I’ll type straight if you’ll think straight
In his response to something I wrote here yesterday, the National Review‘s Ramesh Ponnuru points out that I mispelled his last name. (“Matthew Boudway is so indignant over a post of mine that he can’t even type straight.”) I apologize to him for that. A Boudway can never be too careful about names. Anyway, it was not for lack of familiarity with his work: I think Ponnuru is one of the bright spots at NR, even if I disagree with him most of the time.
In my post, I remarked that Ponnuru presented no arguments about whether the Senate bill would fund elective abortions, and I criticized him for instead focusing on what he called “politics”: the question of whose arguments most prolifers were likely to trust — not whose arguments were better, nor even whose argument should be trusted. I had also faulted the Weekly Standard piece he recommended for suggesting, without evidence, that community health centers performed abortions. Ponnuru responds:
1) You don’t have to offer an argument when all you’re doing is endorsing someone else’s. 2) I don’t see why we should credit the claim of an association of community health centers that not one of its members has ever performed an abortion absent some explanation of how it purports to know this alleged fact. 3) Even if the fact is stipulated it tells us nothing about how some of the CHCs will in the future respond to some activists’ concerted efforts, already underway, to get them to offer abortions. 4) I argued that most pro-lifers were going to trust the National Right to Life Committee rather than, say, Commonweal on these issues and that this fact would have political implications. Boudway calls this passage “a textbook example of the ad hominem argument.” Not if the textbook has an editor.
To which I’ll answer with four points of my own. First: When all you’re doing is endorsing someone else’s bad arguments for your conclusion, you should not be surprised if people ask you to provide some good ones instead.
Second: Ponnuru gets the burden of proof exactly backward. It is up to people on his side of this debate to produce evidence that community health centers have performed abortions. Those who represent the centers claim they haven’t, and that claim has been widely reported in the media as a fact. Perhaps Ponnuru could tell us what sort of evidence would satisfy him on this point.
Third: The fact that prochoice activists would like community health centers to start performing abortions doesn’t mean they probably will — any more than the fact that I spelled his name “Punnuru” means that he’ll probably start spelling it that way himself, or the fact that I would like him to start presenting good arguments instead of recommending bad ones means that he will. (That “concerted efforts, already underway” is a gem: those efforts have been “underway” — and unsuccessful – for decades.)
Fourth: An ad hominem argument is one about the character of an argument’s source rather than its merit. This is precisely the sort of argument that Ponnuru was making: What right-thinking prolifer would ever trust the arguments of Commonweal? By opposing talk of politics to the question of an argument’s merits, Ponnuru is identifying politics with irrationality, ignorance, and prejudice: Who knows who’s right, and who cares? These people will believe whatever the National Right to Life Committee tells them, and thank God for that. That way of approaching the question does indeed have political implications, and they aren’t good.
Matthew – I hope you’re right and that Ponnuru is wrong. Regarding #3 above: that strikes me as the crux of the matter here. It is certainly comforting that, despite decades of effort by pro-choice advocates, CHCs currently don’t provide abortions.
But of course something has changed significantly now: now there is a new health care reform law/reconciliation amendment/executive order that either will or will not provide more ammunition for those efforts. I confess that I’m still not going to feel completely sanguine until we see those efforts thwarted under provisions of the new law.
Why is Ponnuru’s suggestion that people weigh the source of arguments to assess their merits an ad hominem attack or somehow bad for democracy? It seems to me people do this all the time; in fact its rational to do so. It takes an enormous amount of time and energy to assess any argument, let alone the health care debate (I have yet to make it to the end of an Ezra Klein piece, but I don’t doubt he knows what he;s talking about). In fact, Democrats dismissed outright the accusations against John Edwards because they were printed in the National Enquirer, and the MSM totally wrote off that story. Same with health care. I didn’t have time to read the minutiae of the SEnate language about abortion – and I’m a lawyer who gets paid to read minutiae. But Bart Stupak said it allowed for federal funding, he’s a Democrat, he’s pro-life – I assumed that if he said the bill allowed for it, there must be some colorable argument that it does. What’s wrong with that way of assessing an argument? Ad hominem attacks to me are more of the “he’s wearing a red tie, what does that Communist know?” variety rather than assessing a person’s expertise and making conclusions about his arguments.
ISTM that Jeff makes a valid point. What we’re dealing with here is really an argument from authority, which is relying on the competence of someone else.
Aquinas says arguments from authority are the weakest of all, but he does not say they are worthless. Sometimes we are justified in relying on them (e.g., on a diagnosis by a team of great MDs.), sometimes not (e.g., on a story in the National Inquirer). The doctors know more than we do so it is reasonable to rely on them. The National Inquirer usually deals in rumor or fantasy rather than real evidence, so even if it has been right on occasion it is not reasonable to rely on it unless it presents very strong evidence.
