Humanities desk
< June 5	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 7 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Humanities Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 6

Conflict of interest, 2 wrongs don't make a right.

Conflict of interest is itself a fallacy in philosophy, but is there a fallacy that closely resembles the 2 wrongs don't make a right? (Such an example could be as criminals get more corrupt, so do the police.).

And while this may be more suitable for the Language desk, we don't seem to have any other words that resemble conflict of interest, or 2 wrongs don't make a right? What are some other languages that mean "conflict of interest" and how do they literally translate to English? 67.165.185.178 (talk) 10:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC).[reply]

Who says conflict of interest is a fallacy? --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:24, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

For the OP's reference, here's our good old List of fallacies. Conflict of interest does not appear on that list, and the nearest thing is "inflation of conflict", which is a bit like saying "too much debate destroys the meaning of right". Perhaps "fallacy" was not a well-chosen word, and something else was intended? Card Zero (talk) 14:33, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There's a Latin word vindico which means literally "I say with force". English vindicated usually means (of a point of view) "supported by events", but other words from the same root are revenge, vengence and avenge, which mean something more like (of a point of view) "supported by hitting people". Generally speaking revenge is thought of as a dumb idea within civil society, because, as you say, two wrongs don't make a right. Outside of a war, you should not say things with force, because, as we tell small children, you should "use your words". This adjective civil means to do with the citizens, and stands in contrast to militant (to do with the military) and belligerent (to do with war). I'm unclear on the connection to "conflict of interest". You keep using that phrase, but I do not think that it means what you think it means. Card Zero (talk) 13:54, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If in doubt, see Conflict of interest. Alansplodge (talk) 14:36, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking laterally (or totally sideways), one possible intended meaning is whataboutism. Which is the fallacy that your wrong makes me right. Card Zero (talk) 14:58, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The circumstantial ad hominem has to do with conflicts of interest. Just because someone may benefit from an argument does not mean the argument itself is wrong. As far as two wrongs don't make a right, that seems to be the most common name for the idea and its fallacious opposite two wrongs make a right, even in scholarly literature. Pinguinn 🐧 20:53, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Nice find. I guess the connection is that they're both fallacies of irrelevance, that is, in both cases, an auxiliary wrong (whether getting revenge or getting kickbacks) doesn't make anything anything. wikt:two wrongs don't make a right has equivalent phrases in a handful of languages. The Italian one is a pretty direct translation, except "right and wrong" in Italian is la ragione e il torto, which is more like "rationale and tort". In Portuguese the sense is more that of "correctness and error". The Spanish one is literally "the end doesn't justify the means", which is also another phrase for the concept in English. (Though a narrower concept.) The Hungarian phrase has this word fél which could mean "fear" or "half". The words seem to be "the one half transgression not make the other transgression void", so I think it's saying "One half of a transgression doesn't cancel out the other half".

wikt:conflict of interest also exists, and has the idiom in other languages! Many of these are directly equivalent, and transliterate as "interest conflict". The Hungarian phrase is literally "incompatibility", and is also used to mean "disagreeableness". The second German word given there is Befangenheit, which is tricky to transliterate. To start with it separates into befangen-heit, which is "biased-hood", but how does befangen mean "biased"? The fang is "catch", or "snag", related to the English fang. Before it meant "biased" there was apparently an old meaning of "surrounded", so I suggest that Befangenheit is literally "caught-up-in-something-hood". In Hebrew the interests contrast rather than conflict. In Icelandic it's "interests" and then rekstur, which I don't really understand. It might mean "driving". Perhaps it's the interests which are doing the driving, so it's a bit like "ulterior motives"? Which, by the way, is an additional English phrase. In Malayalam you suffer from an "interest difference". In Finnish they might be more like "advantages" or (different word) "connections". In Mandarin you can also have a "profits-and-losses conflict". Card Zero (talk) 23:07, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If someone is befangen, it means that their ability to act freely is limited. This can be because of some commitment, being beholden to some interest. This is not the same as being biased; a bigot may have biased opinions, but if they are free to change their position they are not befangen. A lawyer representing a client, on the other hand, is befangen, because they are duty-bound to represent their interests. --Lambiam 06:17, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I was misled by wikt:befangen. (It also means shy or selfconscious, which is a nice extension of meaning.) I wonder if beholden is a better translation, for the first sense? The similarity is pleasing. Card Zero (talk) 10:56, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

French has several ways of saying the “two wrongs” thought, such as “ne guérir/répare pas le mal par le mal” (you can’t cure evil with evil), “le péché des autres n'absout pas les nôtres” (others’ sin doesn’t absolve our own”), “moins par moins ne donne pas toujours plus” (two negatives don’t always make a positive) or “deux faussetés ne font pas une verité” (two falsehoods don’t add up to one truth). “Whataboutism” has been borrowed from English as “whataboutisme”; the term “sophisme” is also used. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:08, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think that "moins par moins" refers to the multiplication of two negative numbers. In English, there's the old rhyme "Minus times minus equals plus / The reasons for this we needn't discuss"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:40, 10 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Isabella Macdonald Macdonald

Why is she named Macdonald Macdonald? We've done some speculating here [1]. According to WP, daughter of John Macdonald, lawyer and town-clerk of Arbroath and his wife Ann, née Kid. If it's because she married another Macdonald, can it be sourced? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:26, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly her maternal grandmother's maiden name? That was the case for Isabella Millar Macdonald, born in the same year. (Click "ancestors".) Card Zero (talk) 16:29, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a possibility. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 16:37, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's a Scottish tradition; my mother's middle name was MacKay which was indeed her grandmother's maiden name.

