Begging the Question

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philosophy hello YouTube in this video

I'm going to discuss the fallacy of

begging the question it's common in

philosophy to be told that an argument

begs the question uh and begging the

question is generally regarded as a uh a

serious defect of an argument the basic

idea is pretty easily stated so an

argument begs the question when it

assumes what is to be proved the

premises of the argument assume the

truth of the conclusion right the aim is

we're trying to we're trying to present

something that gives a case for the

conclusion uh and we beg the question

when the conclusion is being assumed

within the premises so so you know we're

not going to agree with the premises

unless we already agree with the

conclusion arguments that beg the

question therefore have no dialectical

Force they can't persuade anybody who

does not already agree with the

conclusion so it's it's a it's a kind of

fallacy of

circularity now our question is what

exactly is wrong with begging the

question what kind of fallacy is it is

it a formal fallacy or an informal

fallacy what is it about question

begging arguments that makes than

problematic and maybe surprisingly

there's very little consensus among

philosophers about where exactly the

problem with begging the question lies

uh so there's in a very nice article by

John brro called rescuing begging the

question uh and he outlines some of the

approaches to this topic so I'm going to

be drawing on that here um okay so the

simplest

view is that begging the question is a

formal fallacy whether an argument begs

the question is a matter of The Logical

form of the argument this is the

formalist analysis it was most famously

endorsed by John Stuart Mill now on this

view all deductively valid arguments beg

the question so um in

philosophy there's you know there's a

distinction drawn between deductive

arguments and inductive arguments in a

valid deductive argument the conclusion

is logically entailed by the premises

that is to say the truth of the premises

guarantees the truth of the conclusion

so that it's impossible that the

premises are true and the conclusion

false in which case anybody who denies

the conclusion must deny one of the

premises classic example is you know if

Socrates is a man then Socrates is

Mortal Socrates is a man therefore

Socrates is Mortal if you accept the

premises of that argument you are forced

to accept the conclusion by contrast an

inductive argument merely makes its

conclusion probable if the premises are

true the conclusion is probably true or

uh you know you have some reason to

believe the conclusion but the truth of

the premises does not guarantee the

truth of the conclusion so for example

all the philosophers I have met are

lonely Socrates is a philosopher so

Socrates is lonely if we know the

premises then it seems like okay we have

some reason to believe the conclusion if

every you know if you've met a lot of

philosophers and all of them have been

lonely and then you learn that Socrates

is a philosopher you're going to think

yeah okay well he's probably lonely um

but you know look in principle the

premises might be true while the

conclusion is false I mean maybe maybe

there's like a billion philosophers all

of them are lonely and then there's just

one philosopher who just happens to get

lucky and isn't lonely right um that

could be the case you're not logically

you're not like forced to accept the

conclusion on the basis of those those

premises so so this is this is the

difference right deductive argument uh

the truth of the premises guarantees the

truth of the conclusion and inductive

argument that's not the case now a valid

deductive argument is often thought of

as

the gold standard of argument right I

mean after all an argument which

guarantees the truth of its conclusion

is surely better than an argument that

merely makes its conclusion probable but

on the formalist view it turns out that

all deductive arguments are question

begging and I mean one way to think

about deductive validity is that in a in

a deductively valid argument the

conclusion is merely restating

information that is all already

contained within the premises um so you

can sort of see in this argument right

if Socrates is a man then Socrates is

Mortal Socrates is a man so Socrates is

Mortal that conclusion when we say

Socrates is Mortal it's like we we're

sort of elaborating on information

that's already there within the premises

so by accepting the premises of a

deductively valid argument it's as if

we're implicitly committed to the

conclusion already um you know valid

deductive arguments reveal our implicit

commitments when I accept that if

Socrates is a man then Socrates is

mortal and I accept that if that

Socrates is a man well you know I'm just

I'm then committed to the proposition

that Socrates is Mortal I mean maybe I

explicitly deny the proposition that

Socrates is Mortal but um what this

argument shows me is well you know

either I'm going to have to give up that

belief right either I'm I'm going to

have to accept the Socrates as mortal or

I'm going to have to give up my belief

in one of the premises um so with that

in mind though recall the basic idea of

what it is for an argument to beg the

question an argument begs the question

when the premises of the argument assume

the truth of the conclusion and that's

exactly what's going on here we're

saying look the premises could not be

true if the conclusion were not true and

that's the case for all valid deductive

arguments I mean that's just what

deductive validity is the premises could

