#118: What Would You Do In Their Place?

August 13, 2014

Hamas lobs rockets into Israel and the Hamas apologists whine, “But put yourself in their place. What would you do in their place?”

These people are not only whiny terrorist apologists, they are not very sophisticated logically. No great surprise there.

They are suggesting a counterfactual thought experiment. It is counterfactual because they are asking us to imagine another world, a world other than the real world, a world in which, contrary to reality, we are they. They urge this thought experiment on us because they believe that once we have completed the experiment, we will “understand” the Hamas mind from the inside and empathize with it.

They fail to realize that this is not a simple thing to do.

Once we imagine a world even slightly different from the real world, we lose all ties to the reality which normally constrains our beliefs, which means that we don’t know the details of this new world. Yes, we know that we are now they, but what else is true in this world? Most significantly, exactly how are we, they? Are we imagining that we now have their body? Do we have their mind? Do we have their history, their education, their indoctrination?

Perhaps what the apologists mean is “imagine yourself exactly as you are, but in their circumstances.” But this would mean imagining a whole different world history, one in which I, for example, wound up in a blockaded area run by profiteering psychopathic murderous fanatics trying to destroy a neighboring state. But what new history do we have to imagine which would lead to a nice, civilized, educated, non-violent fellow like me being trapped in such a situation? I would have to know this in order to conjecture “what I would do” and “what I would feel.” It all depends on what it is that you imagine the world would be like in which I would be in their place.

But if they don’t mean that, if they mean imagine yourself to actually be exactly like them in their current circumstances, then I can easily answer the question. I would feel and act exactly as they do. The reason is that I would be them, and we know exactly how people who are “they” feel and behave. But if this is how the thought experiment is supposed to be interpreted, then it yields absolutely nothing of interest. Of course I would be exactly how they are if I were one of them, but that’s scarcely news.

What they really mean is not something they would admit to. What they really mean is this: “How would you, exactly as you are, feel if an evil neighboring occupying country blockaded you and kept stealing your land when all you wanted was to live in peace with them?”

Well, duh! Yeah, I’d be real mad, maybe lob some rockets at ’em. Duh!

So their thought experiment really does tell us what we are expected to suppose about ourselves in this imaginary world. We wouldn’t be “exactly as we are.” Rather, we’re supposed to suppose that we are in their circumstances, we retain all of our normal responses and attitudes, but we hold all of their false beliefs about Israel, the Gazan situation, and middle-east history.

Gee, any surprise the experiment works for the Hamas apologist crowd?