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>> JT: >> All the "striptease for the trees" accomplishes is to make a joke out of >> the entire issue. I do think one of the issues here is credibility; and I >> must say that I'm not all that convinced by Ben's hand waving comparison to >> the case of the drowning victim. Certainly, Ben, you'd agree that there is >> a considerable difference between an exhibitionist display (now I'm in >> trouble <g>) performed in front of a group of bored log truck drivers, and >> the attempt to attract the attention of others in order to help someone who >> is dying? >> >B.H.: >Yeah. Right. No kidding. There is certainly a substantive difference >between shedding one's clothes and waving one's hands. There is also a >strategic difference between calling attention to a drowning victim and >calling attention to deforestation by running naked, which it sounds like >you're pointing out. There is not, however, much difference between >arguing psychologistically against either the hand-waver or the nudist. >In both cases, it is a fallacy to say "That person just wants attention." Well, okay, but's let's go back to your original complaint against Bissell. You wrote: >> Unfortunately the environmental movement has been plagued by these people >> for as long as. . .well as long as there has been an environmental movement. >> I suppose this woman has some concern about trees, or something, but her >> primary motivation is herself. Getting on TV and such is the point, not the >> trees. For those interested in motives I suppose this is an issue, for those >> interested in outcomes, probably not so much. >> Steven > >This strikes me as just plain wrong. One might argue the same about any >person who pipes in with anything. If I wave my hands to say, 'Hey, look >at that drowning person over there,' my intent is, of course, to get >people to pay attention to me such that I can help that drowning person. >If someone around me assumes that I want only to call attention to myself, >this person dramatically misunderstands my motivation in hand waving. > Steve offered a *plausible* (if unprovable) inference with regard to this woman's motivation for getting attention. You responded with "This strikes me as just plain wrong. One might argue the same about any person who pipes in with anything," and you countered with the example of the drowning person. Ben, it seems to me that virtually *no one* would make the same inference Steve was making in the first case about someone in your second case who is waving their hands near a drowning victim. Yes, it's true that one *might* argue the same as Steve did about "any person who pipes in with anything," but in the drowning example, it is highly highly unlikely that anyone is going to in fact *make* that inference. Plus it seems to me that trying to save a drowning person is not exactly a case of someone who merely "pipes in with anything." Steve's inference seems to me, plausible, in a way that the same inference in the drowning case is not. This doesn't seem to me to be a case of a "fallacy," either, a term you've mentioned now twice. I may make some reasonable inferences about the motivations of a masked intruder into my home at 2:00 in the morning, whereas those same inferences directed at a dinner guest whom I've invited into my house would seem just plain loony. Where's the fallacy? As a moral issue . . . it also seems to me that motivations *do* matter. fwiw. Jim %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%