Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Fallacy of Experience

Yesterday, Yahoo News senior foreign policy reporter Laura Rozen tweeted this gem:







One of the gentlemen I follow, @ExJon, replied thus:




This proposition is the logical extension of the chickenhawk criticism, which might be leveled at anyone who dare say anything about war without having experienced it as a soldier.  It is the same reason men cannot criticize (only support) abortion.  It is the same reason I can't criticize your music unless I love it as much as you do.

Experience is ultimate trump card.

What I'm calling the Fallacy of Experience is the assumption that experience + reason trumps reason alone.  The matter is confusing because experience can provide qualification.  It does not, however, bar others from forming opinions on the matter.

Experience as the primary qualifier leads to a few problems.  What if someone with the same experience as you comes to the opposite conclusion you do?  Did he do something wrong?  If you admit people can have legitimate disagreements with the same experience, could not the opinion of the inexperienced be legitimate?

What gives your argument its credence?  If all that qualifies argument for consideration is experience, creating a well-rounded worldview becomes difficult.  In other words, having to experience something to have a legitimate opinion leads to bad decisions.  I don't need to violate my purity to know it's a bad idea.

The same divide comes between Atheism and Christianity.

With Atheism, one must try everything in search of happiness or self-actualization (or whatever).  Anything is game, provided you feel your experience is good.  I mean, who can argue with your experience with pot unless he's done drugs himself?  Try: A doctor.  Or: Anyone who's taken a basic psychology course.

With Christianity, one has a clear structure in which to reason.  This moral rubric leads not just to happiness, but to the happiness of others.  What carnal pleasure seems to work for one man may not work for another.  Personalities differ.  But Christianity offers a solution made by the one who allowed us to have different personalities.  But it's not one size fits all.  It's all sizes fit one.  He can mold anyone, regardless of his former estate, into a more Christlike follower of him.  That's the power of the Gospel.

Okay, not trying to get preachy, but my point stands: If experience is the ultimate guide to value, can we not justify anything, provided we have the right past to back us up?  Some folks justify massive amounts of abortion because some woman are raped.  Even if rape was a legitimate justification (a discussion for another day), that experience has no claim over the vast majorities of abortions, performed out of convenience.

Who you are and where you've been are both important, but they do not govern reality.  What guides us is not the emotion produced by past experience but reason guided by evidence.

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