Chapter 57 <Have you ever held a grudge against the victim>

There is a story in the Peruvian novel "Goldfish": Labado, the captain of the Guadalupe fishing boat, bribed a fisherman for smuggling cannabis leaves, but the fisherman refused and had a dispute and fight with the captain.The captain fell into the water and was eaten by a shark.The captain's wife sued the fisherman for murdering her husband in court.For this reason, the court opened a trial. Do you have a grudge against the victim?asked the President. Fisherman: He's not a victim because it wasn't a crime, it was an accident. President: You only have to answer the question, without being rude.What word is used here is my business, you are accused of killing, guilty or not.

Fisherman: It never occurred to me to hold a grudge.Mr President! After some interrogation and defense, as well as the evidence provided by the lawyer, the judge finally announced the verdict: it failed to prove that he had attempted to kill Labado, the captain of the Guadalupe, and the captain fell into the water and was killed by a shark. The law of excluded middle requires us to have a clear attitude when answering questions, and to judge two contradictions, we must choose one of the three.Especially when the question is asked in the form of yes or no, yes or no, etc., an affirmative or negative answer should be given.Sophists take advantage of this, deliberately playing with the sophistry of complex questions.

The so-called complex question refers to the question in which a hypothetical fact is hidden in the question raised.Regardless of whether the respondent makes an affirmative or negative answer to the question, it is tantamount to admitting the assumed fact.For example, someone asks: Are you afraid of ghosts?Is God omnipotent?Whether you answer yes or no, you are tantamount to admitting the existence of ghosts and God. In the above story, the judge's question is a complex question, which is called inducing confession or formulating confession in law.Regardless of whether the fisherman answered yes or no, it was a tacit consent that the captain was the victim and that I held a grudge against the captain.The fisherman was keenly aware of this, so on the one hand he corrected the wrong statement that the captain was the victim, and at the same time pointed out unequivocally: there is no question of whether I have a grudge against the captain for a long time. Package offer.

Sophists often fabricate complex questions to tempt people to be fooled, and we must be vigilant about this.If you find that the hidden assumption in the complex question is unacceptable, you should not simply answer with yes or no, but clearly point out that the hidden assumption is wrong, or avoid a positive answer in other ways.In this way, we can avoid falling into the trap preset by the other party.