not be true if the conclusion were not

true uh so

now it looks like you know if begging

the question is the premises assume the

truth of the conclusion well now it just

looks like all deductively valid

arguments beg the

question now if this is right what

follows well Defenders of the formalist

analysis have two options available to

them here first of all we might say that

okay begging the question is a

fallacy um it's a bad thing and so we

can conclude that deductive argument is

illegitimate deductive

argument just across the board all

deductive arguments are out they're all

fallacious in a in a very you know obv

like in a bad and obvious way right uh

now unsurprisingly this is not a

particularly popular position I mean as

we noted deductively valid arguments are

often seen as the gold standard um if

deductively valid arguments are

fallacious across the board you know

what are we left with I mean there are

inductive arguments but again you know

those AR an inductive

argument that's kind of like less likely

to convince people because the premises

of such arguments they don't even

purport to guarantee the truth of the

conclusion um there's also a risk here

of uh of self-defeat so what arguments

can we give for the claim that all

deductively valid arguments beg the

question it doesn't seem to be an

inductive argument right I mean we're

not saying it's not like we're looking

at a bunch of deductive arguments and

we're saying oh this particular

deductive argument begs the question

this particular deductive argument begs

the question and so on and so on and so

on and then you know we're making this

inductive inference and saying oh well

in since all of these deductive

arguments that I've observed since all

of all of those beg the question

therefore I'm going to assume that all

deductive arguments beg the question

we're not making that kind of inductive

argument so it looks like the argument

for the claim that all deductive

arguments beg the question that appears

to be a deductive argument not an

inductive argument but then if deduction

is illegitimate if it's fallacious well

this very argument is going to be

illegitimate so the argument is going to

undermine itself so if we say that

begging the question is a fallacy and we

conclude that all deductive arguments

are fallacious that they're all

illegitimate then there's a there's

there's a worry that this is going to

just be self-defeating uh that you know

whatever argument we give for that is

going to count as illegitimate by its

own

lights

um okay so first option not a popular

one uh what about the second option well

the second option is

to deny that begging the question is a

fallacy um so we can say look all

deductive arguments beg the question in

virtue of their deductive validity so

it's it's just AB to complain that like

it's absurd to complain that an argument

begs the question right to say to

complain that an argument begs the

question is basically to complain that

it's valid right but that's just silly

um so let's consider this second option

in a little more detail right this idea

that begging the question is not really

a

fallacy right so the formalist is going

to lay down a challenge here when we

accuse an argument of begging the

question what exactly is the complaint

supposed to be so all all deductive

arguments beg the question in virtue of

their deductive validity right

um

now if that's like like where then is is

the

problem our goal in giving arguments is

to work out what the truth is so surely

we shouldn't complain when an argument

is such that the truth of its premises

guarantees the truth of its conclusion

if I'm interested in figuring out you

know what what are the facts what's the

truth truth and I have an argument where

I have true premises and those true

premises logically entail a particular

conclusion I mean that like what okay

where's the complaint there right I've

I've got I've got I've got something

which which leads

me with with irresistible logical Force

right it leads me from True premises to

a true conclusion um we care about

deductive validity precisely because it

tells tell us something about patterns

of Truth

preservation if we if our goal is to

work out what the truth is then the only

relevant questions we should have when

we evaluate an argument are first of all

are the premises of the argument true

and second does the conclusion follow

from those

premises if one of the premises is false

we have a reasonable objection if the

premises do not entail the conclusion so

that the premises may be true while the

conclusion is false again we have a

reasonable objection but if the premises

are true and the premises entail the

conclusion it's ridiculous to reject the

argument it's ridiculous to say yes your

premises are true and your conclusion

follows but your argument commits the

fallacy of begging the question if the

premises are true and the truth of those

premises guarantees the truth of the

conclusion that's just as good as it

gets no argument can do

better so I mean the main worry about

this sort of response is it it just I

suppose there are going to be cases that

are extremely counterintuitive right so

um there are going to be cases of

arguments that just seem to be clearly

defective even if we grant that there

are true premises and we grant that the

the arguments are valid so think about

an argument where we're literally just

restating the premise as as the

conclusion so I say uh God exists

therefore God exists now suppose you

accept that God exists right so you you

agree that the premise is true and you

think the conclusion is true as well um

