jediuser598 wrote:Speaker to Animals wrote:jediuser598 wrote:
Eh?
That's your problem right there.
Is that your way of saying "Pot meet kettle"?
What prompts that?
I have to hold your hand through this, don't I..
Motte and bailey (MAB) is a combination of bait-and-switch and equivocation in which someone switches between a "motte" (an easy-to-defend and often common-sense statement, such as "culture shapes our experiences") and a "bailey" (a hard-to-defend and more controversial statement, such as "cultural knowledge is just as valid as scientific knowledge") in order to defend a viewpoint. Someone will argue the easy-to-defend position (motte) temporarily, to ward off critics, while the less-defensible position (bailey) remains the desired belief, yet is never actually defended.
In short: instead of defending a weak position (the "bailey"), the arguer retreats to a strong position (the "motte"), while acting as though the positions are equivalent. When the motte has been accepted (or found impenetrable) by an opponent, the arguer continues to believe (and perhaps promote) the bailey.
Note that the MAB works only if the motte and the bailey are sufficiently similar (at least superficially) that one can switch between them while pretending that they are equivalent.
The MAB is a fallacious argument style.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Motte_and_bailey
Example:
Person A: These feminist academics constantly talk about how men should be exterminated, that we need to be taught not to rape, etc. It seems to me that feminism, in it's purest most academic form, is a form of sexism against men.
Person B: OMG!! Feminism is just for gender equality! You don't disagree with gender equality do you??
Person A: Well, I guess not. I don't have a problem with gender equality, but what about all this other stuff that feminists..
Person B: Then you are a feminist!!
That's a Motte and Bailey argument.