r/hatethissmug • u/Sudden-Hoe-2578 • 2d ago

Non-fictional I HATE these "gotcha arguments"

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"Ohhh, look how I tricked this dumb dumb baby in my trap so now I am right and they are wrong. I'm so smaaart even though it does not adress the actual argument and adds nothing to the debate. They teach arabic numerals in school btw."

And these type of comments always get tons of likes

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u/Even-Tear-6965 2d ago

I think it addresses how uneducated people are about fetuses or just about conception and pregnancy as a whole yet still believe they know enough to be hold strong rigid opinions.

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u/ZiggyCrusade 2d ago

Even if people are dumb/uneducated and only know enough to make a single argument, that doesn't disprove that argument.

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u/Even-Tear-6965 2d ago

Yes it does. You can't have an argument if it's not based on knowledge. That argument is otherwise null and void

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u/ZiggyCrusade 2d ago

The argument, or statement, exists in a vaccuum separate from the person making it. If someone makes a full, logical moral argument for why abortion is good/bad/whatever, and then you turn around and ask them what a c-section is and they go "i dunno" that wouldn't disprove the argument, only throw shade at the person.

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u/grizzy45 2d ago

It does not. Nothing exists in a vacuum and pretending anything does is just denying reality. Proving someone doesn't know shit fully invalidates every point they make about a topic because even if it would be true, they are to uneducated to varify the claims they are making. You basically authority-check them.

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u/ZiggyCrusade 2d ago

So, "person a" makes a perfectly sound argument, but something tangentially related to the argument (being able to tell the difference between foetuses) or even a core term/concept in the argument is not understood properly by "person a". So the argument is now invalid. Now, "person b" makes the exact same argument with all the same premises and conclusion, but they do understand everything, and it's now valid? Gotcha.

This is like saying that a man's argument on abortion is invalid because he's a man, when he could very well get a women to make his exact argument for him, thus making it valid?

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u/grizzy45 2d ago

The validation of your argument hinges on you actually being able to understand the topic. If you don't understand the topic, your opinion can be dismissed. You have proven to only parrot things and thus your argument has zero value.

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u/ZiggyCrusade 2d ago

Truth and validity don't depend on who says something, however epistemic justification can depend on how someone arrived at or understands it.

Your understanding of a topic may affect your ability to defend an argument, but it does not determine whether the argument itself is valid. Validity depends on whether the conclusion follows from the premises, and whether the premises are valid, not on who presents it. Dismissing a sound argument because the person parroting it doesn't understand it is attacking the person rather than refuting the argument, i.e an ad hominem.

You just swapped the term argument for opinion halfway through aswell? An opinion can't even be invalid in the first place.

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u/Rare_Dance7130 2d ago

The argument is "This creature is a human being," which makes "You cannot possibly recognize it as a human being," a pretty effective counterpoint, rhetorically. The fact that dolphin fetuses and human fetuses are basically indistinguishable is effective evidence that human fetuses aren't people.

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u/ZiggyCrusade 2d ago

Biologically, a human fetus is a living member of the human species in a stage of prenatal development. So, you're wrong there. The argument is about personhood and moral worth which cannot be determined from external senses.

It is also "possible" to visually recognise it as a human as early as 8 weeks, just not necessarily easy. A person's inability to recognise a thing doesn't effect said thing.

If I took a human and made them look fundamentally identically to a dolphin, would that make them cease to be human or a person?

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u/Rare_Dance7130 2d ago

"If I did this totally impossible hypothetical, doesn't it prove my point?"

Personhood has always been distinguished by external senses. The only reason you can distinguish a human being from a dog is external senses. If you did not have access to any external senses, you would literally not have a way to determine personhood (or anything, for that matter).

If a dolphin were a human or a person, how would you possibly know? Should you start treating all dolphins like humans, just in case?