Isn't it awfully ...

[Max]

No way of knowing for sure unless we try. Perhaps we could debate whether a debate on chocolate would divide by gender?

[Nettles]

No way of knowing for sure unless we try. Perhaps we could debate whether a debate on chocolate would divide by gender?

Is that a meta-debate?

[Max]

My thoughts exactly!

[Tessa K]

David the lawyer could probably be persuaded to argue either way for the sake of a good debate if there were too many on one side.

[Tessa K]

Even lawyers are good for some things...

I'm not sure evil is a good subject. The trouble is that the word has religious baggage and that could be a side-track to the debate. There should be a secular word to describe people who do horrible things.

What do you mean by 'evil', for example?

[Max]

<interjecting before David gets in> Scott Peck says evil is where the truth isn't. So how about non-truth? Oops, sorry, this is skeptics so we don't do Scott Peck here ;)

[Tessa K]

How is being a serial killer about non-truth?

[Max]

The truth is prosocial behaviour and order, not randomly killing people.

[Tessa K]

That's a very odd definition of 'truth'.

[Max]

The point is that definitions are arbitrary. Serial killers are an extreme case.

Looking at a less emotive example, one person's utilitarianism, for instance, is another person's evil. Where do you draw the line?

[Tessa K]

Definitions may be arbitrary, but taking a word (truth) that has a commonly used set of meanings and giving it an entirely new meaning that no one else could possible know unless you deign to explain it to them and which is of absolutely no use in any other context is just intellectual posturing.

[Max]

What she said

[Nettles]

Beauty is truth, truth beauty.

If Beauty = truth and
Evil is the absence of truth then
Evil is the absence of beauty.

Now there's a resolution for debate.

Anything that leads us in the direction of Mrs T or Dubya Bush or Andrew Lloyd Webber is definitely not going to lead us away from heated shouting (or pointless consensus) rather than good debate.

Lindt 70% anyone?

[Max]

Definitions may be arbitrary, but taking a word (truth) that has a commonly used set of meanings and giving it an entirely new meaning that no one else could possible know unless you deign to explain it to them and which is of absolutely no use in any other context is just intellectual posturing.

It was a brain-storming session for a new word and a generally accepted rule for brain-storming is withholding of judgment. Therefore accusations of intellectual posturing are out of place until the analysis phase starts in my opinion :)

[Tessa K]

Now you tell us.

Even so, it's still pants.