The most natural reading of “all men are created equal” is that it predicates the quality of ‘equal’ on all men: formally, for all men, ‘man’ implies ‘created equal’. That’s what the sentence actually means. Keep in mind that this sentence was brought up as a case of instinctual reaction to bad logic; you may have managed to replace the obvious interpretation with the intended and reasonable one in your instinctual reactions, but for someone without that training it may be entirely accurate for them to respond with “urgh” even if that’s not what people actually mean.
Keep in mind that this sentence was brought up as a case of instinctual reaction to bad logic
You make a good point. This isn’t an instance of bad logic exactly; it’s an instance of something entirely different to logic that also happens to contain nonsense.
The most natural reading of “all men are created equal” is that it predicates the quality of ‘equal’ on all men: formally, for all men, ‘man’ implies ‘created equal’. That’s what the sentence actually means. Keep in mind that this sentence was brought up as a case of instinctual reaction to bad logic; you may have managed to replace the obvious interpretation with the intended and reasonable one in your instinctual reactions, but for someone without that training it may be entirely accurate for them to respond with “urgh” even if that’s not what people actually mean.
You make a good point. This isn’t an instance of bad logic exactly; it’s an instance of something entirely different to logic that also happens to contain nonsense.