An acquaintance, hearing someone speculate that some of the advocates of defunding the police may be less than transparent about their motives, asked, “Isn’t that just a conspiracy theory?”  Another fellow I spoke with reacted to someone’s suggestion that not all sexual acts are morally equivalent by demanding, “Isn't that just homophobia?”  And a student responded to the reasoning of a religious author by sneering, “Isn’t that just a religious argument?”

What’s I find interesting is that although all three persons thought they were heading off fallacies, actually all three were committing them.  The kinds they committed were fallacies of distraction.  Each one deflected the question instead of considering it, then considered the deflection a rebuttal.

My acquaintance didn’t inquire into whether the people in question really were concealing their motives -- much less whether someone who suggests concealment is necessarily suggesting cooperation in the concealment – much less whether anyone ever does conceal his motives – much less whether anyone ever does cooperate in the act -- much less whether that could have been happening in the case at hand.

The second fellow didn’t consider whether the motive for making a suggestion automatically disqualifies it – much less whether the only possible motive for making moral distinctions among sexual acts is a pathological fear or “phobia” – much less whether all such acts really are morally equivalent.

And the student didn’t reflect upon whether the religious writer’s argument really was premised on his faith – much less whether an argument might be valid even if it were premised on faith – much less whether the argument at hand was valid.

I sometimes hear that people need more training in formal inference.  Maybe so.  But we have a much greater need to learn about “informal” fallacies, errors that occur not because we violate the rules of inference but because we are distracted from the point we are discussing.  This brings me to one of my pet peeves.  For when we do teach about informal fallacies, we often compound the problem by teaching them – well -- fallaciously.

For example, students are endlessly warned against reasoning ad populum, which is appealing to what most people think.  But taking seriously what most people think is not always a fallacy.  We shouldn’t take seriously the opinions of most people about things they know nothing about, but we should certainly take seriously the opinions of most people about matters of shared experience or inside knowledge.  For example, the only reason that can be given for the proposition that when people do things, they do them for motives, is that all people recognize that they do.

Similarly, students are tirelessly cautioned to think for themselves and take nothing on authority.  But giving special weight to the opinion of someone who knows more than we do about something is not always a fallacy either.  It is one thing to trust someone’s political opinions just because he is a cancer expert, but a very different thing to give weight to his opinions about cancer.

Bad reasoning is pervasive.  We all slip into it at times.  The great thing is to catch ourselves.

Query:

Your blog has been helpful to me.  I have a question regarding how to get rid of what Thomas Aquinas would describe as a disordered appetite.  Is the following explanation right? -- When a particular appetite is disordered in a certain way, and subsequently the person seeks to correct it by directing towards its proper object, then ultimately, with a lot of sincerity and time and effort, he is able to do so.  Once the disorder is corrected, the disordered appetite no longer exists.

Reply:

Not exactly.  A few distinctions may be helpful.  I think you are asking about natural appetites, such as the desire for food, rather than acquired appetites, such as the appetite to play chess.  An acquired appetite can exist only as a modification of one or more natural appetites.  For instance, the appetite to play chess is a modification of the natural appetite for the exercise of our natural powers.

Natural appetites always exist in some form, but they may exist in either well-ordered or disordered conditions.  For example, the natural appetite for food is well-ordered in a temperate man, but disordered in a glutton.  Although the natural appetites are good in themselves – they belong to our nature and we ought to have them – a disorder in a natural appetite is bad for us.  So desiring food is good, but gluttony is a vice.

You’re entirely right to say that the appetites become well-ordered through virtue.  Some virtues, such as temperance, are called “acquired” because they are developed by discipline and habituation.  What your account leaves out is that there also exist other virtues, epitomized by faith, hope, and charity.  These other virtues are called “infused” because they are poured into the soul by the grace of God, made possible by the atoning work of Christ. 

The infused virtues make the exercise of the acquired virtues easier.  For example, charity makes it possible to will the true good even of persons for whom we do not have natural affection.  But there is more, because the infused virtues don’t just discipline motive – they uplift and transform it.  It is a good thing to love my wife.  It is quite another thing – and much better – to participate in the very love with which God loves her.

Human beings must cooperate with the grace that creates the infused virtues in us, but even the very power to cooperate with grace is a gift of grace.  Unlike the acquired virtues, the infused virtues cannot be ginned up by our own power.  Apart from grace, we are helpless to attain them.

