"Traditionally, a dilemma is an argument intended to put one's opponent in just that kind of position. In debate, one uses a dilemma to offer alternative positions to one's adversary, from which a choice must be made, and then to prove that no matter which choice is made, the adversary is Committed to an unacceptable conclusion..." --Irving Copi
Escaping the Horns by Patty Houser
Today we are going to talk about three ways we can escape the horns of a dilemma.
1. The first way is to “Go Between the Horns” which means that we can deny the disjunctive premise and provide a third alternative. Perhaps we can provide an alternative somewhere in the middle.
For example, take the following dilemma, “If I go to college then I delay making money, but if I go straight into business then I will get a low paying job. I will either go to college or straight into business, so I will either delay making money or I will get a low paying job.”
In response, we could reply, “The choice isn’t between college, or a full time business. You could go to college part time and work part time.” In doing so, the disjunction is accused of being an either/or fallacy or a false dilemma.
2. Our second option is to “Grasp it by the Horns.” To do this, we can reject one of the conditionals in the conjunctive premise. For instance, imgaine being presented with this dilemma. “If this bill is to become a law then it must pass the congress and the President must sign it. But either it will not make it through congress or the President will not sign it. Therefore, this bill will not become a law.” We could respond by saying, “Even if the president refuses to sign it, the congress could still override his veto with a two thirds majority.” Remember, if one conjunct is false, then the entire conjunction is false.
3. Our third option is to “Rebut the Horns” with a counter dilemma. Counter dilemmas made up of the same parts as the original dilemma are typically the most effective. For example, how would we respond to the dilemma posed to us in Proverbs 25:4-5 which states, “If you answer a fool according to his folly, then you will be like him. However, if you do not answer a fool according to his folly, then he will be wise in his own eyes. Therefore no matter how you answer a fool, you will either be like him or he will be wise in this own eyes?”
One way we could do it is to say, “If you answer a fool according to his folly, then he will not be wise in his own eyes. And if you do not answer a fool according to his own folly, then you will not be like him. Therefore he will either not be wise in his own eyes or you will not be like him.” Notice that in this counter dilemma, there is no claim that the original dilemma is false or invalid. Instead, it is just another way of looking at the facts in order to come to a conclusion.
Daily Takeaway: There are three ways to escape the horns of a dilemma: go between the horns, grasp the horns, or rebut the horns.
Daily Challenge: Refute the following dilemma using the methods learned today. “If angels are material, then they cannot all simultaneously fit on the head of a pin. If angels are immaterial, then they can neither dance nor be in contact with the head of a pin. Angels are either material or immaterial. Either way, all the angels that exist cannot simultaneously dance on the head of a pin.”
The distinguished physicist Richard Feynman, recounting his experiences in the 1986 investigation of the catastrophic explosion of the Challenger space shuttle, was caustic in his criticism of mismanagement by administrators in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He said:
Every time we talked to higher-level managers, they kept saying they didn’t know anything about the problems below them. . . . Either the group at the top didn’t know, in which case they should have known, or they did know, in which case they were lying to us.6
An attack of this kind is designed to push the adversaries (in this case the NASA administrators) into a corner and there annihilate them. The only explicitly stated premise of the argument is a disjunction, but one of the disjuncts must obviously be true: Either they knew or they didn’t know about the problems below them. And whichever disjunct is chosen, the result for the adversary is very bad. The conclusion of a dilemma can itself be a disjunction (for example, “Either the NASA administrators did not know what they should have known, or they lied”) in which case we call the dilemma a complex dilemma. But the conclusion may also be a categorical proposition, in which case we call it a simple dilemma.
A dilemma need not always have an unpleasant conclusion. An example of one with a happy conclusion is provided by the following simple dilemma:
If the blest in heaven have no desires, they will be perfectly content; so they will be also if their desires are fully gratified; but either they will have no desires, or have them fully gratified; therefore they will be perfectly content.
