Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, Book II, sec. 92, tr. Kaufmann:
Good prose is written only face to face with poetry. For it is an uninterrupted, well-mannered war with poetry: all of its attractions depend on the way in which poetry is continually avoided and contradicted.
I thank Tully Borland for pushing the discussion in this fascinating direction.
A
Affirming the Consequent is an invalid argument form.
Ergo
One ought not (it is obligatory that one not) give arguments having that form.
B
Modus Ponens is valid
Ergo
One may (it is permissible to) give arguments having that form.
C
Correct deductive reasoning is in every instance truth-preserving.
Ergo
One ought to reason correctly as far as possible.
An argument form is valid just in case no (actual or possible) argument of that form has true premises and a false conclusion. An argument form is invalid just in case some (actual or possible) argument of that form has true premises and a false conclusion. Deductive reasoning is correct just in case it proceeds in accordance with a valid argument form. 'Just in case' is but a stylistic variant of 'if and only if.'
Now given these explanations of key terms, it seems that validity, invalidity, and correctness are purely factual, and thus purely non-normative, properties of arguments/reasonings. If so, how the devil do we get to the conclusions of the three arguments above?
View One: We don't. A, B, and C are each illicit is-ought slides.
View Two: Each of the above arguments is valid. Each of the key terms in the premises is normatively loaded from the proverbial 'git-go,' in addition to bearing a descriptive load.. Therefore, there is no illict slide. The move is from the normative to the normative. Validity, invalidity, and correctness can be defined only in terms of truth and falsity which are normative notions.
View Three: We have no compelling reason to prefer one of the foregoing views to the other. Each can be argued for and each can be argued against. Thus spoke the Aporetician.
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (1913-1994) is an outstanding aphorist of a decidedly conservative, indeed reactionary, bent. What follows are some of his observations on the Catholic Church of the Second Vatican Council. I found them here thanks to Karl White. I've added a couple of comments in blue.
The phenomena of the decay of Catholicism are entertaining; those of Protestantism dull. (p. 191)
Tongues of fire didn’t descend upon the Second Vatican Council, as they did upon the first assembly of the apostles, but a stream of fire – a Feuerbach. (p. 245)
If one were to translate Ludwig Feuerbach's name into English it would come out as Firebrook. (Of course, one does not translate proper names; at most one transliterates them.) Feuerbach was an important influence on Karl Marx. He is famous or notorious for the notion that God is an unconscious anthropomorphic projection. Man alienates himself from his best attributes by unconsciously projecting them, in maximized forms, upon a nonexistent transcendent being.
A single council is nothing more than a single voice in the real ecumenical council of the Church: her complete history. (p. 265)
Popular Catholicism is the target of all progressive anger. Popular faith, popular hope, popular charity exasperate a clergy of petit bourgeois origin. (p. 266)
For the left-wing Catholic Catholicism is the great sin of the Catholic. (p. 248)
Catholics have lost that sympathetic capacity of sinning without arguing that sin doesn’t exist. (p. 274)
The problems of man can be neither exactly defined nor even remotely solved. Whoever hopes that Christianity can solve them ceases to be a Christian. (p. 285)
Add 'here below' at the end of the first sentence, and then the aphorism is true.
The progressive Catholic is only active in zealously seeking for whatever he can still hand over to the world.
Better a small church with Catholics than a numerous one with Rotarians. (p. 334)
Today’s Church is so nice as to exclude everything from the revealed traditions which public opinion condemns. (p. 319)
The current pope prays for that progress which Bury – its historian – called the “substitute for Providence.” (p. 319)
The thing that exasperates today’s Christian about the Middle Ages is Christianity. (p. 319)
The new liturgists have abolished the sacred pulpits in order that no scoundrel can assert that the Church intends to compete with the secular ones. (p. 319)
Catholics don’t have the slightest idea that the world feels betrayed by the concessions made to it by Catholicism. (p. 325)
The progressive clergy crowns the towers of the church of today not with a cross but with a weathervane. (p. 325)
Only the Catholic on the brink of losing his faith is outraged by the Church’s dazed state, sent by Providence.