So the infused virtues can accomplish a lot toward putting the soul in good order, and that’s what’s right about the way you put it.  With effort, I may make good progress.  But eventually I hit a wall – or a ceiling -- through which I can break only with the help of divine grace.

Over the last few years I’ve heard this more often from my students:  Federalism is problematic because if different states do things differently, they are unequal.  Equality is taken to mean uniformity.  The gist of the complaint isn’t that people in some states may bear greater burdens, or that they may participate less fully in the common good, but just that they don't all act the same way.

I find this view especially interesting, because in other contexts everyone sings the praises of “diversity” – but not in this case, in which diversity may actually count for something.

The coalition that has just taken power in Germany has announced that among other things, it wants to lower the voting age to 16.  The proposal isn’t surprising, because most coalition supporters are young.  Enacting it would require a constitutional amendment.

Needless to say, a lot of people everywhere think the very young should vote.  I’ve heard suggestions to reduce the voting age to 12.  A 2011 article in The New Republic seriously proposed – if any such proposal can be called serious – that every citizen have a right to vote from birth.  Quite a few adolescents are included in the ranks of social media “influencers.”  Consider the career of Greta Thunberg, who has been lecturing the world about what to do about climate change since age 15.

We used to venerate age and experience.  Now we venerate youth and callowness.  But we knew that already.  Let me get to my point.

People who discuss lowering the voting age – not only those for it but also those against – assume that it would mean a transfer of political influence to the young.

That is absurd.  It would mean no such thing.

Although the very young are often very sure of their opinions and convinced that they have made up their own minds, they lack the maturity to form their minds independently.  So to lower the voting age would not mean increasing the political influence of the young.  It would only mean increasing the political clout of those who have influence through the young.

Pop stars.  Sports coaches.  Schoolteachers.  Writers and editors of media aimed at teens.  Especially people in such groups who have no children of their own to take up their time and attention.

I hope none of us were thinking that classrooms full of pre-teens who just happen to write letters about their teachers’ favorite issues to the president are getting the idea on their own.

Increasing the political clout of certain grown-ups through the medium of the young would have a secondary effect too.  It would vastly increase the political stakes in the institutions through which these people gain access to the immature minds whom they seek to influence.  So one could expect further politicization of entertainment, primary and secondary education, youth athletics, children’s and “young adults” books, and teen magazines and media.

Political persuasion would become an even more important motive for entering these fields than it already is – and anyone who thinks it isn’t already a motive hasn’t been paying attention.

In all ages up to this one, the chief influencers of young people have been parents.  Now, not so much.  We seem to be okay with that.  Why we are is a very good question, to which no one seems to have an answer.

Recently I spoke with a highly intelligent lady who was puzzled by the divisions of our times.  “I can’t understand them,” she said, “because I think most people want the same thing.”  She reasoned that something must be muddying the picture, giving the impression that people disagree more than they do.  She and other participants in the conversation suggested several possible muddiers.  Biased news reporting.  Twitter, and other social media.  The power of money in politics.

There was a good deal to these suggestions, but even so I was a bit skeptical about the premise that most people want the same thing.  Having been less than successful in explaining why, I probably left an impression of cynicism.  Well, that’s the nice thing about having a blog.  You can have another go.

Do most people want the same thing?  When we discuss this question, we usually talk past each other, because the answer depends on what we mean.

In one sense, all people do want the same thing.  Everyone wants to be happy, and it isn’t even possible to will some course of action except “under the aspect of good.”  Nobody pursues unhappiness, nor anyone evil, for its own sake.

But people may entertain radically different conceptions of what happiness is and how it is to be attained, and they are capable of justifying great wickedness “under the aspect of good.”  Anyone who gives thought to the matter will realize that in fact, there is no other way in which wickedness can be justified.  Evil trades on good; that’s how it works.

Burn down stores in the name of justice.  Mock and oppress those who disagree with you for the sake of toleration.  Pervert the administration of justice so that bad people won’t have their way.  Falsify and suppress history to bring a better tomorrow.  Drag filth into public schools so that children will cherish diversity.

Twitter and all those other things can exacerbate such perversions of the good, and that is important.  But they don’t generate them.  Agreement at one level, with conflict at another, is an inevitable condition of life under the conditions of the Fall. 

There really is a law written on the heart, and this is a permanent advantage of good.  But moral laws can be made engines of their own violation, and this is a permanent advantage of evil.  To forget the former advantage is to risk losing heart.  To forget the latter one is to risk becoming naïve.