3 3 0C H A P T E R 1 6 ■ F a l l a c i e s o f V a c u i t ygoing to the trouble of saying what they are. The anti-Semite can always
cite Jewish cleverness to explain away counterevidence. We might call this
self-sealing by universal discounting. (2) A theory can also counter criticism by
attacking its critics. Critics of Marxism are charged with having a decadent
bourgeois consciousness that blinds them to the facts of class conflict. The
critic’s response to psychoanalytic theory is analyzed (and then dismissed)
as repression, a reaction formation, or something similar. Here self-sealing is
achieved through an ad hominem fallacy. We might call this self-sealing by
going upstairs, because the theorist is looking down on the critic.
Yet another form of self-sealing is this: (3) Words are used in such a way
that a position becomes true by definition. For example, a person makes the
strong claim that all human actions are selfish. This is an interesting remark,
but it seems to be false, for it is easy to think of cases in which people have
acted in self-sacrificing ways. To counter these obvious objections, the argu-
ment takes the following turn: When a person acts in a self-sacrificing way,
what that person wants to do is help another even at her own expense. This
is her desire or her motive, and that is what she acts to fulfill. So the action
is selfish after all, because the person is acting to achieve what she wants.
This is a self-sealing move, for it will not help to cite any behavior—even he-
roic self-destructive behavior—as counterevidence. If a person desires to do
something even if it involves the sacrifice of her life, then she acts to fulfill
her desire, and the act is again called selfish.
It is not hard to see the trick here. The arguer has chosen to use the word
“selfish” in a new and peculiar way: A person is said to act selfishly if she
does what she desires to do. This is not what we usually mean by this word.
We ordinarily say that a person acts selfishly if she is too much concerned
with her own interests at the expense of the interests of others. On this stand-
ard use of the word “selfish,” there are any number of counterexamples to
the claim that all human actions are selfish. But these counterexamples do
not apply when the word “selfish” is used in a new way, where “acting self-
ishly” comes close to meaning just “acting.” The point is that under this new
meaning of “selfish,” it becomes empty (or almost empty) to say that all hu-
man actions are selfish. Thus, under one interpretation (the ordinary inter-
pretation), the claim that all human actions are selfish is interesting but false.
Under another interpretation (an extraordinary interpretation), the claim is
true but vacuous. The position gets all its apparent interest and plausibility
from a rapid two-step back-and-forth between these positions.
Self-sealing arguments often change their form under pressure in this
way. A person will begin by holding a significant position that implies that
facts are one way rather than another, but under the pressure of criticism
will self-seal the position so that no evidence can possibly count against it.
A theory that vacillates in this way is either vacuous or false. It is vacuous if
self-sealing, false if not.
One good strategy for responding to this trick is to begin by charging a
person who uses such an argument with saying something trivial, vacuous,97364_ch16_ptg01_323-332.indd 330 15/11/13 11:07 AM
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