On Sat, Sep 24, 2016 at 08:51:18PM -0300, juan wrote:
1) Rational is not the metric for good, although good may often be rational.
No argument from me. Just to be clear, that was my way of summarizing juan's position. He has been the one advocating rationality as the key to focus on.
And in this particular example courtesy 'xorcist', we have a classic case of a proposition implying an absolute, but in fact is not true, yet tends to lead the reader into the fallacy. (Forgot the name of this particular 'logical reversal', but it's a fallacy nonetheless.)
I believe you may be referring to 'affirming the consequent'. If X, then Y. Y, therefore X. But if you really want to get deep like that, juan's entire line of thinking falls to the "argument of fallacy" which is the idea that because an ARGUMENT for something is fallacious, then the conclusion must be fallacious.
the most rational people can do the most good. They'll seek to do the most good.
And here we see the logical fallacy flowing from the false generalisation / proposition.
Remember, I'm not asserting any of this, in fact. You seem to be confused, and should re-read. I'm summarizing my take on juan's position, and offering my counter.