In the last class, we talked about ad hominem arguments. And we distinguished three varieties of ad hominem arguments. Today we're going to talk about the first variety of those three, the variety that we call silencers. Now I should point out that while ad hominem arguments are typically fallacies, not all of them are fallacies. And the same holds true of silencers. While silencers are typically fallacies, not all of them are fallacies. So what I'm going to do today is first give a definition of silencers, then give some examples of silencers that are not fallacies. And finally, we'll talk about silencers that are fallacies, which are the most common kind of silencers. Okay, so first, what's a silencer? Well, a silencer is an ad hominem argument, that begins with some premises about a particular person, who's making a point. And it ends with a conclusion to the effect that we should disregard that person's argument all together. The conclusion is not the person's argument is an argument for a false conclusion, or their premises are false, or their premises don't support their conclusion. The conclusion is just, we shouldn't pay any attention to their argument at all. Now, I can give a couple of examples of silencers that are actually good arguments, that are not fallacies. But in order to give these examples I have to describe environments that tend to operate in a very strictly regulated framework. So, I'll start by giving some examples of silencers that are not fallacies, and then we'll look at silencers that are fallacies. So, first, here's a silencer that's not a fallacy. So suppose that you're in a court of law, during a criminal trial, and the accused is on the witness stand. The person who's accused of some heinous crimes is on the witness stand. Let's say the accused is has been accused of murder. And as always, the defense gets to call some witnesses and the prosecution gets to call some witnesses and there's a procedure that governs the progress of criminal trials. Right, criminal trials operate according to a certain procedure. Now, suppose that someone bursts into the room, someone who hasn't been called by either the defense or the prosecution, someone bursts into the room and then yells at the top of their lungs, I saw the accused murder the victim. Therefore, the accused is guilty of the crime with which she is charged. Okay, now this person who's just burst into the courtroom and presented this argument. This person might be presenting an argument that's sound, indeed it might be that the person saw the accused murder the victim. And it might be that the accused is guilty of the crime with which she is charged. So the argument that's being presented by the intruder, the person who bursts into the courtroom, might be a perfectly sound argument, but that doesn't mean we should listen to it. In fact, at least in American criminal trials, it's very likely that the judge would instruct the jury to disregard the outburst in the courtroom because that has not been presented as evidence by either the prosecution or the defense. Criminal trials have to operate according to a certain procedure. If the procedure is violated then a mistrial is declared. Or there has to be some way of fixing the violation of the procedure. And for someone to just burst in to the courtroom, not called there by either the prosecution or the defense, and to yell out that they saw the accused murder the victim, and therefore, the accused really is guilty of the crime with which he is charged. Well, the argument that they're giving might be sound, it might be the premise is true and the conclusion, and, of course, the premise supports the conclusion. But that doesn't mean we should listen to it. In fact the jury will very likely be specifically instructed to disregard the outburst. So there is an example of the silencer that is not a fallacy if I say the outburst was inappropriate and violates the procedure of the criminal trial therefore we should disregard it. Right. There I'm giving an argument. The argument is a silencer. It starts off with a premise about the person who made the outburst namely that their making the outburst was in violation of the procedure of the criminal trial and it ends with a conclusion to the effect that we should disregard their argument. So what I've just given right now is a silencer but that's a silencer that's actually a good argument. In that context we should ignore the outburst. Okay, or certainly the jury should ignore the outburst. Okay, so that's an example of a silencer that's not a fallacy. It's a good argument. Here's another example of a silencer that's not a fallacy. So suppose in a particular session of our national legislature, a bill, a proposed law is being debated by different legislators. And suppose someone bursts into the legislative assembly, and, makes the following outburst. This bill will throw millions of working citizens into dire poverty. Any bill that throws millions of working citizens into dire poverty should not be passed into law, and therefore this bill should not be passed into law. Now again, it's possible, let's suppose, that the argument that this person is giving is a sound argument. It's possible that the premises are both true and that the conclusion is true. And that the premises support the conclusion. But even if it's a sound argument, given the way legislative sessions are supposed to operate, we shouldn't listen to the argument that this person has given, because the way they gave it violates the protocol of legislative sessions. Right, so I might argue as follows. I might say, this person's outburst violates the protocol of our legislative session, therefore we must disregard their argument. That's an example of a silencer. And yet, it's not a bad argument. It very well might be true, given the rules governing legislative activity, that we do need to disregard this outburst. That doesn't mean that we don't need to think about the considerations that the person adduced. We might need to think about the considerations that the person adduced. But that would be for other reasons than that the person that adduced them. So this is an example of a silencer that's actually a good argument. It's a good argument for the conclusion that we should ignore the outburst that the person made into the legislative session. Okay, so now I've given a couple of examples of silencers that are good arguments. But notice, these silencers occur in very special circumstances, let's say, during a criminal trial or during a legislative session. During some occasion that's governed by a bunch of procedural rules and regulations. But ordinary life isn't like that. In ordinary life, our conversations aren't governed by that thick network of procedural rules and regulations. Of course, there are rules and regulations that govern ordinary conversation, rules and regulations concerning etiquette, you know, being reasonably polite and considerate to one another. Those rules and regulations are few enough and far between that we still leave room for people outside our conversation to burst out with consideration. But those regulations are not as many and not as complicated as the rules and regulations that govern legal proceedings and legislative sessions. In ordinary life when do we encounter silencers? Well, often we encounter silencers of a following form. We will encounter a silencer to the effect that we shouldn't listen to someone's argument, because after all, that person has a criminal record. Or we shouldn't listen to someone's argument, because after all, that person is a philanderer. Or we shouldn't listen to someone's argument, because after all, we all know what that person is like. That person is, that person's just weird and so we just shouldn't listen to their argument. So, often in ordinary life we encounter silencers that are fallacies. They tell us not to listen to the argument that a person is giving, not because that argument, the act that they performed of giving that argument, violates the strict rules and regulations governing our proceedings. We shouldn't listen to their argument because that person is weird, or that person has a, has some event in their history that should make us look askance at them. Now, those silencers typically are fallacies and yet those are the kinds of silencers that we find most commonly in everyday life. Okay. So, that's our discussion of silencers. Next time, we'll talk about dismissers. See you next time.