The premises of a dilemma need not be stated in any special order; the disjunctive premise that offers the alternatives may either precede or follow the other. The consequences of those alternatives may be stated in a conjunctive proposition or in two separate propositions. An argument in dilemma form is often expressed enthymematically; that is, its conclusion generally is thought to be so obvious that it scarcely needs to be spelled out. This is well illustrated in a passage from a letter of President Abraham Lincoln, defending the Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves of the Confederacy:
But the proclamation, as law, either is valid, or is not valid. If it is not valid, it needs no retraction, If it is valid, it cannot be retracted, any more than the dead can be brought to life.
These three ways of defeating a dilemma are known as “going or (escaping) between the horns,” “taking or (grasping) it by the horns,” and “(rebutting) it by means of a counterdilemma.” Note that these are not ways to prove the dilemma invalid; rather, they are ways in which one seeks to avoid its conclusion without challenging the formal validity of the argument.
One escapes between the horns of a dilemma by rejecting its disjunctive premise. This method is often the easiest way to evade the conclusion of a dilemma, for unless one half of the disjunction is the explicit contradictory of the other, the disjunction may very well be false. For example, one justification sometimes offered for giving grades to students is that recognizing good work will stimulate the students to study harder. Students may criticize this theory using the following dilemma:
If students are fond of learning, they need no stimulus, and if they dislike learning, no stimulus will be of any avail. But any student either is fond of learning or dislikes it. Therefore a stimulus is either needless or of no avail.
This argument is formally valid, but one can evade its conclusion by going between the horns. The disjunctive premise is false, for students have all kinds of attitudes toward learning: Some may be fond of it, many dislike it, and many are indifferent. For that third group a stimulus may be both needed and of some avail. Going between the horns does not prove the conclusion to be false but shows merely that the argument does not provide adequate grounds for accepting that conclusion.
When the disjunctive premise is unassailable, as when the alternatives exhaust the possibilities, it is impossible to escape between the horns. Another method of evading the conclusion must be sought. One such method is to grasp the dilemma by the horns, which involves rejecting the premise that is a conjunction. To deny a conjunction, we need only deny one of its parts. When we grasp the dilemma by the horns, we attempt to show that at least one of the conditionals is false. The dilemma just above, attacking the use of grades in school, relies on the conditional “If students are fond of learning, they need no stimulus.” The proponent of grading may grasp this dilemma by the horns and argue that even students who are fond of learning may sometimes need stimulus, and that the additional stimulus provided by grades promotes careful study by even the most diligent students. There may be good response to this, of course—but the original dilemma has been grasped firmly by the horns.
Rebutting a dilemma by means of a counterdilemma is the most ingenious method of all, but it is seldom cogent, for reasons that will appear presently. To rebut a given dilemma in this way, one constructs another dilemma whose conclusion is opposed to the conclusion of the original. Any counterdilemma may be used in rebuttal, but ideally it should be built up out of the same ingredients (categorical propositions) that the original dilemma contained.
A classical example of this elegant kind of rebuttal concerns the legendary argument of an Athenian mother attempting to persuade her son not to enter politics:
If you say what is just, men will hate you; and if you say what is unjust, the gods will hate you; but you must either say the one or the other; therefore you will be hated.
Her son rebutted that dilemma with the following one:
If I say what is just, the gods will love me; and if I say what is unjust, men will love me. I must say either the one or the other. Therefore I shall be loved!
In public discussion, where the dilemma is one of the strongest weapons of controversy, the use of a rebuttal of this kind, which derives an opposite conclusion from almost the same premises, is a mark of great rhetorical skill. If we examine the dilemma and rebutting counterdilemma more closely, we see that their conclusions are not as opposed as they might at first have seemed.
The conclusion of the first dilemma is that the son will be hated (by men or by the gods), whereas that of the rebutting dilemma is that the son will be loved (by the gods or by men). However, these two conclusions are perfectly compatible. The rebutting counterdilemma serves merely to establish a conclusion different from that of the original. Both conclusions may very well be true together, so no refutation has been accomplished. But in the heat of controversy analysis is unwelcome, and if such a rebuttal occurred in a public debate, the average audience might agree that the rebuttal was an effective reply to the original argument.