St. Thomas Aquinas: an Orleaniste of theology? (p. 350)
Aggiornamento is the sellout of the Church. (p. 363)
The progressive Catholic collects his theology from the garbage can of Protestant theology. (p. 363)
Intending to open her arms to the world the Church instead opened her legs. (p. 363)
Instead of a theology of the mystical body the theologians of today teach a theology of the mystical masses. (p. 363)
Today it is impossible to respect the Christians. Out of respect for Christianity. (p. 379)
I am on the hunt for a deductive argument that is valid in point of logical form and that takes us from a premise set all of whose members are purely factual to a categorically (as opposed to hypothetically or conditionally) normative conclusion. Tully ( = Cicero?) the Commenter offered an argument that I make explicit as follows:
1. It is snowing
2. For any proposition p, if p, then it is true that p.
Therefore
3. If it is snowing, then it is true that it is snowing. (2, UI)
Therefore
4. It is true that it is snowing. (1, 3 MP)
5. For any p, if p is true, then one ought to believe that p.
Therefore
6. If it is true that it is snowing, then one ought to believe that it is snowing. (5, UI)
Therefore
7. One ought to believe that it is snowing. (4, 6 MP)
Does this argument do the trick? Well, it is plainly valid. I rigged it that way! Is the conclusion categorically normative? Yes indeed. Are all of the premises purely factual? Here is the rub. (5) is a normative proposition. And so the argument begs the question at line (5). Indeed, if one antecedently accepts (5), one can spare oneself the rest of the pedantic rigmarole.
But I have a second objection. Even if the move from 'is' to 'ought' internal to (5) is logically kosher, (5) is false. (5) says that whatever is true is such that one ought to believe it. But surely no finite agent stands under an obligation to believe every true proposition. There are just too many of them.
If one ought to do X, then (i) it is possible that one do X, and (ii) one is free both to do X and to refrain from doing X. But it is not possible that I believe or accept every true proposition. Therefore, it is not the case that I (or anyone) ought to believe every true proposition. (One can of course question whether believings are voluntary doings under the control of the will, and (surprise!) one can question that questioning. See my Against William Alston Against Doxastic Voluntarism.)
Still and all, truth does seem to be a normative notion. (5) doesn't capture the notion. What about:
5*. For any p, if p is true, then p ought to be believed by anyone who considers it.
The idea here is that, whether or not there are any finite minds on the scene, every true proposition qua true has the intrinsic deontic property of being such that it ought to be believed. I say 'intrinsic' because true propositions have the deontic property in question whether or not they stand in relation to actual finite minds.
But of course plugging (5*) into the above argument does not diminish the argument's circularity.
Here is a possible view, and it may be what Tully is getting at. Truth is indissolubly both factual and normative. To say of a proposition that it is true is to describe how it stands in relation to reality: it represents a chunk of reality as it is. But it is also to say that the proposition qua true functions as a norm relative to our belief states. The truth is something we ought to pursue. It is something we ought doxastically to align ourselves with.
This is murky, but if something like this is the case, then one can validly move from
p is true
to
p ought to be believed by anyone who considers it.
The move, however, would not be from a purely factual premise to a categorically normative conclusion. My demand for a valid instance of such a move might be rejected as an impossible demand. I might be told that there are no purely factual premises and that if, per impossible, there were some, then of course nothing normative could be extracted from them.
What say you, Tully?
Consider the argument:
Bill is a brother
—–
Bill is a sibling.
Is this little argument valid or invalid? It depends on what we mean by 'valid.' Intuitively, the argument is valid in the following generic sense:
D1. An argument is (generically) valid iff it is impossible that its premise(s) be true and its conclusion false.
(D1) may be glossed by saying that there are no possible circumstances in which the premises are true and the conclusion false. Equivalently, in every possible circumstance in which the premises are true, the conclusion is true. In short, validity is immunity to counterexample.
(D1), though correct as far as it goes, leaves unspecified the source or ground of a valid argument's validity. This is the philosophically interesting question. What makes a valid argument valid? What is the ground of the impossibility of the premises' being true and the conclusion being false? One answer is that the source of validity is narrowly logical or purely syntactic: the validity of a valid argument derives from its subsumability under logical laws or (what comes to the same thing) its instantiation of valid argument-forms.
Now it is obvious that the validity of the above argument does not derive from its logical form. The logical form is
Fa
—–
Ga
where 'a' is an arbitrary individual constant and 'F' an arbitrary predicate constant. The above argument-form is invalid since it is easy to interpret the place-holders so as to make the premise true and the conclusion false: let 'a' stand for Al, 'F' for fat and 'G' for gay.
We now introduce a second, specific sense of 'valid,' one that alludes to the source of validity:
D2. An argument is syntactically valid iff it is narrowly-logically impossible that there be an argument of that form having true premises and a false conclusion.
