Quote: “The third perhaps is especially tricky. If you “re-express your target’s position … clearly” you remove the obfuscation that concealed the gap. Now what? Leaving the gap in clear view creates a strawman. Attempting to fill it draws a certain amount of attention to it; you certainly fail the ideological Turing test because you are making arguments that you opponents don’t make.”
Just no. An argument is an argument. It is complete or not. If there is a gap in the argument, in most cases there are two eventualities: (a) the leap is a true one assuming what others would find obvious, or (b) either an honest error in the argument or an attempt to cover up a flaw in the argument.
If there is a way to “fill in” the argument that is the only way it could be filled in, you are justified in doing so, while pointing out that you are doing so. If either of the (b) cases hold, however, you must still point them out, in order to maintain your own credibility. Especially if you are refuting an argument, the gap should be addressed and not glossed over.
You might treat the (b) situations differently, perhaps politely pointing out that the original author made an error there, or perhaps not-so-politely pointing out that something is amiss. But you still address the issue. If you do not, the onus is now on you, because you have then “adopted” that incomplete or erroneous argument.
For example: your own example argument has a rather huge and glaring hole in it: “bad-use will increase a lot and good-use will increase a little”. However, history and modern examples both show this to be false: in the real world, decriminalization has increased bad-use only slightly if at all, and good-use more. (See the paper “The Portugal Experiment” for one good example.)
Was there any problem there with my treatment of this rather gaping “gap” in your argument?
Quote: “The third perhaps is especially tricky. If you “re-express your target’s position … clearly” you remove the obfuscation that concealed the gap. Now what? Leaving the gap in clear view creates a strawman. Attempting to fill it draws a certain amount of attention to it; you certainly fail the ideological Turing test because you are making arguments that you opponents don’t make.”
Just no. An argument is an argument. It is complete or not. If there is a gap in the argument, in most cases there are two eventualities: (a) the leap is a true one assuming what others would find obvious, or (b) either an honest error in the argument or an attempt to cover up a flaw in the argument.
If there is a way to “fill in” the argument that is the only way it could be filled in, you are justified in doing so, while pointing out that you are doing so. If either of the (b) cases hold, however, you must still point them out, in order to maintain your own credibility. Especially if you are refuting an argument, the gap should be addressed and not glossed over.
You might treat the (b) situations differently, perhaps politely pointing out that the original author made an error there, or perhaps not-so-politely pointing out that something is amiss. But you still address the issue. If you do not, the onus is now on you, because you have then “adopted” that incomplete or erroneous argument.
For example: your own example argument has a rather huge and glaring hole in it: “bad-use will increase a lot and good-use will increase a little”. However, history and modern examples both show this to be false: in the real world, decriminalization has increased bad-use only slightly if at all, and good-use more. (See the paper “The Portugal Experiment” for one good example.)
Was there any problem there with my treatment of this rather gaping “gap” in your argument?