giving partial reasons (was: [TCS] Hiding Medicine in Children's Food)

[Elliot Temple]

On Jul 28, 2011, at 1:54 AM, Jordan Talcot <jordan...@gmail.com> wrote to TCS:

> http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/node/64:
>
>> If Suzy doesn't want to take her medicine because she has read that this particular medicine is now thought to cause cancer and is about to be withdrawn, it would be wrong to cause her to take it without her knowledge.
>>
>
> What if the child has a reason, but they can't articulate it this well? Just because someone can't give you a convincing argument doesn't mean you should assume they are wrong.
>
>> But if Suzy simply objects to the taste of the medicine but otherwise has no objection to it, there is nothing wrong with hiding the medicine in her portion of curry so that she takes it without suffering.
>
> Just because someone gives you one reason doesn't mean that you should assume it is their only reason. How does the parent know it is only the taste the child objects to?

It's fairly common to stop giving reasons if someone agrees.

Like say you ask someone to drive you somewhere tomorrow, and you tell them a reason you want to go, and they agree.

Now you don't tell them the other reasons you want to go because you don't need to persuade them to drive you more.

This can be a problem if they change their mind. They may cancel on you and think, "well, it's not a big deal, he's only missing out on [the one reason you gave for going]". This is bad and irresponsible. If they'd told you they were considering cancelling, you would have told them other reasons. They shouldn't have assumed that you'd given them a full accounting of the harm they'd do by cancelling, which they hadn't asked for (and quite possibly would not have wanted to hear, would have found boring while they intended to drive you).

Sometimes this kind of issue can come up with very important issues with long term consequences. Sometimes you ask someone to do something that's super important, and they agree, and then they don't do it and a large amount of harm is done. And they didn't realize how important it was. And you did tell them it was super important and that you hadn't given them your complete reasoning. But they still don't take that seriously and recognize the importance emotionally from the abstract concept that there are other reaons they don't yet know.

Elliot Temple
www.fallibleideas.com
www.curi.us