According to (D2), a valid argument inherits its validity from the validity of its form, or logical syntax. So on (D2) it is primarily argument-forms that are valid or invalid; arguments are valid or invalid only in virtue of their instantiation of valid or invalid argument-forms. (D2) is thus a specification of the generic (D1).
But there is a second specification of (D1) according to which validity/invalidity has its source in the constituent propositions of the arguments themselves and so depends on their extra-syntactic content:
D3. An argument is extra-syntactically valid iff (i) it is impossible that its premises be true and its conclusion false; and (ii) this impossibility is grounded neither in any contingent matter of fact nor
in logic proper, but in some necessary connection between the senses or the referents of the extra-logical terms of the argument.
A specification of (D3) is
D4. An argument is semantically valid iff (i) if it is impossible that its premises be true and its conclusion false; and (ii) this impossibility is grounded in the senses of the extra-logical terms of
the argument.
Thus to explain the semantic validity of the opening argument we can say that the sense of 'brother' includes the sense of 'sibling.' There is a necessary connection between the two senses, one that does not rest on any contingent matter of fact and is also not mediated by any law of logic. Note that logic allows (does not rule out) a brother who is not a sibling. Logic would rule out a non-sibling brother only if 'x is F & x is not G' had only false substitution-instances — which is not the case. To put it another way, a brother that is not a sibling is a narrowly-logical possibility. But it is not a broadly-logical possibility due to the necesssary connection of the two senses.
So it looks as if analytic entailments like Bill is a brother, ergo, Bill is a sibling show that subsumability under logical laws is not necessary for (generically) valid inference. Sufficient, but not necessary. Analytic entailments appear to be counterexamples to the thesis that inferences in natural language can be validated only by subsumption under logical laws.
One might wonder what philosophers typically have in mind when they speak of validity. I would say that most philosophers today have in mind (D1) as specified by (D2). Only a minority have in mind (D3) and its specification (D4). I could easily be wrong about that. Is there a sociologist of philosophers in the house?
Consider the Quineans and all who reject the analytic/synthetic distinction. They of course will have no truck with analytic entailments and talk of semantic validity. Carnapians, on the other hand, will uphold the analytic/synthetic distinction but validate all entailments in the standard (derivational) way by importing all analytic truths as meaning postulates into the widened category of L-truths.
Along broadly Carnapian lines one could argue that the above argument is an enthymeme which when spelled out is
Every brother is a sibling
Bill is a brother
—–
Bill is a sibling.
Since this expanded argument is syntactically valid, the original argument — construed as an enthymeme — is also syntactically valid. When I say that it is syntactically valid I just mean that the
conclusion can be derived from the premises using the resources of standard logic, i.e. the Frege-inspired predicate calculus one finds in logic textbooks such as I. Copi's Symbolic Logic. In the above example, one uses two inference rules, Universal Instantiation and Modus Ponens, to derive the conclusion.
If this is right, then the source of the argument's validity is not
in a necessary connection between the senses of the 'brother' and 'sibling' but in logical laws.
Suze Rotolo, who inspired a number of great Dylan songs, died on this date three years ago.
Joan Baez, One Too Many Mornings
Nanci Griffith, Boots of Spanish Leather
Peter, Paul and Mary, Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
Ian and Sylvia, Tomorrow is a Long Time
Jeff Leach, Ballad in Plain D
This follows up on yesterday's discussion. Thanks to Hodges for getting me started on this, to Milos for reminding me of MacIntyre, and to Peter for agreeing with me so far.
Are there any valid arguments that satisfy the following conditions: (i) The premises are all factual in the sense of purporting to state only what is the case; (ii) the conclusion is normative/evaluative? Alasdair MacIntyre gives the following example (After Virtue, U. of Notre Dame Press, 1981, p. 55):
1. This watch is inaccurate.
Therefore
2. This is a bad watch.
MacIntyre claims that the premise is factual, the conclusion evaluative, and the argument valid. The validity is supposed to hinge on the functional character of the concept watch. A watch is an artifact created by an artificer for a specific purpose: to tell time accurately. It therefore has a proper function, one assigned by the artificer. (Serving as a paperweight being an example of an improper function.) A good watch does its job, serves its purpose, fulfills its proper function. MacIntyre tells us that "the concept of a watch cannot be defined independently of the concept of a good watch . . ." and that "the criterion of something's being a watch and something's being a good watch . . . are not independent of each other." (Ibid.) MacIntyre goes on to say that both sets of criteria are factual and that for this reason arguments like the one above validly move from a factual premise to an evaluative conclusion.
