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).
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).