The problem is to determine which so-called “authorities” really know what they’re talking about and will tell the truth as they see it.
One criterion that can help us establish reliability is whether or not the person is *logical*. Logic is internal to their arguments, and we do not need to know whether or not they’ve gotten their facts right to criticize their logic. When an authority is regularly inconsistent that hands us a great big red flag — don’t trust this guy to reach the truth.
Another mark of a truly rational person is whether he/she engages in self-criticism, and a related one is whether or not the person accepts deserved criticism from others.
Then there’s the matter of checking out facts. Does the “authority” ignore what most other authorities recognize as facts?
Other signs of reliability — or at least of veracity — are that the person admits being wrong, and, perhaps strongest of all, does the person ever criticize the positions of folks “on his own side”? That is a matter of veracity and takes courage.
None of this touches on the person’s knowledge of facts. It does touch on reasonableness, veracity, and the courage to admit mistakes.
Then there’s spin. Chuck it.
Ann,
pretty neat set of criteria. Thanks!
Whew! I mean ‘Whoosh” (The sound of something besides the hot air and lemming-like opinion we have been reading on this blog):
“The fresh air we need is the clean breath of the Holy Spirit coming like the wind, blowing as He pleases…”
…Thomas Merton
Thank you Ramesh, Jim, and Jeff, for considering some reasonable questions from the right. Maybe I’ll renew my subscription, after all.
The issue is not merely authority, it’s credibility and trustworthiness. Look at the National Enquirer’s record in the past, and what it might cost them if they’re wrong. Then decide what they’ve placed at risk and balance that against what you might be risking if you decide to accept such an authority.
People buy the Enquirer for entertainment and they get their money’s worth, regardless of the truth of the story. By that measure, entertainment value is more important than truth.
On the other hand, many buy the WSJ for the accuracy and throughness of its financial reporting. If it misrepresents or distorts that or gets the facts wrong, people lose money and it’s out of business (no matter how much the reader loves its op-ed content).
Thanks, everyone, for your comments. Thanks especially to Jeff and Ann (one of a handful of regulars whose comments are often better than the posts that occasion them, as in this case).
Jeff, I did not use the term “ad hominem attack”; I used the term “ad hominem argument.” Not all instances of ad hominem arguments are negative, though I acknowledge that we usually use the term to describe some kind of character assassination. I think it would be pretty well impossible, and not at all advisable, to avoid ad hominem judgments altogether, for some of the reasons you and Ann point out. My point here was not that it’s always a mistake to consider the competence or authority of a source. My point was that it is in this case a mistake for someone in Ponnuru’s position to skip past — or “leave aside” — an analysis of the arguments themselves on his way to posing the question “Who are they going to believe?” That question, as Ponnuru formulated it, is the verbal equivalent of a sneer. If he had wanted to ask and answer the question “Who should they believe?” I wouldn’t have had anything to complain about. If he had said, for instance, “Commonweal‘s reading of legislation has usually been incorrect; therefore, we don’t need to pay it much attention now,” then his argument would have been as strong as his examples. Or again, if he had said, “Commonweal‘s predictions about abortion politics never turn out to be true,” then he could expect us all to pay close and respectful attention as he enumerated our false predictions. He didn’t do any of that. Instead, he helped himself to the supposition that Commonweal is not serious about its prolife commitments — because, well, because no one on the left could be.
Not that it’s exactly relevant, but the topic makes me thing of someone (Daniel Dennett?) who was in deep disagreement with Stephen Jay Gould over some issue involving evolution and said, “If only the man could think as clearly as he writes!”
Thanks, Fr. Imbelli and Matthew. It’s just my scholastic soul manifesting itself. We love making distinctions :-)
Matthew and Jeff — I didn’t mean to rule out there being an ad hominem argument involved, only that Jeff was arguing mainly from authority and that that can sometimes be justified. An argument can fail for more than one reason. For instance, if I argued “All those weak-kneed Republicans are flibbeteroos, and, you, Senator Hoohaw are a flibbeteroo, so you’re a weak-kneed Republican” it fails for more than one reason, and I don’t even have to know what a flibbetreoo is to say so.
I particularly admire your posts, Matthew, because they are very much concerned with the logic of arguments. Reality comes back to bite us when we try to avoid it.
Jeff, do come back. It’s always good to have another voice of reason here.
Since an issue of spelling began this post and responses, Ann Olivier, what is the correct spelling of “flibbeteroo/flibbetreoo”? If I am not mistaken, the second form is the Canadian spelling – centre, theatre, flibbetreoo, etc. – and I believe some consistency is in order. I’m not usually this pedantic…actually, yes I am!
John Martens –
Because the term is a neologism I just invented. its spelling is still fluid. Please take your pick of the current spellings, and we’ll decide that’s the proper one. You can also define it if you’d like, but let me know what the definition will be. I’d hate to use it improperly.