Speaking as someone who has been more influenced by the moderns than by the ancients, I don't see it. It is not the case that both sets of criteria are factual in the sense defined above. The criteria of something's being a good watch already contains evaluative criteria. For if a good watch is one that tells time accurately, then that criterion of chronometric goodness involves a standard of evaluation. If I say of a watch that it is inaccurate, I am not merely describing it, but also evaluating it. MacIntyre is playing the following game, to put it somewhat uncharitably.
He smuggles the evaluative attribute good into his definition of 'watch,' forgets that he has done so thereby generating the illusion that his definition is purely factual, and then pulls the evaluative rabbit out of the hat in his conclusion. It is an illusion since the rabbit was already there in the premise. In other words, both (1) and (2) are evaluative. So, while the argument is valid, it is not a valid argument from a purely factual premise to an evaluative conclusion.
So if the precise question is whether one can validly move from a purely factual or descriptive premise to an evaluative conclusion, then MacIntyre's example fails to show that this is possible.
But I am being tendentious on purpose for didactic reasons. I grant that it is not perfectly evident that values and facts are mutually exclusive. I think what MacIntyre needs is the idea that some statements are both factual and evaluative. If (1) is both, the MacIntyre gets what he wants.
Is Man a Functional Concept?
But suppose one would be wrong to reject the (1)-(2) counterexample and that, with respect to functional concepts, the move from fact to value is logically kosher. Then this discussion is relevant to ethics, the normative study of human action, only if man is a functional concept. Aristotle maintains as much: man qua man has a proper function, a proper role, a proper 'work' (ergon). This is a proper function he has essentially, by his very nature, regardless of whatever contingent roles a particular human may instantiate, wife, father, sea captain. Thus, " 'man' stands to 'good man' as 'watch' stands to 'good watch' . . . ." (56) Now if man qua man has a proper and essential function, then to say of a particular man that he is good or bad is to imply that he has a proper and essential function. But then to call a man good is also to make a factual statement. (57)
The idea is that being human is a role that includes certain norms, a role that each of us necessarily instantiates whether like it or not. There is a sort of coalescence of factual individual and norm in the case of each human being just as, in Aristotle's ontoloogy, there is a sort of coalescence of individual and nature in each primary substance.
But does man qua man have a proper role or function? The moderns fight shy of this notion. They tend to think of all roles, jobs, and functions as freely adopted and contingent. Modern man likes to think of himself as a free and autonomous individual who exists prior to and apart from all roles. This is what Sartre means when he says that existence precedes essence: Man qua man has no pre-assigned nature or essence or proper function: man as existing individual makes himself what ever he becomes. Man is not God's artifact, hence has no function other than one he freely adopts.
Although Aristotle did not believe in a creator God, it is an important question whether an Aristotle-style healing of the fact-value rift requires classical theism as underpinning. MacIntyre seems to think so. (Cf. p. 57)
Interim Conclusion
If the precise question is whether one can validly move from a purely factual or descriptive premise to an evaluative conclusion, I have yet to see a clear example of this. But one ought to question the strict bifurcation of fact and value. The failure of entailment is perhaps no surprise given the bifurcation. The Aristotelian view, despite its murkiness, remains a contender.
Our expat friend, Seoul man, and professor of English, Jeff Hodges, has been puzzling over whether an 'ought' statement can be validly derived from an 'is' statement. Here is his example, put in my own way:
1. Democratic regimes contribute more to human flourishing than do non-democratic ones.
Therefore
2. If we want to maximize human flourishing, then we ought to support democratic regimes.
(1) purports to state what is the case. In this sense, it is a factual claim. On this use of 'factual,' a factual claim need not be true. ('I live in New Mexico' is false but factual as opposed to normative.) Factual claims on this use of 'factual' are opposed to claims as to what one ought to do or ought not to do, or what ought to be, or ought not to be, or what is better or worse or what is more valuable or less valuable.
It is worth noting that both (1) and (2) are in the indicative mood. Thus we ought to distinguish (2) from the hypothetical (as opposed to categorical) imperative
2*. To maximize human flourishing, support democratic regimes!
One difference is that while it makes sense to inquire whether (2) is true or false, it makes no sense to inquire whether (2*) is either true or false. It follows that our question is not whether an imperative can be validly inferred from an indicative.
Let us also note that (2) is a conditional. It is a compound statement consisting of two simple component statements, an antecedent (protasis) and and a consequent (apodosis). To assert a conditional is not to assert either its antecedent or its consequent. It is to assert a connection between the two. For example, if I assert that if the light is on, then current is flowing through the filament, I do not thereby assert that the light is on, or that current is flowing throught the filament; what I assert is a connection between the two, in this case a causal linkage.
