowledge."
(1) On page 5, he writes "So, the two senses of entitlement could not be further from each other."
The first of three meanings of entitlement given in The American Heritage Dictionary is: "The act or process of entitling." For example, Mr. White entitled his book "Crimes Against Logic." I submit that this sense of 'entitlement' is further from either ot the two senses mentioned by Mr. Whyte than those two are from each other. Mr. Whyte grossly overstated his case; he need only have pointed out that the two senses he mentioned are not the same, from which his conclusion quite correctly follows, that equivocating between those two senses constitutes muddled (and often deceptive) logic.
Of all the many times I have read "nothing could be further from the truth." I don' recall any time I couldn't think of something further from the truth. For an enlightening discussion, see Isaac Asimov's The Relativity Of Wrong.
At the bottom of page 5, (NOT A FLAW) he mentions that "When confronted with counterarguments, [many of us] do not pause and wonder if they might be wrong after all. They take offense." For more background on this unfortunate fact, see Farhad Manjoo's excellent True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, and see my review thereof.
(2) On page 104, after discussing the faulty reasoning behind Karl Marx's claim that capitalism exploits the workers, Whyte writes: "But I deny it is exploitation." Because Marx grossly overstates his case it does not follow that Whyte may legitimately overstate his. Not all capitalist enterprises exploit their workers; I think (and hope) that most don't, BUT SOME DO! For egregious examples thereof, see Professor Kevin Bales' Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy and Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves.
Another non-flaw: On page 112, Whyte writes: " The main benefit of snorting cocaine, perhaps the only benefit, is the pleasure it gives the snorter. Prohibitionists never consider this benefit." I would add, of course not; they probably don't consider it a benefit. Puritanism has been defined as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time."
(3) And finally, on pp. 115-6, is the worst flaw in the book: Whyte is himself guilty of equivocation. He writes: "For example, describing an income-tax cut as a 'giveaway' assumes that a citizen's gross income is not her own but is, rather, the property of the government. Describing the grvernment's spending plans as generous embodies the same assumption. The virtue of generosity does not consist in giving away others' money: it requires you to give away your own." He is equivocating between 'generous' in the sense of a generous (ample, bigger than average) portion (e.g. of food) and 'generous' in the sense of a generous (unselfish, sharing) person. Also, it is not true that describing an unwarranted tax rebate to the wealthy as a 'giveaway' or a transfer payment to a poor family as 'generous' assumes what he claims it does. It actually assumes that the PORTION of a person's gross income that is paid in taxes thereby BECOMES government property, which it does; NOT that her entire gross income IS government property, which it isn't.
People unfortunately tend to take government services for granted, and resent having to pay for them, but they would be very upset if the government stopped providing schools, police protection, national defense, roads, bridges, tunnels, garbage collection, and all the many other services they get for their tax money.
Despite two minor flaws (1 & 2) and one rather major one (3), this book has much to recommend it. It is well worth the price.
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