I don’t think the abortion example is a good example. The people who say “abortion is murder’ genuinely believe it is murder, that everything wrong with murder is wrong with abortion for the same reasons. If you believe in souls and in “thou shalt not kill” as the fundamental reasons why murder is wrong then abortion is murder, not just technically but actually, associations and all.
Now from an outside perspective, you could argue that the reasons why Christianity considers murder to be wrong ultimately boil down to the fact that it’s generally a good view to have, which in turn is because of the reasons you give. Those reasons also prevent your typical Christian from feeling a sense of dissonance between the rule ’thou shalt not kill” and reality, because the two mostly match. But to an actual Christian, the reason murder is wrong is entirely “God said so”.
My description of Chirstians there of course doesn’t cover all of them (indeed no non-trivial description does), but it covers the people making those signs. To them, the problem appears to be that other Christians have forgotten this self evident fact and need reminding of it.
In short, from the worldview of the people making that argument, the fallacy is not being comitted. Whether abortion is murder is not clouding the debate, it basically is the entire debate.Therefore it is not a good example to use for this fallacy.
They are still appealing to your feelings about murder and you are entitled to respond “That’s TWAitW, the typical case of murder bothers me because of XYZ, which aren’t present here.” I feel like the phrase “That’s TWAitW” is adding to that sentence by explaining that, to you, this might be a case of murder you don’t care about, so just hammering on “it’s murder” won’t persuade you.
“Self evident” beliefs could be the basis of any of the examples, e.g. “theft is wrong because we have a right to our property” could be a belief supporting the statement “Taxes are theft, therefore taxes are wrong.” But when they use “Taxes are theft, therefore taxes are wrong” as persuasive argument, they are in fact appealing to my definition of theft and to my feelings towards theft, in an attempt to get from the common ground of “theft is wrong” to the new ground “taxes are wrong.” That’s TWAitW.
I don’t think the abortion example is a good example. The people who say “abortion is murder’ genuinely believe it is murder, that everything wrong with murder is wrong with abortion for the same reasons. If you believe in souls and in “thou shalt not kill” as the fundamental reasons why murder is wrong then abortion is murder, not just technically but actually, associations and all.
Now from an outside perspective, you could argue that the reasons why Christianity considers murder to be wrong ultimately boil down to the fact that it’s generally a good view to have, which in turn is because of the reasons you give. Those reasons also prevent your typical Christian from feeling a sense of dissonance between the rule ’thou shalt not kill” and reality, because the two mostly match. But to an actual Christian, the reason murder is wrong is entirely “God said so”.
My description of Chirstians there of course doesn’t cover all of them (indeed no non-trivial description does), but it covers the people making those signs. To them, the problem appears to be that other Christians have forgotten this self evident fact and need reminding of it.
In short, from the worldview of the people making that argument, the fallacy is not being comitted. Whether abortion is murder is not clouding the debate, it basically is the entire debate.Therefore it is not a good example to use for this fallacy.
They are still appealing to your feelings about murder and you are entitled to respond “That’s TWAitW, the typical case of murder bothers me because of XYZ, which aren’t present here.” I feel like the phrase “That’s TWAitW” is adding to that sentence by explaining that, to you, this might be a case of murder you don’t care about, so just hammering on “it’s murder” won’t persuade you.
“Self evident” beliefs could be the basis of any of the examples, e.g. “theft is wrong because we have a right to our property” could be a belief supporting the statement “Taxes are theft, therefore taxes are wrong.” But when they use “Taxes are theft, therefore taxes are wrong” as persuasive argument, they are in fact appealing to my definition of theft and to my feelings towards theft, in an attempt to get from the common ground of “theft is wrong” to the new ground “taxes are wrong.” That’s TWAitW.