Given this fact about conditionals, I do not consider Jeff's example to show that one can validily derive an 'ought' from an 'is,' a normative statement from a factual statement. Both (1) and (2) are nonnormative statements. The first is obviously nonnormative. But the second is as well despite the fact the 'ought' occurs within it. For all it asserts — or, to be precise, all a person asserts who assertively utters a token of the sentence in question — is a connection between two propositions, a connection that it nonnormative.
We could of course detach the consequent of (2) thusly:
1. Democratic regimes contribute more to human flourishing than do non-democratic ones.
2a. We want to promote human flourishing
Therefore
2c. We ought to support democratic regimes.
(2c) is unabashedly normative. But it does not follow from the premises which are both of them nonnormative.
So Jeff has not given a counterexample to what philosophers claim when they claim that an 'ought' cannot be derived from an 'is.'
But I will irenically add that there is nothing wrong with Jeff's original argument. It is just that it is not an example of the derivation of a normative statement from a nonnormative one. It is an example of how a statement containing the word 'ought' can be validily derived from a statement not containing the word 'ought.' If this is all that Jeff means to show, then he deserves the coveted MavPhil imprimatur and nihil obstat.
Crucial here is the fact that not every statement containing 'ought' is a normative statement. Besides (2), there is this example: 'I just replaced the battery, so my car ought to start.' This is not a statement about what anyone ought to do, or even about what ought to be; it is a prediction. One could just as well say, 'I just replaced the battery in my car, so it is highly likely that the car will start.'
And now it occurs to me that 'ought' can be paraphrased away, salva significatione, even in the case of (2). Try this:
2p. If we want to maximize human flourishing, then it is necessary that we support democratic regimes.
Related: The Ought-to-Be, the Ought-to-Do, and the Aporetics of "Be Ye Perfect"
Glenn Reynolds reports on successful pushback against such outrages as the FCC's "plan to 'monitor' news coverage at not only broadcast stations, but also at print publications that the FCC has no authority to regulate."
I hereby introduce 'obamination' to refer to those abominations perpetrated against the populace by big government, whether perpetrated by the POMO prez himself or by any liberal fascist. Every obamination is an abomination, but not conversely.
The Obaminator himself claims not to be for big government. We already know, however, that he is the most brazen liar ever to occupy the presidency. Here's more evidence. And here is documentation of Obama's mendacity in refusing to own up to his own call for a fundamental transformation of America.
Here is another clear example:
George Zimmerman felt threatened by a boy almost half his age. When Trayvon Martin couldn’t produce papers proving that he wasn’t a “punk,” Zimmerman felt justified in killing him. The judicial system backed him up.
The verdicts matter. Zimmerman’s acquittal lent legal imprimatur to the understanding that it is open season on young black men; Dunn’s mistrial on the key charge of murder did nothing to discredit that. But these tales go beyond the legal arena: they reflect a violent, racist culture in which the black body, particularly when it is young and male, is considered fair game.
You have to be moral scum to write crap like this. There are certain views the holding of which morally condemns the holder. See my articles below.
Try it. Jonathan Haidt had a hand in formulating it, and he's good. I came out 74% conservative. My cat fancying pushed me leftward.
Continuing alphabetically through the list of 'invaders' from the mother country.
Gerry and the Pacemakers, Ferry Cross the Mersey These boys must have pacemakers by now. Better to be one than have one.
Herman's Hermits, I'm into Something Good
____________, Henry the VIII
____________, Kind of Hush
Hollies, Bus Stop
Honeycombs, Have I the Right?
Hullaballoos, I'm Gonna Love You Too
Reflecting on the seeming tautology, 'What exists exists,' Jacques Maritain writes,
This is no tautology, it implies an entire metaphysics. What is posited outside its causes exercises an activity, an energy which is existence itself. To exist is to maintain oneself and to be maintained outside nothingness; esse is an act, a perfection, indeed the final perfection, a splendid flower in which objects affirm themselves. (A Preface to Metaphysics, Sheed and Ward, 1939, pp. 93-94)
This is the sort of writing, florid and French, that drives analytic philosophers crazy and moves them to mockery. But I think Maritain is here expressing an important insight. Let me see if I can explain it with as little reliance as possible on Maritain's Thomistic machinery.
