Talk:Solferino fallacy

From RationalWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Is A Memoir of Solferino really a Solferino fallacy?[edit]

Based on the description here, I doubt that Memoir actually commits the eponymous fallacy for two reasons:

  1. Dunant was concerned with the very practical hardships war brought on, based on his experience witnessing the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino. He wasn't claiming that war was any quasi-natural phenomenon, merely accepting that it was frequent and that the sufferings attending it could and ought to be alleviated.
  2. Similarly, the subsequent "laws of war"-movement was based on the pragmatic observation that war kept occurring, but also that it needn't be "hell" - unlike the counter-argument used against the Geneva Conventions and similar laws of war.

In fact, the Geneva Conventions were very much an example of a "counter-Solferino" argument, namely that it's exactly because war is not a natural phenomenon that it ought to be regulated. Pitch in with some ideas as to why I'm wrong (or right); otherwise, I'm going to change and/or remove that passage. ScepticWombat (talk) 11:04, 7 May 2015 (UTC)