A Primer on Logic
For Drunk Driving Prohibitionists
by Mark R. Crovelli
by Mark R. Crovelli
DIGG THIS
After my article
"Thanks
to Mothers against Drunk Driving, I’m a Dangerous Driver"
was published last week, I found out that I am one of the most vile,
heartless and dangerous people to ever walk the face of the Earth.
I myself was unaware that I was such a dastardly scoundrel, but
many, many readers were gracious enough to send me what amounted
to a mountain of emails to clue me in to this important fact.
Why am I such
a dastardly scoundrel? No, I have never killed or robbed anyone.
Nor have I ever participated in genocide, torture or rape. Instead,
as I found out last week, I am one of the most dastardly scoundrels
in the world simply because I think that drunk driving ought to
be legalized.
For the benefit
of those of you who think that men like me are confirmed scoundrels
simply because we believe that drunk driving ought to be legalized,
I have compiled a list of fallacies that are often employed to defend
the prohibition on drunk driving. I do this because I hope to be
able to show that you need to make better arguments in order to
show that drunk-driving laws actually do what they are intended
to do, and better arguments to demonstrate that drunk driving is
any different than, say, driving without your glasses. In other
words, if you think drunk driving ought to be illegal, then please
provide us scoundrels of the world with an actual, non-fallacious
argument to that effect.
The Argumentum
ad Misericordiam Fallacy
The argumentum
ad misericordiam fallacy occurs whenever an argument contains
an appeal to an emotion that is irrelevant to the actual argument
under discussion. This is by far the most widely-employed fallacy
whenever the topic of drunk driving is discussed. (Peruse MADD’s
website for two minutes for confirmation of this.) The fallacy usually
surfaces in something like the following forms, (and which are actual
replies to my article):
"I sincerely
hope that no one you know or love is killed by a drunk driver…You
might then change your mind about whether prevention is better
than punishment."
Or:
"We
are talking about the one thing that cannot be replaced."
The reason
why these sorts of arguments are instances of the argumentum
ad misericordiam fallacy, and are thus improper, is that they
appeal to emotions that have absolutely nothing to do with the argument
under discussion. The debate over legalizing drunk driving is not
between those who hate human life and those who cherish it, or between
those who want people to die and those who want to save lives. Instead,
the debate revolves around whether drunk-driving laws actually
do what they’re claimed to do, and whether they are consistent
with the principles upon which law and ethics are based. Indeed,
both
of my articles
claim precisely that drunk-driving laws do not work as they are
claimed to work. As such, it is totally irrelevant whether or not
I might change my mind if someone I know is killed by a drunk driver,
or whether human life is irreplaceable. Either my arguments are
sound, or they’re not – and appeals to irrelevant emotional responses
cannot help us determine whether my argument is sound. For example,
if we were having a discussion about whether current drug laws actually
do what they’re claimed to do, it would be totally fallacious for
me to shout out "Think of the children!" and think that
I had somehow shown that drug prohibition is efficacious. On the
contrary, I would simply have shown myself to be an ignoramus.
It is important
for drunk-driving prohibitionists to recognize, moreover, that these
appeals to emotion cut both ways. That is, we anti-prohibitionists
can also appeal to emotions. We can point out that these ruthless
laws have the effect of causing an extreme amount of pain for those
who are persecuted by them. People who are pulled over and charged
with drunk driving, without having caused even the slightest
injury to anyone else, will have experienced an extreme amount
of pain as a result. (And those who do cause harm can be charged
with negligent manslaughter even in the absence of drunk-driving
laws.) They can be fined, jailed, forced to take farcical MADD classes,
serve "community service," be refused employment, and
even sent to prison! As such, we opponents of drunk-driving prohibition
are only standing up for this horribly oppressed, robbed and incarcerated
group of men and women who
never even hurt anyone else. Whenever a drunk-driving prohibitionist
declares "People’s lives are priceless…," we opponents
of drunk-driving prohibition will reply, "Exactly! That’s why
we ought not to inflict serious harm on innocent people who have
harmed no other people!"
In sum, if
you write to me to call me a scoundrel this time, don’t think you’ve
proven anything if you drag some irrelevant emotional appeal into
the discussion. Focus on my arguments instead.
The Ad
Hominem Fallacy
The ad
hominem fallacy occurs whenever an argument contains an irrelevant
attack on a person’s character. In the context of the debate over
drunk driving, this fallacy usually surfaces as an accusation that
a proponent of the legalization of drunk driving is a "drunk."
Here is a classic, if somewhat trite, example:
"Your
opinion matches every other drunk I've known, in that you think
that you are able to handle yourself behind the wheel."