well I mean look this argument is

logically valid I mean there's obviously

no logical problem with the inference

from from P to P right from God exists

yeah of course the proposition God

exists entails that God exists yes

there's no it's there's no issue there

um clearly it's uh it's impossible for

the premise to be true and the

conclusion false

um so let's say that you believe God

exists well now we have a true premise

we have a valid argument but surely this

is not a good argument this shouldn't be

con Ving to

anybody um so I think if we take this

opt if we take this sort of view um then

we're going to have two options here one

option is to say yeah you know what

despite our intuitions there isn't

actually anything problematic about this

type of reasoning um so what I've

offered here God exists therefore God

exists uh that is in fact a good

argument for the existence of God um

assuming it's true that God exists

um I I don't expect many people would

want to take this line one thing we

could say maybe is to distinguish

between good cases of begging the

question and bad cases and we say well

this is an instance of the bad case so

any deductively valid argument begs the

question yes but in some cases question

begging arguments can be good and in

other cases question begging arguments

can be bad when a question begging

argument is bad it's not bad in virtue

of begging the question it's bad in

virtue of something else so by analogy

suppose we just take all modus pin's

arguments right if P then q p therefore

Q some modus Pony's arguments are good

if Socrates is a man then Socrates is

Mortal Socrates is a man therefore

Socrates is Mortal it's a good mod of

argument but some modus Pon arguments

are bad they're bad arguments um for

instance if the moon orbits the earth

Socrates is Mortal the moon orbits the

earth therefore Socrates is Mortal well

that's clearly a bad argument but what

makes it a bad argument is not that it

is an instance of modus ponin now notice

that In classical logic this argument is

valid and sound um the premises are true

and the premises entail uh the

conclusion but in practice nobody is

going to give this

argument the objection of course is well

look there's no relevant connection

between the Moon's orbiting the Earth

and socrates's mortality so yeah I mean

yes the first premise here if the moon

orbits the earth then Socrates is Mortal

well look it has a true antecedent and

it has a true consequence so that first

premise is true but it's not reasonable

to assert it in most contexts now maybe

the formalist could take a similar view

concerning deductive argument in general

so they could say all deductively valid

arguments beg the question but there are

many question begging arguments that are

problematic for other reasons uh the god

argument I gave right God exists

therefore God exists that's kind of like

an a paradigmatic case of just a a bad

question begging

argument so I guess that I mean so that

could be the idea right is we say look

all all of these arguments beg the

question um but you know some of these

question begging arguments are bad for

other

reasons that's the general idea but

there's I think there's going to be a

bit of a challenge in terms of how this

idea is elaborated so I'll just sort of

just outline this worry that we might

have the worry is going to be

this we are we're identifying we're

drawing this distinction between good

question begging arguments and bad

question begging

arguments and the question is going to

be why not just say that what we're

identifying as the bad cases of question

question begging arguments why not just

say that that's what question begging is

all along right so so look at it this

way initially we are inclined to say

that some deductive arguments beg the

question and some do not so we start out

with this sort of classification scheme

of deductive arguments and we sort the

deductive arguments into the question

begging and the non-question begging

kind of like I I have it here right we

might say look argument one that's

question begging argument two question

begging argument three not question

begging etc etc so we have this sort of

list of arguments on the on the question

begging side and a list of arguments on

the non-question begging side and this

is just you know sort of on the basis of

initial appearances um before we start

thinking through our philosophical views

about what begging the question is well

now we counter formalism right let's say

we we endorse the formalist analysis and

so we conclude that all deductively

valid arguments beg the

question but we don't want to just throw

out deduction across the board and so we

conclude look yeah all all deductively

valid arguments beg the

question but begging the question is

only sometimes a problem so the for so

the formalist now says look there's

these arguments are the cases of of you

know they're like bad question begging

arguments and then there's these

arguments that are the the good question

begging ones so what we have now is a

classification scheme where we we sort

of start out with deductive question

begging arguments and we sort them into

the Bad and The Good the the the the

illegitimate and the legitimate what we

what we initially called a question

begging argument is going to track very

closely to what the formalist calls an

illegitimate question begging argument

and what we initially called a non-quest

begging argument will track very closely

with what the formalist calls a

legitimate question begging argument but

now it looks like the non formalist can

object that look what the formalist has

identified as these illegitimate cases

