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62(P) - Logic for Leftists and Reactionary Sophistry ft. Ben Burgis (Patreon)

Published:
2018-12-02 18:25:10
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2026-06
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Content

Ben Burgis (@BenBurgis), lecturer at Rutgers University and author of the forthcoming book "Give Them An Argument: Logic for the Left" joins us to discuss the uses and misuses of logic in comtemporary political debate. Logic's relationship with morality. Libertarians, Ben Shapiro's misuse of 'logic.' Reclaiming the actual history of the philosphophy of logic.

Comments

John Harwood

Yay! Really enjoyed this. Would be awesome to have an Illicit History on Haldane...left biologist who not only did important work debunking eugenics, But was also a prominent communist and critic of aerial bombardment. But just keep doing what you’re doing, TMBS. Thx.

Douglas Hathaway

I may actually buy this book. I took symbolic reasoning/intro to logic as an elective when I was getting my geology degree. The context then was using deductive reasoning to prove math arguments, or evaluate other physically verifiable statements. I've never understood how to apply them to political/social science arguments, because the premises always seem too malleable.

Bijou Smith

It's also worth pointing out that most people profoundly suck at probabilistic reasoning, and yet probabilistic reasoning is pretty much involved in everything of any social-political relevance outside of pure deductive logic. If you study and become adept at probabilistic reasoning then a lot of nuances become expressible and you can make some pretty iron clad arguments without insisting on black or white conclusions. However, probabilities are very difficult, and it takes considerable effort to learn to use probabilities well. I hope Burgis writes about this.

Bijou Smith

At the risk of being accused of nerdery, it is perfectly correct that "if everyone is reasonable with each other they will sit down and figure out what the right polices are", then the big problems can be solved, because part of being reasonable is being able to change policy when what was tried clearly does not work. For example, if people could be so reasonable then neoliberal capitalism would by now be considered plain wrong, and we'd be trying out something else. The flaw in that as a political strategy (relying on people being reasonable and having a dialogue to decide on good policy) is that ideologues on both sides, but especially those whose ideology is one of vicious greed, hijack such attempts at reason. Real politics will thus always be an arena where emotions play a greater role than logic. So the art of a great politician is to know first what good policies are that will enable greater democracy and justice, but then also know how to frame these in strong emotive terms, and then use such emotion to win over (or defeat) the cynical and sinister --- which I think is what Mandela was able to do, and Lula too as far as he was able, but I struggle to think of any US leader who can do the same other than Bernie and those who support him.

Bijou Smith

Ben B's advice on the Shapiro Sorites fallacy was not very satisfying. The advice lefties need is how to counter the obvious emotional argument that the fallacy generates. Why should a woman have a right to choose? Because Shapiro could, once corned by Sorites, then escape easily by going full abstract and saying the termination of even a potential life is criminal. So the counter has to be that only a society as a whole can set legal norms about such issues as "potential life" and to the extent we are forced to live in a particular society (if we have no choice in that matter, like being able to move) then we must abide by the laws that have been debated, or otherwise work hard to advocate to change them. So Shapiro needs to be put on the spot about why he wants to change the law. Then to defend a woman's right to choose has at least two levels, one is the legal precedent (which thankfully in the USA is currently to the reasonable one based on social norms), and the other is moral: which is that we cannot be held morally responsible for another persons free moral choices --- and on this matter there is nothing preventing Shapiro from trying to educate people on how to deal with the psychological pressures in evolved with abortion decisions, he just doesn't have the right to make the final moral choice for everyone. The conservatives do not seem to understand this, but at least the libertarians might(?), in any case, that's my 2 cents worth on this one. It just isn't politically effective to shame someone for using a false logic. Sometime you have to just nuke their moral core and expose their moral hypocrisy. This is often far better than just pointing out their logic was faulty.

Ben Burgis
>>17677442

The problem (I'd argue) is that whether or not a policy is "working" depends on your goals, and that not everyone has the same goals.

Ben Burgis
>>17682225

I agree that pointing out the flaws in arguments can't be the beginning and end of our response to these guys. I do, however, think it should be one of several tools at our disposal.

Dark Alliance

"Use of force is never justifiable".. So if your porn collection is child porn or if you're a murderer, society should leave you off the hook?

Hampus Bystrom
>>17700346

The problems with libertarians is that it's all just a coherent-seeming mush of principles out of context, devoid of any actual human experience. The non agression principle is fine in abstract, but what does it tell us about legitimacy or even property as it actually exists in society? The property regime under capitalism is not so simple that you can just say "that's your mug and that's my glass", a social division of disposal of resources that even a child can figure out. It's a fucking huge network of claims on revenue streams, the source of which is often hard to determine, ultimately based on the exploitation of human labor and natural resources. How large the share of this goes to investors is regulated in law and by the board of directors, i.e. arbitrary and based on convetions and what society at large accepts.

Kathy Ross

Great interview! Made me think of a article in the Atlantic by Paul Bloom "The Dark Side of Empathy How caring for one person can foster baseless aggression towards another" Paul also did a podcast with Sam Harris on empathy. Paul believes that empathy can lead to bad moral judgment and bad social policy. I need to check out his book. <a href="https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/407155/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/407155/</a>

Chris

Ben Burgis DESTROYS "Facts and Logic"... with FACTS and LOGIC!!

John Horton

The non-aggression principle is incoherent to begin with. How does one establish who owns what property without force? Even Ayn Rand herself argued that it was just to mass murder native peoples in the Americas because they weren't using the land efficiently enough according to her. Really American libertarianism is just racism masked as philosophy, and it's nice and convenient that Ayn Rand so succinctly made the point for people like me.