Okay, Im turning into Scott Alexander as I say this, but Im going to try to steelperson the Projective Inverse Nirvana Fallacy. The Projective Inverse Nirvana Fallacy---let me know if it has a more standard name---is as follows: Eating a 5-year-olds nose is bad. Eating a whole 5-year-old is worse. This doesnt mean its okay to eat a 5-year-olds nose. ARE YOU SAYING ITS OKAY TO EAT FIVE-YEAR-OLDS NOSES??! THAT IS TERRIBLY INSENSITIVE TO CHILD VICTIMS OF NASAL CANNIBALISM HOW COULD YOU. On a plain reading, this is a fallacy because something can be bad without being literally as bad as possible. The standard Nirvana Fallacy or Perfect Solution Fallacy is Because it is not perfect, it is not good. So we might call the reverse reasoning, Because it is not maximally bad, it is okay the Inverse Nirvana Fallacy. However, the shouting voice is not actually committing the Inverse Nirvana Fallacy; instead theyre acting as if they expect the other person has committed the Inverse Nirvana Fallacy, even despite the disclaimer. So we could call this the Projective Inverse Nirvana Fallacy. The steel version would be as follows. The human brain only has room for a finite amount of indignation because it only has so many neurotransmitters, and we have an awful lot of behavioral economics showing that people tend to evaluate desirability by reference to comparison points. Therefore it is *not* *actually* possible for someone to avoid the Inverse Nirvana Fallacy in themselves and their listeners. If somebody is currently worked up about how bad X is, and you establish Y, which is worse, as a comparison point, they will very probably, and not easily avoidably, become less worked up about X. Therefore anyone trying to put together a coalition against X has a legitimate worry about anyone who strolls in loudly saying, I agree X is very bad. By the way, Y is even worse than X. The statement is true, but as a speech act in context, it seems like an attempt to sabotage a coalition against X that does best if people can remain genuinely outraged against X, without giving their brains a chance to establish Y as a comparison point. Saying that you agree X is bad doesnt excuse you from this because you cant avoid the event in other peoples brains. Okay, now counterargument against the steel version: If we allow this as an argument from People Against X, then we can never actually state the true fact that Y is worse than X and have public debates about how to scale punishments, leaving us with the Draconian code (after Dracon of Athens, 7th century BCE) that goes directly from zero punishments to maximum punishments. This has numerous problems, one of which is that theres no further disincentive against progressively worse acts. (E.g., My troops, what is the penalty for rebellion? Death. What is the penalty for lateness? Death. My troops, we are late.) I am curious as to what happens if you say on Twitter some realistic example of Eating a childs nose should be punished by X years in prison, and eating a whole child should be punished by X+Y years in prison, without saying directly that one is worse. Unfortunately I have no good way of finding out.
Posted on: Thu, 31 Jul 2014 21:58:43 +0000
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