of question begging that just is

question begging so when when we ask

this initial question what is wrong with

begging the question we're asking what

is the problem with the arguments that

the formalist has placed in the

legitimate category so formalism in

itself doesn't really solve anything it

just sort of changes the terminology um

whatever the formalist identifies as the

problem with their illegitimate category

whatever the formalist identifies as the

problem with the bad question begging

arguments this is going to be a

nonformal feature of those arguments and

whatever that non-formal feature is we

should say that that feature is what is

constitutive of begging the question um

we should identify begging the question

with that feature we shouldn't say you

know begging the question is just a

matter of deductive validity No um you

know the formalist herself to go back

right the formalist herself is now

drawing this distinction between the bad

question begging and the good question

begging so we should just say look

question begging is just whatever it is

that's putting arguments in the bad pile

um and and obviously that will be a

nonformal feature of

arguments so with that in mind then with

that with that in mind uh we can turn to

the formalist analysis this is a family

of views on which begging the question

concerns the the nonformal the

non-logical uh aspects of an argument so

some some deductively valid arguments

beg the question and some do not um just

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um right let's move on

so one option then for the non formalist

is to give a psychological

analysis so I guess one thing we should

note here is that human beings are

not logically

omniscient we we're not aware of all of

The Logical consequences of our

commitments so you know suppose we

accept some set of premises P1 P2 P3 Etc

and then it's shown that this set of

premises entails a conclusion if the

audience is not aware that those

premises entail that conclusion

well that's the sort of case where we

might say okay that's maybe that's not

question begging then I mean at least

that's the initial intuition right I

mean we could also think of it in terms

of what it is that has led a person to

accept the premise in question was their

acceptance of the premises based on

their prior acceptance of the conclusion

if not the initial intuition is okay

that probably doesn't beg the

question so I mean what exactly is the

point of an argument right what what are

we doing when we give arguments well one

reason why we give arguments is in order

to influence beliefs we want to hold

true beliefs we want to avoid false

beliefs and we want to convince other

people to adopt true beliefs and to drop

their false beliefs so arguments play an

important role in influencing beliefs uh

David Sanford puts it as follows a

primary purpose of argument is to

increase the degree of reasonable

confidence which one has in the truth of

a conclusion so whenever we consider an

argument one of the things we should be

asking is do the premises increase one's

confidence in the

conclusion if the premises were true

would that increase my confidence in the

conclusion

if so the argument is not question

begging every question begging argument

will be such that it fails this purpose

when an argument is question begging the

premises do not increase one's

confidence in the conclusion maybe this

is because everybody is already aware

that the premises entail the conclusion

maybe this is because everybody's

acceptance of the premises is already

based on their acceptance of the

conclusion or whatever you know there

may be multiple ways that an argument

can fail at this purpose so this is a

psychological analysis

the problem with arguments that beg the

question is that these arguments are

such that endorsing the premises fails

to increase confidence in the

conclusion so um uh brro in his in his

article I mentioned rescuing the begging

the question discusses this idea raises

a number of objections to it so one

worry that raised by brro is that we

want to say that there are cases in

which an argument begs the question but

the audience fails to recognize this uh

indeed I myself May accept an argument

at one time it and I may accept it in

the sense that the argument does indeed

successfully increase my degree of

confidence in its conclusion but then at

a later time I might come to believe

that the argument is question begging

and so I no longer treat it as a reason

to accept the conclusion I mean that

seems perfectly reasonable right I mean

that's a that's just something that we

all do right I mean we we might

encounter arguments we think oh yeah

that's convincing um and then later we

think about them a bit more carefully

and we realize oh no actually that that

begs the question so I I'm not going to

accept that

argument but it's kind of hard to make

sense of this if we take the

psychological view if I do in fact find

the premises to be a persuasive reason

for the conclusion then by definition on

this view the argument cannot be

question begging failing to increase

confidence in the conclusion is on

Sanford's view a necessary condition for

begging the

question but in the case we've just

talked about the argument did increase

my confidence in the

conclusion so whatever else might be

wrong with it it can't be question

begging uh it doesn't meet one of the

necessary conditions of begging the

question so it it wouldn't make sense

for me to then conclude that contrary to

initial appearances the argument is

question begging after all I mean if the

initial appearances were that were such

