I’m making a list of common arguments that can all be resolved in the same way the “tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound” argument can be resolved.
Namely, by tabooing a key word and substituting a non-ambiguous, comprehensive description, and then finding out you were never disagreeing about anything in the first place.
Examples so far:
Is Islam a “religion of peace?”
Is there a “wall of separation between Church and State” in the US?
Is America a “Christian nation?”
Are Catholics/Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses/etc “Christian?”
“Should” women take preventative measures against sexual assault?
Is there a wall of separation between Church and Sate?
Well, what’s a wall of separation?
We all know there could be MORE religious stuff going on in government, like it could be establishing a state religion.
And we all know there could be LESS religious stuff going on in government, like all governmental officers could be forbidden from praying.
So we have a range of minimum to maximum religious stuff going on in government, and we’re somewhere in the middle, by any measure.
Identify where we are on that range, and check whether or not it’s above or below “wall of separation between Church and State” level.
Except, once you’ve identified where we are on the range, you’ve already fully described the reality of the situation. The word you use as a referent for that reality is a comparatively trivial manner. People might (and do) argue about which words we “should” use to describe reality, but right now, most of them argue about the words and think they’re arguing about reality.
Just like the sound vs no sound people on the fallen tree question
We all know there could be MORE religious stuff going on in government, like it could be establishing a state religion.
And we all know there could be LESS religious stuff going on in government, like all governmental officers could be forbidden from praying.
Sigh. The separation of church and state has quite well-specified meaning in the constitutional law. If you want to define it, look up the appropriate legal authority. Hint: it doesn’t have much to do with forbidding government officials to pray.
I agree that “resolved” may be too optimistic, but at any rate argument about these questions can (in principle) be markedly improved by moving from ill-defined questions to better-defined ones. Different people might prefer different descriptions but there’s at least some chance that when the question is framed as “which description do you prefer?” they will recognize that a large part of their disagreement is about individual preferences rather than external facts.
Suppose Alice says that Islam is a religion of peace and Bob says it isn’t. If they have this conversation:
A. Islam is a religion of peace.
B. No it’s not.
C. Alice, what do you mean by “religion of peace” and why do you say Islam is one?
A. I mean a religion whose teachings say that peace is valuable and tell its followers to seek it. Islam does those things. (Perhaps at this point Alice will adduce some quotations from the Qur’an in support of her claims. I haven’t any to hand myself.)
C. And Bob, what do you mean and why do you say Islam isn’t one?
B. I mean a religion whose followers actually behave peacefully. Muslims make up a disproportionate fraction of the world’s terrorists and even those who are not terrorists do a very bad job of living at peace with their neighbours.
… then for sure they haven’t reached agreement yet—Alice will doubtless want to suggest that it’s a small fraction of Muslims killing people and making war and so on, while Bob will doubtless want to say that there are Islamic teachings that explicitly endorse violence, etc. -- but they have made a breakthrough because now they can talk about actual facts rather than merely about definitions, and even if they never agree they will have a much clearer idea what they disagree about.
And of course each may still think the other’s usage of “religion of peace” untenable, but again they have a clearer idea what they’re disagreeing about there, and ought to be able to see e.g. that they can dispute the best definition of “religion of peace” separately from disputing how well any given definition applies to Islam.
In practice, Alice and Bob may well be too cross at one another to have so productive a conversation. But if, e.g., instead of Alice and Bob we have two ideas fighting it out within one person’s mind, the practice of separating definitional questions from factual ones is likely to be very helpful.
If everyone understood the disagreement as merely semantic, few would care (once they got used to not thinking of it as a defense of religion or of secularism or whatever).
I’m making a list of common arguments that can all be resolved in the same way the “tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound” argument can be resolved.
Namely, by tabooing a key word and substituting a non-ambiguous, comprehensive description, and then finding out you were never disagreeing about anything in the first place.
Examples so far:
Is Islam a “religion of peace?”
Is there a “wall of separation between Church and State” in the US?
Is America a “Christian nation?”
Are Catholics/Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses/etc “Christian?”
“Should” women take preventative measures against sexual assault?
Is atheism a “religion?”
Any others you can think of?
I’d like to see an example of how you resolve these.
Is there a wall of separation between Church and Sate?
Well, what’s a wall of separation?
We all know there could be MORE religious stuff going on in government, like it could be establishing a state religion.
And we all know there could be LESS religious stuff going on in government, like all governmental officers could be forbidden from praying.
So we have a range of minimum to maximum religious stuff going on in government, and we’re somewhere in the middle, by any measure.
Identify where we are on that range, and check whether or not it’s above or below “wall of separation between Church and State” level.
Except, once you’ve identified where we are on the range, you’ve already fully described the reality of the situation. The word you use as a referent for that reality is a comparatively trivial manner. People might (and do) argue about which words we “should” use to describe reality, but right now, most of them argue about the words and think they’re arguing about reality.
Just like the sound vs no sound people on the fallen tree question
Sigh. The separation of church and state has quite well-specified meaning in the constitutional law. If you want to define it, look up the appropriate legal authority. Hint: it doesn’t have much to do with forbidding government officials to pray.
-- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_church_and_state_in_the_United_States
Ah, yes, but is that really a “wall of separation of church and state?”
Here’s a religious test: does the official NOT pray on the job?
Separation of church and state is a requirement for official agnosticism, not official atheism.
I think a lot of those debates do have differences in opinion that go beyond definitions.
You’re right.
Examples of arguments which are significantly improved by applying the taboo principle are acceptable, too.
That only moves the disagreement into the decision about what description would be appropriate. I wouldn’t call that a resolution.
I agree that “resolved” may be too optimistic, but at any rate argument about these questions can (in principle) be markedly improved by moving from ill-defined questions to better-defined ones. Different people might prefer different descriptions but there’s at least some chance that when the question is framed as “which description do you prefer?” they will recognize that a large part of their disagreement is about individual preferences rather than external facts.
Suppose Alice says that Islam is a religion of peace and Bob says it isn’t. If they have this conversation:
A. Islam is a religion of peace.
B. No it’s not.
C. Alice, what do you mean by “religion of peace” and why do you say Islam is one?
A. I mean a religion whose teachings say that peace is valuable and tell its followers to seek it. Islam does those things. (Perhaps at this point Alice will adduce some quotations from the Qur’an in support of her claims. I haven’t any to hand myself.)
C. And Bob, what do you mean and why do you say Islam isn’t one?
B. I mean a religion whose followers actually behave peacefully. Muslims make up a disproportionate fraction of the world’s terrorists and even those who are not terrorists do a very bad job of living at peace with their neighbours.
… then for sure they haven’t reached agreement yet—Alice will doubtless want to suggest that it’s a small fraction of Muslims killing people and making war and so on, while Bob will doubtless want to say that there are Islamic teachings that explicitly endorse violence, etc. -- but they have made a breakthrough because now they can talk about actual facts rather than merely about definitions, and even if they never agree they will have a much clearer idea what they disagree about.
And of course each may still think the other’s usage of “religion of peace” untenable, but again they have a clearer idea what they’re disagreeing about there, and ought to be able to see e.g. that they can dispute the best definition of “religion of peace” separately from disputing how well any given definition applies to Islam.
In practice, Alice and Bob may well be too cross at one another to have so productive a conversation. But if, e.g., instead of Alice and Bob we have two ideas fighting it out within one person’s mind, the practice of separating definitional questions from factual ones is likely to be very helpful.
If everyone understood the disagreement as merely semantic, few would care (once they got used to not thinking of it as a defense of religion or of secularism or whatever).
How about “black people are less intelligent”/”asians are more intelligent”?