That this sort of rebuttal does not refute the argument but only directs attention to a different aspect of the same situation is perhaps more clearly shown in the case of the following dilemma, advanced by an “optimist”:
If I work, I earn money, and if I am idle, I enjoy myself. Either I work or I am idle. Therefore either I earn money or I enjoy myself.
A “pessimist” might offer the following counterdilemma:
If I work, I don’t enjoy myself, and if I am idle, I don’t earn money. Either I work or I am idle. Therefore either I don’t earn money or I don’t enjoy myself.
These conclusions represent merely different ways of viewing the same facts; they do not constitute a disagreement over what the facts are.
No discussion of dilemmas would be complete unless it mentioned the celebrated lawsuit between Protagoras and Euathlus. Protagoras, a teacher who lived in Greece during the fifth century BCE, specialized in teaching the art of pleading before juries. Euathlus wanted to become a lawyer, but not being able to pay the required tuition, he made an arrangement according to which Protagoras would teach him but not receive payment until Euathlus won his first case. When Euathlus finished his course of study, he delayed going into practice. Tired of waiting for his money, Protagoras brought suit against his former pupil for the tuition money that was owed. Unmindful of the adage that the lawyer who tries his own case has a fool for a client, Euathlus decided to plead his own case in court. When the trial began, Protagoras presented his side of the case in a crushing dilemma:
If Euathlus loses this case, then he must pay me (by the judgment of the court); if he wins this case, then he must pay me (by the terms of the contract). He must either lose or win this case. Therefore Euathlus must pay me.
The situation looked bad for Euathlus, but he had learned well the art of rhetoric. He offered the court the following counterdilemma in rebuttal:
If I win this case, I shall not have to pay Protagoras (by the judgment of the court); if I lose this case, I shall not have to pay Protagoras (by the terms of the contract, for then I shall not yet have won my first case). I must either win or lose this case. Therefore I do not have to pay Protagoras! 8
Had you been the judge, how would you have decided?
Note that the conclusion of Euathlus’s rebutting dilemma is not compatible with the conclusion of Protagoras’s original dilemma. One conclusion is the explicit denial of the other. However, it is rare that a counterdilemma stands in this relation to the dilemma against which it is directed. When it does, the premises involved are themselves inconsistent, and it is this implicit contradiction that the two dilemmas make explicit.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanance;
In addition to these three classical logical refutations there are some "illogical", rhetorical ones. Phædrus, being a rhetorician, had these available too.
One may throw sand in the bull's eyes. It's an old rule of logic that the competence of a speaker has no relevance to the truth of what he says, and so talk of incompetence (is) pure sand. Socrates, that ancient enemy of rhetorical argument, would have sent Phædrus flying for this one, saying, "Yes, I accept your premise that I'm incompetent on the matter.... Now please show an incompetent old man what (your argument) is."
One may attempt to sing the bull to sleep. Phædrus could have told his questioners that the answer to this dilemma was beyond his humble powers of solution, but the fact that he couldn't find an answer was no logical proof that an answer couldn't be found. Wouldn't they, with their broader experience, try to help him find this answer?
A third rhetorical alternative to the dilemma... (is) to refuse to enter the arena...(and claim that logic does not apply to the matter).
(Phædrus) chose to respond to this dilemma logically and dialectically rather than take the easy escape of mysticism.... I think first of all that he felt the whole Church of Reason was irreversibly in the arena of logic, that when one put oneself outside logical disputation, one put oneself outside any academic consideration whatsoever. Philosophical mysticism, the idea that truth is indefinable and can be apprehended only by nonrational means, has been with us since the beginning of history. It's the basis of Zen practice. But it's not an academic subject. The academy, the Church of Reason, is concerned exclusively with those things that can be defined, and if one wants to be a mystic, his place is in a monastery, not a University. Universities are places where things should be spelled out.
— adapted from Pirsig, Robert M. (1974). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. William Morrow & Company. ISBN 0-688-00230-7.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance
Similar to The Trolley Problem
https://sci-tech-philosophy.blogspot.com/p/the-trolley-problem.html
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