I’ve been thinking of this question lately, and while I agree with the main thrust of your article, I don’t think that giving all possible objections is always possible (it can get really long, and sometimes there are thematic issues). Which is why I think multiple people responding tends to be a good thing.
But more to the point, I don’t think I agree that RA is moving the goalposts. Because really, every position has many arguments pro or con where even if just one is demolished the position can survive off the others. I think the arguing technique that really is problematic is abandoning position A to go to position B while still taking A as true, thus continuing to make arguments based on A or going back to asserting A once B doesn’t work out.
I think that if someone explicitly concedes A before going on to B, and doesn’t go back to A afterwards (unless they’ve got new arguments of course) they aren’t doing anything wrong.
I’ve been thinking of this question lately, and while I agree with the main thrust of your article, I don’t think that giving all possible objections is always possible (it can get really long, and sometimes there are thematic issues). Which is why I think multiple people responding tends to be a good thing.
But more to the point, I don’t think I agree that RA is moving the goalposts. Because really, every position has many arguments pro or con where even if just one is demolished the position can survive off the others. I think the arguing technique that really is problematic is abandoning position A to go to position B while still taking A as true, thus continuing to make arguments based on A or going back to asserting A once B doesn’t work out.
I think that if someone explicitly concedes A before going on to B, and doesn’t go back to A afterwards (unless they’ve got new arguments of course) they aren’t doing anything wrong.