[lbo-talk] Re: Ascribing Motives

Miles Jackson cqmv at pdx.edu
Mon Feb 21 20:25:19 PST 2005


On Sun, 20 Feb 2005 Turbulo at aol.com wrote:


> Knowing motives isn't a substitute for dealing with a person's
> arguments. But what if those arguments are incoherent or demonstrably
> false? I think it was Paul Krugman who wrote that it could be
> demonstrated a thousand times that there is no immediate crisis of
> Social Security, but this doesn't stop the Bushites from repeating it
> over and over. Why they keep repeating it seems to me a valid question.
> To answer it, one must go beyond the sphere of rational argumentation
> and inquire as to their motives.

Yes, that's exactly where I make the distinction: if you want to assess the validity of a claim X, motive is irrelevant. If you want to understand why some people insistently assert that X is a valid claim, motive is often important to understand.

--But note that these are two completely different questions!

Miles



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