The Importance of First Premises

The other day I did something a little uncharacteristic of me; I posted a comment on a blog in response to a post about a very controversial topic--abortion. This is uncharacteristic of me because I usually find such arguments both simplistic, as the other party can marshal no reasonable support of their position expect their convictions, and antagonistic, ultimately coming down to personal attacks rather than making reasoned arguments for or against a particular position. I made the exception on this particular day because the blog poster (hereafter called my debate partner, for the other side of a debate is rightly a partner in exploring ideas) had started from a position of reason, backed up her position with fairly good arguments, and seemed open to a reasonable discussion of the points she had raised. In retrospect, although I didn't get what I really wanted--a thorough discussion of the topic--I did gain a lot of insight into why such arguments are usually so fruitless.

My debate partner had a lot of important moral positions which serve as background to the conversation, including a belief in the rights guaranteed by the American Constitution and the ideas of the Declaration of Independence, particularly the right to life, liberty, and property. Her stance on abortion was that it was wrong because it was taking the life of what was scientifically defined as a human being (even at the earliest stages of pregnancy, which is true as far as I know), and if rights are to apply to anyone, they must apply to all humans equally. I responded that forcing the mother to carry the child to term violated her right to liberty (she is forced to act against her will) and property (she must give up a lot, economically, to bear a child). In return, I was told that the mother forfeited her rights when she engaged in sex knowing that it coud lead to child birth.

After a couple futher comments on each side, her final position was that rights entail responsibilities, and those responsibilities can curtail our rights. My final position was that rights cannot be abridged in order to guarantee other people's rights (eg. you can't kill one man so that another might live), and all rights are on an equal level (eg. life, liberty, and property). These were the final positions because at this point I was told that because we hold different premises, there was no point in continuing the conversation. I was blown away. It seemed to me we had finally gotten to the main point of the conversation, and I was shocked that someone could claim there was no more to discuss.

To give her the benefit of the doubt, I could assume that my debate partner had rational reasons for her positions that she felt were unassailable and she didn't want to waste her time explaining them to me. However, the original intent of her blog post was the importance of fighting against abortion rationally. If she wasn't willing to look at the first premises that gave rise to her argument, she couldn't be claiming to be rational at all, but merely to be bolstering arbitrary positions using a rational covering.

It took me a while after the shock had worn off to realize what had really happened. She had claimed to be interested in arguing against abortion rationally, but in reality she had decided what the outcome was to be before she started applying reason to the argument. This is a very common fallacy today, and one which can often only be exposed by a careful examination and probing of the original argument until the base premises are exposed. Unfortunately, most people are interested in reason per se, but only in using it to support their preformed convictions. It is for this reason that most online debates are so fruitless--no one wants to look at first premises. In fact, is suspect, most people are not even aware of their underlying premises. And so, although I will likely dabble further in online discussions, I will start by addressing the underlying premises. If my partner refuses to consider the deeper premises of the argument, I will calmly bow out.