When someone makes a move
to distinguish their original claim, then, “motte and bailey” may be a
justified assertion—from a moral or spiritual angle—but the distinction may yet
be helpful and just.
What I mean by that is
this. Let us suppose that someone remarks
“No mammals lay eggs.” You bring in a
platypus and demonstrate its mammalian and egg-laying capacities to them, and
they are forced to reconsider their claim about the properties of mammals. “No mammals law eggs, except for the
platypus,” they say, making a distinction, “and,” they add carefully, “we may
find a few other odd mammals like that too, so perhaps it’s safest to say, “Most
mammals don’t lay eggs.”
That is a reasonable moderation
of the original claim (which was false) to a new claim which (as far as I know)
is true. It may be that the person who
made the false original claim did so in a spirit of illiberal haste and ought to
be blamed for making assumptions. They
may, in other words, really be guilty of motte and bailey. But it does not make their retrenchment
wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment