Is it wrong to say something is X if it cannot not be X? [closed]

Question

I'm having a discussion with someone who thinks that it's a non-sequitur to describe something as X if it's not possible for it to not be X.

Here's an example:

It's wrong to say a chair is amoral, because a chair cannot be moral.

I don't agree, who is correct and why?

Answer 1

A non sequitur is a logical inference that does not follow from the premises, from the Latin phrase "it does not follow." For example:

One should wear a hat when it is raining.
It is raining.
Therefore a chair is amoral.

But I believe you can make the argument

To be amoral is to be indifferent to morality.
A chair is indifferent to morality.
Therefore a chair is amoral.

The conclusion follows logically from the premises, therefore it is not a non sequitur.

Answer 2

I'm not sure this is a good example. It isn't right to call a chair immoral, any more than to call it good at football. But amoral can mean either not admitting that morality applies (in which case it would be wrong, since a chair neither admits nor denies; I think this is a semantic point rather than a syntactic one), or not subject to morality (in which case it is entirely unobjectionable, and a truism).

Answer 3

Grammatically there is nothing wrong. Some might argue with the semantics of such a statement though. The reality is that one could imagine a scenario where such a statement is plausible, usually in some sort of tale where the chair becomes animate or perhaps cursed. The whole concept of metaphor revolves around assigning attributes from X to Y when everyone knows that X could never be Y. Some even argue that this is a fundamental method of human cognition and can't be avoided.

So, no, there's nothing wrong with it, per se.

Answer 4

Are you asking whether it is a mistake to use the pathetic fallacy? If so, I disagree. Such an ascription of human traits to inanimate objects is an important tool of literature. Consider:

Literary critics after Ruskin have generally not followed him in regarding the pathetic fallacy as an artistic mistake, instead assuming that attribution of sentient, humanising traits to inanimate things is a centrally human way of understanding the world, and that it does have a useful and important role in art and literature. Indeed, to reject the use of the pathetic fallacy would mean dismissing most Romantic poetry and many of Shakespeare's most memorable images.

Now, your chair may have no reason to be deemed amoral, but that doesn't mean a writer couldn't describe it as such in a poem or novel, for artistic effect.

Answer 5

I think that argument is nonsense. The whole point of describing a chair as "amoral" would be to point out that it cannot be moral. And when you point out that a person is "amoral", you generally mean that they are not capable of being moral.

See if your friend has a problem with this: "When a man shoots someone, we blame the man, not the gun. The gun is amoral. The man is capable of being immoral."

I can't imagine what could be described as "amoral" under your friend's rule, since "amoral" means incapable of moral distinctions. Perhaps people with some kind of brain injury -- but wouldn't they be incapable of being moral too?

Answer 6

An interesting aspect of this question is the existence of undecidable statements. Below are two examples:

• In mathematics, Gödel's incompleteness theorems implies that a deductive system will include statements that cannot be proven to be true or false. In such a case the fact that the statement is not false (really meaning that it cannot be proven false) does not imply that it is true.
• Another interesting analogy from quantum physics is commonly represented by Schrödinger's cat. A quantum system can exist in two (or more) distinct states (say A and B) until a direct observation is made and the system collapses into one of the states. Here, up to the measurement, the statement that the system is in state A is neither true nor false.