An important rhetoric lesson: Criticism vs other forms of negative rhetoric

A comment here and a post at Law Dork by Chris Geidner raises the issue of criticism vs other forms of negative rhetoric such as mockery, insults, irrationality, assertions of logic fallacies (crackpottery), lying, slandering and disrespect, including violation of the Principle of Charity in rhetoric.

 

Geidner raises this issue in the context of chief justice Roberts criticizing legitimate vs illegitimate criticism of judges:

John Roberts attacks court criticism that 

he decides lacks a “credible basis” as “illegitimate”

Conflating violence against judges with broad criticism the court faces for its extremism, the chief justice ultimately sends a chilling end-of-year report

 

Chief Justice John Roberts decided to take on critics of the U.S. Supreme Court in his annual end-of-year report on Tuesday with a disingenuous half-response that is nonetheless instructive — and disturbing — for what he does say.

On the last day of the year, the chief justice of the United States traditionally releases his end-of-year report. It generally addresses a topic of the year in a vague and uninspiring way, leading to little coverage and even less change. This year, however, the nine pages from Roberts come across as more of a lashing out than a reasoned report.

While acknowledging that “the courts are no more infallible than any other branch,” Roberts spent the second half of the report conflating violence and lies with legitimate criticism. He does so, moreover, while completely ignoring the ethical questions that have swirled around the court and Roberts’s leadership of it over the past two years, as well as substantive opposition to the court’s rulings.

The end result is a chilling, if vague, condemnation by Roberts of the widespread opposition to the extremism exhibited by the high court in its decisions and the ethical failings of justices responsible for those decisions.

Roberts writes:

I feel compelled to address four areas of illegitimate activity that, in my view, do threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends: (1) violence, (2) intimidation, (3) disinformation, and (4) threats to defy lawfully entered judgments.

This is Roberts’s point in this once-a-year moment he is given — to highlight what he views as “illegitimate” criticism of the court.

Then, in the low-water mark of Roberts’s report, he made what I think is an extremely concerning comment, coming from the head of the federal judiciary:

Public officials, too, regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges—for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.

Putting aside the questionable, subjective nature of assessing whether there is a “credible basis” for such claims, by providing no examples, Roberts was damning all manner of utterly legitimate, appropriate, and even necessary speech from public officials as illegitimate intimidation.

So, what I take from Chief Justice John Roberts’s report to the nation is that judges are supposed to be able to handle criticism, but not too much and not in a way that Roberts doesn’t like, and he will only vaguely tell us what that means, but if criticism crosses that invisible line it is illegitimate.

Got it.  

The words “ethics” or “ethical” do not appear even once in Roberts’s report.

After reading the year-end report (here), I basically agree with Geidner’s analysis. Roberts’ report is an immoral, partisan, authoritarian demagoguery. The intentional vagueness that permeates his report amounts to a logic fallacy called the Fallacy of Vagueness. This fallacy occurs when an argument depends upon the vagueness of its terms, leading to confusion or misinterpretation. Confusion arises when an argument’s validity or persuasiveness relies on terms that are not clearly defined or have borderline cases where it’s unclear whether they apply or not.

Alternatively, Roberts may be primarily using the Ambiguity Fallacy, e.g., in referring to disinformation and intimidation[1] as examples of “illegitimate” activity that threatens the independence of judges. Assertions of truth by one source can turn out to be disinformation. 

Criticism vs other forms of negative rhetoric is an issue I’ve thought about for years. When does legitimate criticism cross the line into irrational or "unprincipled" negative rhetoric? 

In my own writing, I criticize a lot but try not to cross the line into irrational or unprincipled negative rhetoric such as slanders, mockery, insults or disrespect toward the targets of my criticisms. Applying the Principle of Charity in mind helps with limiting disrespect. 

But no matter how principled me or anyone can try to be, at least some targets will see unprincipled negative rhetoric or rhetorical or logic fallacy. They call foul where none was intended. Sometimes they will be right because a person failed to stay on the side of principled criticism. In the case of honest mistake, all a person can do is accept and correct them. But sometimes, probably usually, it is not possible to come to agreement. Minds and perceptions of reality rarely change.

Both the “fallacy of vagueness” and the “fallacy of ambiguity” involve unclear language in an argument. The key distinction is that vagueness refers to a term with unclear boundaries or borderline cases, where the meaning is not precisely defined, while ambiguity means a term has multiple, distinct meanings that could be interpreted differently in the same context; essentially, vagueness is about “how much” of something, while ambiguity is about “which thing” is being referred to.

Q: Does my rhetoric too often stray from rational or principled criticisms into some form of irrational or unprincipled negative rhetoric?

Footnote:

1. The concept of disinformation is contested. Although there are common elements in the definitions of disinformation—such as the intent to deceive or cause harm—the term's application and interpretation are subject to significant debate and variation. This reflects not only the complexity of the issue but also the diverse contexts in which disinformation arises, from political campaigns to public health crises. 

The concept of intimidation is similarly contested.