Hitchens’s Razor and its Place in Debate
I have seen countless arguments for an extensive range of interpretations about characters and the feats they perform. Often, these arguments are well-thought-out, have an extraordinary amount of evidence supporting them, and have detailed reasoning behind why their proponents believe in them. Yet despite seeing many great arguments online, I’ve often found that counter-arguments are extremely underdeveloped. In fact, the vast majority of bad counter-arguments that I’ve seen have consisted entirely of the opposing side saying “Hitchens’s Razor” and then smiling triumphantly as if those words held any meaning. Not only do people rarely understand the meaning of the principle they are naming, but the phrase is also almost always used as if the words themselves held some arcane power to instantly win an argument. Hitchens’s Razor has its place in debate, but only when understood and used correctly. So today, I want to take a look at what this principle means and how we can use it effectively in a debate and to guide logical thinking in general.
What Hitchens’s Razor Is
Christopher Hitchens penned the phrase “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence” in his 2007 book titled God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. As an atheistic philosopher, Hitches intended for this razor to discredit religion. However, it has grown beyond its original context and is now widely used to trim the fat off arguments and explanations for specific events. Like other philosophical razors, it is designed to save philosophers and logicians the trouble of addressing every possible explanation for a phenomenon. Without the guidance of razors like this, even absurd possibilities would have to be considered and addressed for every argument.
The idea behind Hitchens’s Razor is to prevent me from saying outrageous things like “Mario’s blood is made of cotton candy” and then demanding that claim be considered valid until proven otherwise. If every absurd claim like this had to be disproven, it would be an incredibly daunting task to attempt to explain any phenomenon. It would simply take too much time and prevent philosophers from dealing in meaningful discourse.
What Hitchens’s Razor Is Not
However, it is imperative to understand that Hitchens’s Razor is not an irrefutable truth of the universe. It is a rule of thumb to prevent debaters from wasting time on implausible explanations of an event. But there’s no sort of universally accepted guidelines for logic and philosophy, meaning that not all philosophers and logicians accept Hitchen’s Razor in the first place, nor should they.
The most prolific misunderstanding that I’ve seen is individuals assuming that they can use Hitchens’s Razor to prove or defend a conclusion. Hitchens’s Razor states that the burden of proving any claim is on the one making the assertion and that a lack of satisfactory evidence means the claim can be dismissed. Many people try to use the razor to say that an argument disproving some claim needs to have ironclad proof in order to dismiss that claim, but that’s the exact opposite of what this principle is stating. Of course, when that counterargument is making a claim of its own, it is required to prove its point with the same standards. But when your argument is questioned for a lack of proof, Hitchens’s Razor says that you are the one responsible for providing that proof.
The Problem With Philosophical Razors and Logical Fallacies
However, the bigger problem at play is that so many people seem to think that philosophical principles are undeniable universal truths.. The fact is that no two people are ever going to be in complete agreement with the interpretation and validity of any principle, even other philosophers! When all we do is state the name of a fallacy, we haven’t contributed to the debate in any meaningful way. It would be just as productive to pick a word at random from a dictionary and say that.
We can use philosophical principles to guide our logic and debate, but we can’t use them to solve our problems on their own. When we are debating something, we need to explain why there is a problem with the logic our opponent is presenting. And not from a position of trying to prove how stupid and wrong our opponent is. If we are arguing to defeat rather than to understand the other person’s viewpoint, we will never have any productive discussions.
By taking the time to thoroughly explain what flaws we find in the other person’s logic, we will find that both ourselves and our opponents will gain far greater understanding from the debate. Instead of somebody “winning” the argument, we will find that we are able to come to a point of mutual understanding. And regardless of who needs to make concessions for that to happen, that is always the most preferable way for a debate to play out.