1. A tautology is a logical truth, a truth true in virtue of its logical form alone. Now it certainly does seem that 'What exists exists' is true in virtue of its logical form alone. Write it like this: For any x, if x exists, then x exists. By Universal Instantiation, we get if a exists, then a exists, which is of the form, if p then p, which is equivalent to p or not-p, which is the Law of Excluded Middle.
2. On the other hand, it has been clear for a long time that 'exist(s)' is no ordinary predicate. To say of an item that it exists is not to characterize it or classify it. Existence is not a classificatory concept. It doesn't partition neutral items into two classes, the existent ones and the nonexistent ones. Pace Meinong, there are no nonexistent items. And existence certainly does not partition existing items into two classes, the existing and the nonexisting. When I say of a thing that it exists I am saying that it is not nothing. I am not saying that it is F or G, but that it is. I am pointing to its sheer being or existence.
3. The same goes for 'What exists, exists.' Although it can be used to express a tautology, it can also be used non-tautologically. Used non-tautologically, it does not say that that-which-exists is that-which-exists; it says that that-which-exists exists. In other words, it does not say, tautologically, that beings are beings; it says, non-tautologically, that beings are.
4. Somewhere in The Enneads Plotinus writes, "It is by the One that all being are beings." But there would be no need to drag The One into the picture if 'all beings are beings' is a tautology. Tautologies do not need truth-makers. Plotinus' point, of course, is that it is by the One that all beings are. They are in virtue of the One; their Being derives from the One. Whether or not that it true, we understand what is being said and we understand that 'all beings are being' is not a tautology.
5. Metaphysics targets the existence of that-which-exists, the Being of beings, the esse of entia, das Sein des Seienden. Thus metaphysics presupposes a difference between existence and the existent. But existence is "odious to the logician" as George Santayana once observed. (Scepticism and Animal Faith, Dover, 1955, p. 48, orig. publ. 1923.) And so the logician will try to knock the wind out of the metaphysical sails by trying to accommodate the difference between existence and what exists in some such aseptic fashion as the following:
x exists =df for some y, y = x.
Accordingly, existence is identity-with-something-or-other. 'Exists' as a load-bearing predicate gets replaced by some purely logical machinery: the particular quantifer, a bound variable, the identity sign, and a free variable. Existence for the logician is a 'thin' topic. Thin to the point of being anorexic. It is just logical bones bare of metaphysical meat.
6. Well, why not be a thin theorist? I have written a lot on this topic, so now I will be very brief. While it is of course true that everything that exists is identical to something, namely, itself, this presupposes that the things in question exist in a sense that cannot be captured by the above definition. Another way of putting the point is that the above definition is circular. For it amounts to
x exists =df for some y that exists, y = x.
If I want to know what it is for something to exist, I learn nothing by being told that it is identical to something that exists, although that is of course true.
7. Getting back to Maritain, he is right as against the thin theorists: existence is a metaphysically weighty topic. 'What exists exists' can be given a non-tautological reading. But on the thin theory, it could only amount to the tautological 'What is identical to something is identical to something.' But whether existence is a perfection, or indeed the final perfection, or rather the opposite, as Santayana and Sartre would maintain, is a further question.
8. Unfortunately, no resolute thin theorist will be persuaded by anything I or anyone says to abandon his theory. All my dialectic can do is lead the reader to a point where he either gets it or he doesn't, where he either sees it, or he doesn't. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
It's a bit like arguments over religion. If you think that religion is nothing but a tissue of childish superstitions, will I ever be able to convince you otherwise? No. For it is not a matter of analytical intelligence, but of insight, or rather, in your case a lack of insight.
To elicit the desired Pavlovian response, "discrimination," a "boo" word, replaced "freedom of association," once a "yay" word. The Christian photographer or baker who invites a same-sex couple to seek services elsewhere is slandered as the moral equivalent of a Jim Crow-era bigot. "No discrimination" — which no American founding document honors — is the inviolable dogma of post-Christian Humanism, itself a species of religion.
The LGBT "civil rights movement," apparently bored with mere "tolerance," now demands participation by Christians in the celebration of what they deem morally abhorrent if they are "asked." If they refuse, they can risk prosecution or shutter their businesses. Humanism's propagandists, including many deluded but professing Christians, get to label their opponents "bullies" and "bigots." Meanwhile, AG Holder brazenly suggests to his state counterparts that they need not enforce statutes they swore an oath to uphold but which, in their superior wisdom, deem indefensible, particularly laws that defend traditional marriage.
Let God be true, but every man a liar (Rom 3:4). He will not be mocked (Gal 6:7)