that I increased my confidence in the

conclusion as a result of the argument

then it just can't be question begging

for me um so I think that the the the

fundamental worry here is that the

psychological analysis kind of gets

things backwards

um my confidence in the conclusion of an

argument is and presumably ought to be

Downstream from my assessment of whether

the argument begs the question right

it's I I first ask myself does this beg

the question question and then this is

what is going to influence my confidence

in the

conclusion um so if I I ask this

question like does does it beg the

question and maybe I say no it doesn't

and then I accept the argument but then

I can always kind of go back and

reassess things and think oh yeah

actually it does beg the question and

the fact that the argument successfully

increased my confidence in the

conclusion when I assessed it

differently I mean who cares right um so

also kind of the reverse Point here

which is that sometimes a perfectly good

argument may fail to convince the

audience for reasons independent of the

argument itself maybe the audience uh

misunderstands something in the

presentation of the argument maybe the

audience are just extreme dogmatists who

would not be convinced by any argument

in principle maybe they're they're just

not paying attention uh failure to

increase a person's confidence in the

conclusion um you know clearly is not uh

is not a sufficient condition for

begging the question either so so you

know we can the idea would be look you

know we can see that it's uh it failed

to increase confidence in the conclusion

that's not a necessary condition um but

also it's it's not going to count as a

sufficient condition either I think

maybe a more broad Point here is like

why is it that we worry about fallacies

like begging the question I mean why do

we even talk about this stuff why do we

why is this something that we draw

attention to um well it looks

like the reason why we talk about these

sorts of fallacies is because we assume

people can be mistaken about whether an

argument is compelling um people can be

taken in by arguments that are

unbeknownst to them problematic for

various reasons um now to identify a

fallacy with some brute psychological

fact so there there's a brute

psychological fact of whether the

premises do in fact increase a person's

confidence in the conclusion when we

identify a fallacy with a brute

psychological fact arguably we are

conflating

a normative fact with a descriptive fact

when we investigate fallacies we're

investigating the normative question of

how people ought to reason um and we

can't reduce how people ought to reason

to a purely descriptive psychological

fact about how people actually reason um

so yeah I mean the point of saying that

this argument begs the question is we're

saying look like you ought not to accept

it right that you would be reasoning in

badly uh you know you'd be to meet the

sort of standards of rationality if you

reasoned in this way um uh but that's a

that's a normative question it's a

question about how we ought to

reason

but the question of whether or not an

argument increases my confidence in the

conclusion that's a purely descriptive

question about how I in fact reason so

these are just you know it's it's just

the the wrong kind of thing to um to

take as being what constitutes begging

the question

okay well with that in mind the so this

idea that fallacies be understood in

normative terms uh would suggest what we

might call the psychological normative

analysis so recall the quote I gave from

Sanford a primary purpose of argument is

to increase the degree of reasonable

confidence which one has in the truth of

the

conclusion now importantly right let's

there was a there's a word here which we

sort of ignored uh when describing the

psychological view so that word is

reasonable right the purpose of

arguments is to increase reasonable

confidence which which one has in the

truth of the

conclusion so suppose that a person

fails to accept an argument because

they've failed to pay attention to

it well in that case their failure to

increase the confidence in the

conclusion can hardly be called

reasonable um so at the very least we

need to be thinking of an attentive

audience well informed about the

background facts who are open-minded

enough to follow arguments where they

lead we need to consider good reasoners

people who who reason

well the question of course

is like how do we like under what

conditions would I be uh would I be

reasoning in or would I be thinking in

an unreasonable way were an argument to

increase my confidence in its conclusion

so we need to identify when is it

unreasonable that the premises of an

argument increase a person's confidence

in the argument's conclusion so that is

if I'm presented with an argument right

yet under what conditions would it be

unreasonable um for the argument to

increase my confidence in the

conclusion well I mean one case here

would be if the argument is invalid or

if one of the premises is just obviously

false right if I'm presented with an

argument where one of the premises

obviously false then it would be

unreasonable for the argument to

increase my confidence in its conclusion

but suppose that we're dealing with a

valid deductive argument whose premises

are

true when is it unreasonable that these

premises increase my confidence in the

conclusion you know could could there be

cases where where it would be

unreasonable for a valid deductive

argument to increase my confidence in

its conclusion uh an argument where you

know it's sound the premises are true

