I like the spirit of what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced that you’ve made a rational argument for it. Also, I’m concerned that you might have started with the conclusion that a rational argument must flow forward and constructed an account to justify it. If so, in your terms, though not in mine, that would make your conclusion irrational.
I think it can be perfectly rational to think backwards from any conclusion you want to any explanation that fits. Rationality is among other things about being bound by the requirement of consistency in reasoning. It’s about creating an account from the evidence. But it’s also about evaluating evidence, and that part is where it gets problematic.
In an open and complex world like the one we live in every day, weighing evidence is largely a non-rational (para-rational? quasi-rational?) process. We are operating only with bounded rationality and collections of murky impressions. So, your idea of making a checklist and somehow discovering who the best candidate is is already doomed. There is no truly evidence-driven way of doing that, because evidence does not drive reasoning—it’s our BELIEFS about evidence that drive reasoning. Our beliefs are mostly not a product of a rational process.
A logical explanation is one that follows from premises to conclusions without violating any rule of logic. Additionally, all logical explanations of real world situations involves a claim that the logical model we put forward corresponds usefully to the state of the real world. What we called a “cat” in our reasoning corresponded to that furry thing we understand as a cat, etc. If I can think backwards from a conclusion without finding an absurd premise, then I have a logical explanation. (It may be wrong, of course.)
To attack my self-consistent, logical account of a situation that suggests that X is TRUE, based solely on the fact that I was looking for evidence that X is true, is equivalent to an ad hominem fallacy. I think you can certainly suspect that my argument is weak, and it probably is, but you can’t credibly attack my sound argument simply because you don’t like me, or you don’t like my method of arriving at my sound argument. A lot of science would have to be thrown out if a scientist wasn’t allowed to search for evidence to support something he hoped would be true. Also, as you know, many theorems have been proven using backward reasoning.
If you want to attack the argument, you can attack it rationally by offering counter-evidence, or an alternative reasoning that is more consistent with more reliable facts. Furthermore, our entire legal system is built on the idea that two opposing sides in a dispute, marshaling the best stories they can marshal, will provide judges and juries with a good basis on which to decide the dispute.
Instead of calling it irrational, I would say that it’s a generally self-deceptive practice to start from a conclusion and work backward. I don’t trust that process, but I couldn’t disqualify an argument solely on those grounds.
Instead of prescribing forward reasoning only, I would prescribe self-critical thinking and de-biasing strategies.
(BTW, one of the reasons I don’t vote is that I am confident that I cannot, under any circumstances, EVER, have sufficient and reliable information about the candidates to allow me to make a good decision. So, I believe all voting decisions people actually make are irrational.)
What you need to remember is that all of this applies to probabilistic arguments with probabilistic results—of course deductive reasoning can be done backward. However, when evidence is presented as contribution to a belief, omitting some (as you will, inevitably, when reasoning backward) disentangles the ultimate belief from the object thereof. If some evidence doesn’t contribute, the (probabilistic) belief can’t reflect reality. You seem to conceptualize arguments as requiring the outcome if they’re valid and their premises are true, which doesn’t describe the vast majority.
You only need to have better information than average voter for your vote to improve result of election. Though then again, effect of 1 vote is usually so small that the rational choice would be to vote for whatever gives you more social status.
The argument could turn out valid, by coincidence; but the process of making it isn’t valid, so given the vast space of all possible arguments… it’s probably not valid. Indeed, as nearly all advertising, propaganda, political campaigns, etc. are not.
I like the spirit of what you’re saying, but I’m not convinced that you’ve made a rational argument for it. Also, I’m concerned that you might have started with the conclusion that a rational argument must flow forward and constructed an account to justify it. If so, in your terms, though not in mine, that would make your conclusion irrational.
I think it can be perfectly rational to think backwards from any conclusion you want to any explanation that fits. Rationality is among other things about being bound by the requirement of consistency in reasoning. It’s about creating an account from the evidence. But it’s also about evaluating evidence, and that part is where it gets problematic.
In an open and complex world like the one we live in every day, weighing evidence is largely a non-rational (para-rational? quasi-rational?) process. We are operating only with bounded rationality and collections of murky impressions. So, your idea of making a checklist and somehow discovering who the best candidate is is already doomed. There is no truly evidence-driven way of doing that, because evidence does not drive reasoning—it’s our BELIEFS about evidence that drive reasoning. Our beliefs are mostly not a product of a rational process.
A logical explanation is one that follows from premises to conclusions without violating any rule of logic. Additionally, all logical explanations of real world situations involves a claim that the logical model we put forward corresponds usefully to the state of the real world. What we called a “cat” in our reasoning corresponded to that furry thing we understand as a cat, etc. If I can think backwards from a conclusion without finding an absurd premise, then I have a logical explanation. (It may be wrong, of course.)
To attack my self-consistent, logical account of a situation that suggests that X is TRUE, based solely on the fact that I was looking for evidence that X is true, is equivalent to an ad hominem fallacy. I think you can certainly suspect that my argument is weak, and it probably is, but you can’t credibly attack my sound argument simply because you don’t like me, or you don’t like my method of arriving at my sound argument. A lot of science would have to be thrown out if a scientist wasn’t allowed to search for evidence to support something he hoped would be true. Also, as you know, many theorems have been proven using backward reasoning.
If you want to attack the argument, you can attack it rationally by offering counter-evidence, or an alternative reasoning that is more consistent with more reliable facts. Furthermore, our entire legal system is built on the idea that two opposing sides in a dispute, marshaling the best stories they can marshal, will provide judges and juries with a good basis on which to decide the dispute.
Instead of calling it irrational, I would say that it’s a generally self-deceptive practice to start from a conclusion and work backward. I don’t trust that process, but I couldn’t disqualify an argument solely on those grounds.
Instead of prescribing forward reasoning only, I would prescribe self-critical thinking and de-biasing strategies.
(BTW, one of the reasons I don’t vote is that I am confident that I cannot, under any circumstances, EVER, have sufficient and reliable information about the candidates to allow me to make a good decision. So, I believe all voting decisions people actually make are irrational.)
What you need to remember is that all of this applies to probabilistic arguments with probabilistic results—of course deductive reasoning can be done backward. However, when evidence is presented as contribution to a belief, omitting some (as you will, inevitably, when reasoning backward) disentangles the ultimate belief from the object thereof. If some evidence doesn’t contribute, the (probabilistic) belief can’t reflect reality. You seem to conceptualize arguments as requiring the outcome if they’re valid and their premises are true, which doesn’t describe the vast majority.
You only need to have better information than average voter for your vote to improve result of election. Though then again, effect of 1 vote is usually so small that the rational choice would be to vote for whatever gives you more social status.
The argument could turn out valid, by coincidence; but the process of making it isn’t valid, so given the vast space of all possible arguments… it’s probably not valid. Indeed, as nearly all advertising, propaganda, political campaigns, etc. are not.