Let's take your flat earther friends as an example. And their beautifully designed videos. And their bible verses. Now start debunking them with undisputable facts. Like for instance taking them up to the ISS and they come back by saying. "I don't believe this happened, because here in my bible it says what I just saw with my own eyes is impossible." You point out that you can't verify the Bible is right by going by the bible. They reply, "but the bible says I can as long as long as my believe is strong enough." This is obvious circular reasoning. And not just that it's a reasoning maintained although it requires them to ignore unequivocal evidence to the contrary. Do you contend that that the circular reasoning is any less dishonest because they truly believe in what they say?
Do you know propaganda when you see it? Do you use logical fallacies without realizing it? Being intellectually honest is more necessary now than ever.
www.psychologytoday.com
That is what intellectual (dis)honesty is.
And this is the relevant paragraph.
rather, propaganda can be thought of as the hub of the wheel, with spokes of logical fallacies emanating out from its center. Logical fallacies are errors in thinking that yield faulty conclusions. Sometimes logical fallacies are the result of ignorance, but many times they are used purposefully
It doesn't matter if they truly believe and don't know that they're doing it. These things are intellectual dishonest by definition.
I'll put it in an example from here.
This is what you say. It contains a hasty generalization about "the left" because you can't possibly know what the position is for ALL or even a majority of the left, so you put up a strawman for the entire left, since unless this person is an idiot, it's absolutely foolish to claim Musk can personally pardon someone, and more likely is that what was claimed that Musk would use his influence to get Chauvin pardoned by Trump, and then you are begging the question by asserting instead of establishing your premise as true.
A hasty generalization fallacy is a claim made on the basis of insufficient evidence. Instead of looking into examples and evidence that are much more in
www.scribbr.com
Straw man fallacy is the distortion of someone else’s argument to make it easier to attack or refute. Instead of addressing the actual argument of the
www.scribbr.com
Begging the question fallacy is an argument where the conclusion is assumed in one of the premises. It is an attempt to prove something is true while
www.scribbr.com
Now I will present the same argument, an argument I don't believe in an intellectually honest manner.
"I saw mister X saying that Musk has the right to pardon Chauvin. (source added)"
That's it. Depending on how mister X presented his position he maybe, or maybe not be intellectually honest about it. (I suspect he wouldn't be because it's an unsustainable position for obvious reasons), but for it to by intellectually dishonest he needs to use fallacious arguments or purposefully misrepresent things.
What he believes is irrelevant.
By the way the reason reasoned argument are so rare here because 99 percent of the time those arguments are dismissed by people being intellectually dishonest. I can say without any reservation that I always try (not always successfully) to be intellectually honest. But thank you for the compliment.