and the the inference form is

valid um well Sanford says yes and he

elaborates on this idea um so he says an

argument formulated for Smith's benefit

begs the question either if Smith

believes one of the premises only

because he believe he already believes

the conclusion or if Smith would believe

one of the premises only if he already

believed the

conclusion so there are two cases then

first where Smith believes the premises

of the argument but his reason for

believing one of those premises just is

the conclusion of the argument in this

case since Smith's belief in the

premises is based on his belief in the

conclusion the premises can't reasonably

increase Smith's confidence in the

conclusion um for Smith the premises are

only compelling because the conclusion

is already compelling for Smith the

premises are dependent on the conclusion

so if Smith were to increase his

confidence in the

conclusion on the basis of those

premises yeah that would that would just

be unre that would be unreasonable the

premises can't really Provide support

for the conclusion in this case the

second case is where Smith does not

believe all the

premises but he would come to believe

all the premises only by coming to

believe the conclusion and again what we

have here is is a situation where the

premises are as far as Smith is

concerned dependent on the

conclusion so it's like in in both of

these cases Smith's belief in the

premises is dependent on his belief in

the conclusion he will endorse them only

by endorsing the conclusion so the

premises can't reasonably increase his

confidence in the

conclusion so yeah I mean if Smith's

beliefs are structured in this way then

it does seem that it would be

unreasonable of Smith to increase his

confidence in the conclusion on the

basis of the

premises this would be unreasonable

because it would make Smith's confidence

in the

conclusion dependent on the premises but

his beliefs are structured in such a way

that his confidence in the premises is

dependent on the conclusion um and and

this is going to be the case even if the

argument is sound even if it's valid and

the premises are

true um so this is kind of a

psychological view um I mean it's

be based on the the structure of a

particular person's belief system but as

you can see what we're emphasizing here

is like

reasonable reasonable changes in belief

reasonable shifts in in

confidence so brro raises a few

objections to this account first of

all there's a problem with any kind of

psychological account and brro thinks

the psychological normative account does

not Escape it which is that it gives

rise to a kind of relativism um so

Suppose there are two people reading an

argument Verity believes the premises on

the basis of the conclusion Sydney does

not Sydney has never considered the

conclusion before so hearing the

premises does not reasonably lead him to

increase his confidence uh so sorry so

Sydney has never considered the

conclusion before so hearing the

premises doeses reasonably lead him to

increase his confidence in the

conclusion well now is the argument

question begging or isn't it kind of

looks like we have to say the argument

is question begging for Verity but not

question begging for Sydney there's no

independent facts of the matter whether

this is a good argument or not whether

the argument is fallacious or not indeed

arguments are often not formed for the

benefit of any particular person an

argument might be written in a book

communicated to potentially thousands of

people with all sorts of different World

Views or an argument may never be

communicated to anybody I can come up

with an argument in my own head and

assess whether it's convincing I can

explore an argument just for its own

sake just because I'm interested in

seeking the truth or whatever um in

those sorts of cases which possible sets

of background beliefs do I select when

I'm assessing whether the argument begs

the question um this is going to be the

concern um I have to say I mean I myself

I'm not really sure why this is supposed

to be a problem uh I mean we do often

evaluate arguments by considering the

audience one and the same argument might

be a good argument when presented to one

person with a particular set of beliefs

but a bad argument when presented to

another person with a very different set

of beliefs so if we take the arguments

for the existence of God like take take

an argument for God that appeals to the

principle of sufficient reason well

that's the kind of argument that might

be persuasive to people with rationalist

inclinations but it's much less likely

to work if you present it to somebody

who's a hardcore empiricist empiricists

tend to reject the principle of

sufficient reason um I don't know it's

just not clear to me why the assessment

of arguments as good or bad as FCI or

non- falci has to depend solely on on

like the intrinsic properties of the

argument as it were independent of any

like context of use of that argument I

mean that actually strikes me as a

rather odd way of thinking about

arguments um so I don't know I mean brro

says that this kind of relativism is

problematic

doesn't seem problematic to me but um

there we go uh so anyway another issue

with the psychological normative account

concerns the dispositional case remember

the idea is um an argument begs the

question so we're going to say an

argument begs the question against

Verity when Verity does not believe all

the premises but would come to believe

all the premises only by coming to

believe the

conclusion so obviously one worry here

is well look there's countless factors

that might lead a person to form beliefs

