[ExI] Striving for Objectivity Across Different Cultures

[Stefano Vaj]

On Wed, Aug 20, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> If this is the usual way the term is employed, we're back looking for a
> valid form of demanding consistency with one's announced or disclosed
> deepest principles, or even with whatever has just been conceded.

Yes. Whatever the case, while personal attack or "disqualification by
association" are mostly a rhetoric trick aimed at the public (what I
called ad hominem sofar), the ex concessis argument actually
represents a way to expand or one's views or have them reviewed, since
most of us do strive for consistency.

Of course, what you do with such arguments, besides possibly "winning"
the debate :-), is to help people to think fully and to the bottom
what they really think.

Say that I have a bioluddite agreeing to an apparently banal and
common-sense stipulation that the ability to live is absolutely better
than death, and then persuade him ex concessis that this implies that
longevist therapies cannot be refused. We now have two possible
outcomes: either he drops his opposition to longevist therapies, or -
and this is a distinct possibiity - he is there thus led to revise his
previous opinion that life is an uncondtional goal.

In either case, we have clarified the issues - and most often cornered
the other party in positions that may be much less acceptable to the
"public" of the exchange.

Stefano Vaj