The reason
why this sort of an attack is fallacious is that my personal character
has absolutely nothing to do with my arguments. I might be a drunk,
coke-head, hippie, serial killer, but these character traits have
nothing to do with my arguments that drunk-driving laws have the
exact opposite effect from what most people believe. Again, the
arguments are either sound or they’re not – regardless of whether
I am a "drunk." Hence, if you want to demonstrate that
my arguments are not sound, you had better provide something more
than an accusation that I am a "drunk." (I find it fascinating,
moreover, that anyone could determine that I’m a "drunk"
based purely upon my article. I suggest that these puritans spend
a bit of time in the company of South Africans, New Zealanders,
Aussies, Brits, Scots, the Irish, etc. before they call me a drunk!)
So, don’t think
you’re going to change my mind about my arguments if you can only
resort to name-calling. Grow up, and focus on my arguments instead.
The Circular
Argument Fallacy
The circular
argument fallacy (or, "begging the question") occurs whenever someone
assumes the very thing they are attempting to prove in their argument.
In the context of the discussion over drunk-driving legalization,
this fallacy usually arises when prohibitionists start talking about
the law. For example, when discussing whether drunk-driving laws
actually work, the prohibitionist sometimes argues that:
"We
have laws in this country governing driving. Like stop signs.
If you break the law by driving through a stop sign, you get a
ticket. The same is, and ought to be, true of drunk drivers. They
break the law, and should be punished for it."
The problem
with this sort of argument is that is assumes from the outset that
drunk driving ought to be illegal – which is the very thing the
prohibitionist is attempting to prove! That is, the prohibitionist
has used his conclusion as a basis for drawing that conclusion;
i.e., the argument is circular. If you want to demonstrate that
drunk driving ought to be illegal, then you have to provide
an argument to that effect. You cannot simply assume that ought
to be illegal throughout your entire argument, because you will
be committing a serious logical fallacy. Similarly, you cannot argue
that "because it’s the law, that means it’s wrong," because
you need to prove to us anti-prohibitionists that it ought to be
the law in the first place!
Quod Nimis
Probat, Nihil Probat (What Proves Too Much, Proves Nothing)
Another
common logical error committed by drunk-driving prohibitionists
is to present arguments that clearly prove too much. That is, in
their attempt to single out and vilify drunk drivers as absolute
scum of the Earth, they draw conclusions that imply absurd consequences
if they were taken to their logical conclusion. For example, prohibitionists
often defend prohibition in the following manner:
"Am
I to understand that you support WAITING until someone DIES to
object to another’s irresponsibility? I find that simplistic,
foolish, and unacceptable. The reason I do is that the life lost
is irreplaceable!"
The problem
with this sort of argument is that it proves far, far too much (in
addition to making an irrelevant appeal to emotion). For, this argument
could be extended to all aspects of human life, and virtually everything
people do would be punished by ruthless laws – regardless of whether
people actually hurt anyone. This argument would apply, for example,
to people who drive without their glasses (and who currently only
get a minor ticket if pulled over, instead of a stay in jail), people
who text on their phones while driving, people who ride their bikes
with bad brakes, people who work with flammable liquids around other
people, et cetera ad infinitum. In fact, if the argument
were taken to its logical conclusion, every single human action
would be punished by draconian laws and jack-booted policemen, since
people can, and do, negligently kill other people in virtually every
situation where men encounter one another on this planet. The argument
does not give us any reason why we ought to single out drunk drivers
to punish so ruthlessly, when we let other negligent people totally
off the hook – like people who drive without their glasses.
(In this connection,
I’ve always been rather perplexed that Mothers against Drunk Driving
chooses to hunt and crucify only drunk drivers, rather than negligent
drivers generally. These mothers don’t care about people who are
killed through other types of negligent driving? Why don’t they
hunt down Grandpa like a wild beast when he kills someone after
forgetting to put on his glasses?)
Conclusion
 The
argument for legalizing drunk driving is based upon two important
insights: 1) as I have attempted to demonstrate in my articles,
(again, see here
and here),
drunk-driving laws do not actually do what they are almost universally
believed to do; namely, make people safer drivers, and 2) drunk
driving is not any different than any other negligent action behind
the wheel (like driving while tired, angry, senile, or without one’s
glasses), and thus ought to only be punished when that negligent
behavior harms another person (again, see here
and here).
Furthermore, the argument against drunk-driving laws is based upon
the observation that we already have laws to punish people when
they harm other people through negligent or intentional action;
i.e., negligent manslaughter and murder laws. The clincher is that
drunk driving is not even remotely as great a danger as people almost
universally believe that it is. For proof of this, watch Jeff Brown’s
excellent YouTube
video discussing the statistics of drunk driving.
Let the non-fallacious
discussion begin!
July
12, 2008
Mark R.
Crovelli [send him mail]
writes from Denver, Colorado.
Copyright
© 2008 LewRockwell.com
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