Most of your comment seems to indicate that we’ve more or less reached the end of how much we can productively untangle our disagreement (at least, without full-length, top-level posts from one or both of us), but I would like to resolve this bit:
the substantive claim that someone who does not respond to “How are you?” with a report of their actual state, is “going to lie quite a lot about pretty important things …”.
This is a pretty severe misquote. Read what I wrote.
Well, first of all, to the extent that it’s a quote (which only part of it is), it’s not a misquote, per se, because you really did write those words, in that order. I assume what you meant is that it is a misrepresentation/mischaracterization of what you said and meant—which I am entirely willing to accept! (It would simply mean that I misunderstood what you were getting at; that is not hard at all to believe.)
So, could you explain in what way my attempted paraphrase/summary mischaracterized your point? I confess it does not seem to me to be a misrepresentation, except insofar as it brackets assumptions which, to me, seem both (a) flawed and unwarranted, and (b) not critical to the claim, per se (for all that they may be necessary to justify or support the claim).
Agreed that further engagement here on the disagreement is not that productive. Here’s what I said:
If someone is going to lie whenever the cost-benefit analysis looks at least as favorable to lying as it does in the “saying you are fine when you are not fine” case, then they’re going to lie quite a lot about pretty important things, whenever telling the truth about these things would be comparably awkward.
I am not saying that, if someone says they are fine when they are not fine, then necessarily they will lie about important things. They could be making an unprincipled exception. I am instead saying that, if they lied whenever the cost-benefit analysis looks at least as favorable to lying as in the “saying you are fine when you are not fine” case, then they’re likely going to end up lying about some pretty important things that are really awkward to talk about.
Yes, this is correct. The exception is entirely principled (really, I’d say it’s not even an exception, in the sense that the situation is not within the category of those to which the rule applies in the first place).
I see. It seems those assumptions I mentioned are ones which you consider much more important to your point than I consider them to be, which, I suppose, is not terribly surprising. (I do still think they are unwarranted.)
I will have to consider turning what I’ve been trying to say here into a top-level post (which may be no more than a list of links and blurbs; as I said, there has been a good deal of discussion about this stuff already).
Most of your comment seems to indicate that we’ve more or less reached the end of how much we can productively untangle our disagreement (at least, without full-length, top-level posts from one or both of us), but I would like to resolve this bit:
Well, first of all, to the extent that it’s a quote (which only part of it is), it’s not a misquote, per se, because you really did write those words, in that order. I assume what you meant is that it is a misrepresentation/mischaracterization of what you said and meant—which I am entirely willing to accept! (It would simply mean that I misunderstood what you were getting at; that is not hard at all to believe.)
So, could you explain in what way my attempted paraphrase/summary mischaracterized your point? I confess it does not seem to me to be a misrepresentation, except insofar as it brackets assumptions which, to me, seem both (a) flawed and unwarranted, and (b) not critical to the claim, per se (for all that they may be necessary to justify or support the claim).
Agreed that further engagement here on the disagreement is not that productive. Here’s what I said:
I am not saying that, if someone says they are fine when they are not fine, then necessarily they will lie about important things. They could be making an unprincipled exception. I am instead saying that, if they lied whenever the cost-benefit analysis looks at least as favorable to lying as in the “saying you are fine when you are not fine” case, then they’re likely going to end up lying about some pretty important things that are really awkward to talk about.
I think that Said is arguing that they’re making a *principled* exception. Vaniver’s comment makes a decent case for this.
Yes, this is correct. The exception is entirely principled (really, I’d say it’s not even an exception, in the sense that the situation is not within the category of those to which the rule applies in the first place).
I see. It seems those assumptions I mentioned are ones which you consider much more important to your point than I consider them to be, which, I suppose, is not terribly surprising. (I do still think they are unwarranted.)
I will have to consider turning what I’ve been trying to say here into a top-level post (which may be no more than a list of links and blurbs; as I said, there has been a good deal of discussion about this stuff already).