there there's just countless ways a

person might come to believe a

conclusion Verity might get struck on

the head in just the right way that she

forms a belief in the premises or

Verity's brain might be manipulated by

God so God creates in Verity the belief

in the premises and so

on so for any proposition at all there's

going to be multiple ways in which a

person might come to believe that

proposition in which case arguably they

just are are no cases where Verity would

come to believe the premises only by

coming to believe the conclusion there

will always be multiple ways for Verity

to come to believe the premises now of

course the obvious response here is that

many of these ways like being struck on

the head or one's brain being

manipulated by God are not reasonable

and the whole point of the psychological

normative analysis is it's framed in

terms of what's reasonable um yeah we

certainly wouldn't say in these cases

that Verity has reasoned her way to a

belief in the

premises so we might say something like

an argument begs the question against

Verity if Verity would reasonably

believe the premises only if she already

believed the conclusion prior belief in

the conclusion is necessary for

reasonable belief in the premises in

that case the argument begs the question

but I think even this might seem

problematic because for any proposition

there will on almost any account of

reasonable belief Bel belief be multiple

sets of beliefs that support that

proposition I mean just think about how

you know for almost any given

philosophical position you can find

multiple Arguments for it often quite

distinct arguments right I mean so the

proposition that God exists that can be

supported by the ontological argument or

the cosmological argument or the

fine-tuning argument or the argument

from religious experience and so on I me

if you modify your background beliefs

sufficiently you can find almost any

proposition that you can get to from

those from those beliefs so again you

know there's just a I think there's

there'll be a worry here that if you

take if you take of almost any set of

premises there's going to be multiple

ways of reasoning of like reasonably

getting to those premises if you fix the

background beliefs in the right sort of

way

um so uh those were a couple of the

concerns about the psychological

normative

analysis all right then let's turn now

to uh the analysis given by John John

brro uh he proposes a different kind of

non formalist analysis the epistemic

analysis as brro sees it the formalist

is right that begging the question

concerns the relations between the

propositions that form the argument it's

it's not got anything to do with how

people are inclined to respond to the

argument but he thinks the formalist

locates the problem in the wrong place

begging the question question is not a

matter of logical form rather it is a

matter of what he calls knowability it's

a matter of the epistemic status of the

premises relative to the conclusion uh

so brro summarizes the epistemic

analysis as follows the innocuous

circularity of all valid arguments

becomes vicious only when such arguments

are used to lead us from a supposedly

known truth so to a supposedly unknown

one where the former is know more

knowable than the

latter all right so the point of

arguments is to build knowledge we want

to reason from premises that are known

to a conclusion that was previously

unknown in a good argument then we're

going to have wellestablished premises

known wellestablished premises are going

to be used to reason to a potentially

controversial conclusion so so let's say

I know that some set of premises are

true right I know that P1 P2 Etc are

true I don't know that Q is true an

argument showing that P1 P2 Etc entails

Q is therefore a powerful argument it

will lead me to believe that Q um or I

guess if Q is unacceptable to me it will

lead me to reject one of the premises

either way I've learned something

new so an argument should take us from

premises that are known to a conclusion

was not known but not all arguments are

successful at this an argument might

fail to do this

because its premises are false it might

fail to do this because it's logically

invalid but it might also fail to do

this because its premises cannot be

known independently of the conclusion

being

known now the issue here is not about

whether people are persuaded of the

premises the issue is about knowability

brro takes this to be objective it's an

objective matter an argument presupposes

that the premises can be known

independently of the conclusion being

known when this fails the argument begs

the question to beg the question is to

present premises that are not knowable

independently of the conclusion of the

argument and that's not relative to

anybody's beliefs an argument that's

question begging for Verity will be

question begging for Sydney and so on

for everyone else no ability is

objective so whether an argument begs

the question is objective brro presents

the following examples so we're going to

take the classic you know all men are

mortal Socrates is a man so Socrates is

Mortal according to to Biro this is a

this is a good argument um it's not

question begging the premises of this

argument are more knowable than the

conclusion why is this well take premise

one that all men are mortal the truth of

this can be demonstrated from arguments

concerning from from arguments from

premises concerning other properties of

men and animals um once you know various

things about men in general animals in

general you can you can establish that

all men are mortal the conclusion by

