As of late, in discussions I have with family, friends, I’ve noticed that in general, people will use hypotheticals, or analogies, when it suits them. Yet when it is used against them, to illustrate an argument they do not agree with, they attempt to make a practical argument along the lines of “I don’t engage in hypotheticals”. Analogies and hypotheticals have value, and those unwilling to engage in them are not acting in good faith, and are unwilling to test their values.
The first form of analogous referencing has to do with reasonable situations that have a high chance of occurring. An example of this would something that could reasonably happen, such as a discussion on where a group of people might want to eat dinner that night. The group can brainstorm, and theorize different outcomes of different decisions, and weigh them reasonably against the other potential decisions. The outcome will more or less match what the expected outcome theorized. Hardly anyone actually argues against these forms of hypotheticals, and everyone more or less engages in this type of discussion. I would argue that these analogies have just as much weight as unrealistic hypotheticals, as referenced above, many do not see the connection.
This is in contrast to the aforementioned “unreasonable hypotheticals”, those analogies require situations unlikely to ever occur. Scenerios such as “You are the general of an army”, “you’re the president”, “you’re a doctor” when you in fact not a doctor, etc etc. The listing for these situations are endless. These hypotheticals contain valuable insight into how people weight their values, and their decision making, if they act in good faith, and go along with the scenario.
However, as mentioned previous, I find that more often than not, people are not acting in good faith, and shrug off a hypothetical that they do not like the terms to with a lame excuse as to its unlikeliness to occur. It is clear to me that those who do not wish to test their beliefs, even in extreme scenarios, either are actually uncomfortable with the logical extreme conclusion of what they believe, or they do not actually believe it at all. The ability to test how firm you hold your values itself is an evaluation of how strong your values are. If they can be abandoned for extreme scenarios, why not abandon them for likely scenarios?
A concrete example is this: I hear from both sides of extreme politics, the desire to more or less overthrow the government, and institute a regime in the image of what they consider “ideal”. I always ask them “If you believe that it is legitimate for you to overthrow the state, and create your own state, what’s the difference between you and your opposite? Would you be ok with your opposite creating the reverse image of your ideal endstate?” Of course, they argue no, and they attempt to give any amount of arguments in which they believe that it unreasonable for their opposites to attain power (Usually along the lines of “They’re crazy and their ideology doesn’t work in reality).
It is this feeble attempt at discounting the same situation only because “they” happen to be in charge demonstrates how weak their convictions are in the first place. They do not believe in their principles, only that their desire for power is satisfied. Someone who truly believed in their first principles, would have no discomfort arguing the opposing endstate of their principles used against them. As said prior, those who do no engage in hypotheticals are not engaging in good faith. They do not actually believe what they allege themselves to believe.