Which claim are you questioning here? That they are ad-hominem *or* that ad-hominems will make the person defensive *or*that making someone defensive makes them less likely to listen to reason?
As far as what I’m assuming, well… have you ever tried telling someone that they are being stupid or dishonest during an argument, or had someone do this to you? It pretty much always goes down as I described, at least in my experience.
There are certainly situations when it’s appropriate, and I do it with close friends and appreciate it when they call out my stupidity and dishonesty, but that’s only because there is already an established common ground of mutual trust, understanding and respect, and there’s a lot of nuance in these situations that can’t be compressed into a simple causal model...
have you ever tried telling someone that they are being stupid or dishonest during an argument, or had someone do this to you? It pretty much always goes down as I described, at least in my experience.
I am asking how your comments are related to the post.
1. The OP proposes that ‘wrongness is caused by stupidity and dishonesty’.
You say this reasoning is counterproductive because 2. ‘telling someone they are being stupid or dishonest during an argument is a bad idea’.
I consider the first claim so obvious it isn’t clear why it is being mentioned (unless there is a goal of iterating in text everything that is known). I consider the second claim more useful, but their connection in this context is not. You seem to be making the assumption ‘someone is wrong because of X → therefore I should say they are wrong because of X’, as part of your rebuttal, despite believing the opposite.
I see what you are saying. I think an assumption I’m making is that it is correct to say what you believe in an argument. I’m not always successful at this, but if my heuristics where telling me that the person I’m talking to is stupid or dishonest, it would definitely come through the subtext even if I didn’t say it out loud. People are generally pretty perceptive and I’m not a good liar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt defensive without knowing why.
I’m also making the assumption that what the OP labels as wrongness is often only a perception of wrongness, or disagreement. This assumption obviously doesn’t always apply. However, whether I perceive someone as ‘wrong’ or ‘taking a different stance’ has something to do with whether I’ve labeled them as stupid or dishonest. There’s a feedback loop that I’d like to avoid, especially if I’m talking to someone reasonable.
If I believed that the person I was talking to was genuinely stupid or dishonest I would just stop talking to them. Usually there are other signals for this though, although it’s true that one of the strongest signals is being extremely stubborn about easily verifiable facts.
Why are you assuming one would share such observations?
Which claim are you questioning here? That they are ad-hominem *or* that ad-hominems will make the person defensive *or*that making someone defensive makes them less likely to listen to reason?
As far as what I’m assuming, well… have you ever tried telling someone that they are being stupid or dishonest during an argument, or had someone do this to you? It pretty much always goes down as I described, at least in my experience.
There are certainly situations when it’s appropriate, and I do it with close friends and appreciate it when they call out my stupidity and dishonesty, but that’s only because there is already an established common ground of mutual trust, understanding and respect, and there’s a lot of nuance in these situations that can’t be compressed into a simple causal model...
I am asking how your comments are related to the post.
1. The OP proposes that ‘wrongness is caused by stupidity and dishonesty’.
You say this reasoning is counterproductive because 2. ‘telling someone they are being stupid or dishonest during an argument is a bad idea’.
I consider the first claim so obvious it isn’t clear why it is being mentioned (unless there is a goal of iterating in text everything that is known). I consider the second claim more useful, but their connection in this context is not. You seem to be making the assumption ‘someone is wrong because of X → therefore I should say they are wrong because of X’, as part of your rebuttal, despite believing the opposite.
I see what you are saying. I think an assumption I’m making is that it is correct to say what you believe in an argument. I’m not always successful at this, but if my heuristics where telling me that the person I’m talking to is stupid or dishonest, it would definitely come through the subtext even if I didn’t say it out loud. People are generally pretty perceptive and I’m not a good liar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they felt defensive without knowing why.
I’m also making the assumption that what the OP labels as wrongness is often only a perception of wrongness, or disagreement. This assumption obviously doesn’t always apply. However, whether I perceive someone as ‘wrong’ or ‘taking a different stance’ has something to do with whether I’ve labeled them as stupid or dishonest. There’s a feedback loop that I’d like to avoid, especially if I’m talking to someone reasonable.
If I believed that the person I was talking to was genuinely stupid or dishonest I would just stop talking to them. Usually there are other signals for this though, although it’s true that one of the strongest signals is being extremely stubborn about easily verifiable facts.