contrast that Socrates is Mortal well

any argument for that is just going to

appeal to premises like premise one so

the conclusion is not knowable

independently of knowing premise one as

for premise 2 that Socrates is a man

that's knowable on the basis of direct

observation um the conclusion when you

give it in the present tense at least is

not knowable in this

way um I mean we could know in the past

tense that socr we could know that

Socrates was Mortal but not the Socrates

is Mortal um I mean another way to look

at this is that when observing

socrates's mortality when we observe

Socrates die we observe that he's a man

right You observe a man dying so again

the conclusion is not knowable

independent independent of knowing

socrates's manhood um so brro Compares

this to the following argument which has

the same

form all members of the committee are

old etonians fortescu is a member of the

committee therefore fortescu is an old

tonian as brro sees it this begs the

question because if we assume premise 2

here premise one cannot be known unless

the conclusion is already known brro

says neither demonstration nor

observation which does not assume

knowledge of the conclusion will yield

knowledge of premise one so in this case

the

conclusion is more knowable than the

premises and so it begs the

question now I have to say find bro's

argument here extremely obscure um I so

if we if we go back go back to the

Socrates argument right um seems to me

that all of these premises can be known

in a all of these propositions can be

known in a variety of ways um socrates's

mortality I think again it seems like

that can be known by direct observation

um so the claim that Socrates is Mortal

um

obviously I'm not going to if I'm if I'm

looking at Socrates and Socrates is

standing up and walking around I'm not

going to be seeing him die right but it

seems like there

are other things that we can see which

would just allow me to know that

Socrates is Mortal so I might see

Socrates struck down with a terrible

disease I see doctors working hard to

keep his body functioning so yes I'm not

literally seeing him die um there's

going to be an inference from these

observations to the claim that Socrates

is Mortal yes there will be some sort of

inference there um but I mean similarly

when it comes to the claim that Socrates

is a man right I mean do I literally see

that do I see the Socrates as a man I

mean I see various sort of biological

Parts associated with being a man um but

there are many possibilities compatible

with this I mean maybe Socrates is an

alien disguised as a man right like how

am I ruling that out I'm I'm making a

kind of inference right when I say that

Socrates is a man that's going to be

based on my sort of my kind of general

knowledge of what the world is like and

I'm you know my general knowledge of

things like okay well I know that aliens

haven't visited Earth um or at least I

assume they haven't right I'm assuming

that you know we're not in an Invasion

of the Body snatches sort of situation

uh right uh this just doesn't you know

maybe I think about things like the size

of space and how we've never encountered

any other planets with life Etc so

that's how I'm ruling out that

possibility um but you know that's like

I'm making an inference there so when I

when I come to the claim that Socrates

is a man that's not just direct

observation similarly the claim that

Socrates is Mortal that's not just

direct observation um with the claim

that Socrates is Mortal uh does

observing socrates's mortality require

observing that he's a man um I don't

think so uh it seems like you know I

might you can kind of Imagine let's say

an alien that comes to Earth um and just

sort of isn't famili with the species on

Earth but kind of knows something

general about certain principles of

biology so when the alien sees uh

Socrates riding around in pain then it

recognizes okay Socrates is a living

thing that means Socrates is Mortal but

it doesn't know that Socrates is a man

um so yeah I mean the idea that the you

know there's like these specific ways in

which we have to come to know these

propositions and the conclusion here is

um less able in the premises seems seems

very odd to me now if we if we then turn

to the Fescue argument well again It

just strikes me that there are many ways

in which a person might come to believe

any of these propositions um so take

premise one maybe for instance they read

in a book about the committee that all

of its members are old etonians so maybe

I just have a book about this committee

and it says in the book that all members

of the committee are old at tonians um

if I already know that fesu as a member

of the committee well now now I'm I'm

I'm learning two facts right which will

allow me to infer that Fescue is an old

etonian right so I know okay this guy's

a member of the committee and I read a

book and it says all members of the

committee are old etonians um well now I

can just infer oh yeah fesu is an old

aonian that seems like a perfectly

normal pattern of reasoning um now of

course it's true that yeah I mean If you

deny that fesu is an old aonian you're

going to be inclined to deny one of the

premes but the same is true of the

Socrates argument the same is true of

every valid deductive argument as we've

seen so

um yeah I mean it just seems uh I I I'm

as I say not particularly convinced by

what uh brro has to say about these

particular two arguments but maybe this

idea of no ability can be elaborated in

some other way um um but anyway uh I'm

going to leave it there thank you for

watching and uh I will see you next time

bye everybody