See also Use the Scottish naming pattern to help your research which says:

Middle names: This is another genealogical clue when the mother’s or grandmother’s maiden surname was used as a middle name. This also helped to keep the name in the family over many generations. You will generally find the use of surnames as a middle name from the 19th century. Alansplodge (talk) 21:23, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Are you able to read the obituary linked as a source in the article? (When I click on it, I get only a single page, which isn't the right one.) Surely that should mention a marriage (if any). I find a listing for a will where one beneficiary is an "Isabella Macdonald Macdonald, spinster": [2]. Full details aren't shown, but it's for London in the years 1933-1935. That could be our Isabella Macdonald Macdonald; if not, it at least shows an existence proof for someone with the same name who didn't get it by marriage. It may be possible to follow up there for more information, but the relevant sites seem to require a paid subscription. I note that the Lancet lists her graduating as a doctor in 1888 under the full three names, so if she acquired a second "Macdonald" by marriage, it would have to have been before her graduation at age 31 or 32. --Amble (talk) 17:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can read the BMJ obit on JSTOR via the Wikipedia library, the only relative it mentions is her father, it's fairly short. That indicates she probably never married, but it's also possible someone is being discreet/tactful for unknown reasons. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 17:23, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello and thank you, I found Isabella (only first name) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography [3], while translating into French th WP article Louisa Macdonald, she's mentionned as Louisa's sister, and the names of both their mother and father are mentionned as well as her being a medical student then a doctor. She worked in India. --Pierrette13 (talk) 17:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At scotlandspeople.gov.uk you can search the index with a free registration. I find one birth record from Arbroath Burgh for 1856 under the name "MACDONALD ISABELLA MCDONA". So wherever the two Macdonalds came from, she had both of them from birth. Apparently you have to pay to get a scan of the original record, which could contain additional details. --Amble (talk) 17:56, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No second Mr Macdonald involved then. And I think it's shown beyond reasonable doubt that "Macdonald Macdonald" wasn't a misprint. I love the reference desk. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:00, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if it's as simple as that someone happened to write Macdonald twice in the birth registry? That could very easily happen depending on the layout of the columns for given names and surnames, or how the questions were asked verbally. (Something vaguely similar happened with the name of one of my grandfathers, and once it was recorded, that's just how it was. I think this is not too uncommon historically.) --Amble (talk) 18:08, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm currently happy with Card Zero's above notion. At [4] I noted more WP:RS with "Macdonald Macdonald" like [5]. So if it originally was a mistake, it became the truth, like Julius Pringles. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:14, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that I'm very impressed by everybody's kindness... Thanks a lot, --Pierrette Pierrette13 (talk) 18:17, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've somehow only just noticed that the entry at Scotland's People does indeed list the surname as "MACDONALD" and the forenames as "ISABELLA MCDONA", with "MAC" in one and "MC" in the other. This could be a mistake in the digitized record, but it could also be that the two were originally intended to be distinct. --Amble (talk) 18:34, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I speculate that her parents didn't like the sound of "Isabella Kid Macdonald". Card Zero (talk) 18:44, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if her friends called her Macmac. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 19:48, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Her name is given in full in The Lancet of 24 November 1888 as having recently passed the recent M.B. Examination, at the University of London. We also find this information, with the full three-part name, in another contemporaneous source, The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions, Volume 20, ^[6] so we can rule out the possibility of an error by the BMJ. She would have been most likely 32 at the time, so if she married at all, in those days she would most likely have been married already. However, in the same source we find her referred to in a slightly later context as "Miss Isabella Macdonald",^[7] which would have been a major gaffe if she had been married. It appears therefore that she did indeed have this middle name and did not acquire it by marriage. --Lambiam 20:51, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Since the two contemporaneous sources both draw on information provided by the University of London, the hypothesis should be examined that the roll produced by the Board of Examiners introduced an error. However, such an error, when published in The Lancet, could hardly have gone unnoticed, and one would assume it would have been corrected in the intervening half year before the Presentation Day at the University of London reported on in The Englishwoman's Review of Social and Industrial Questions, Volume 20, So, at second sight, this hypothesis appears less plausible. --Lambiam 21:13, 6 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It would be surprising for a professional woman to marry and continue her career. The British Library says:

No-one wanted to be called a ‘blue-stocking’, the name given to women who had devoted themselves too enthusiastically to intellectual pursuits. Blue-stockings were considered unfeminine and off-putting in the way that they attempted to usurp men’s ‘natural’ intellectual superiority. Some doctors reported that too much study actually had a damaging effect on the ovaries, turning attractive young women into dried-up prunes. Later in the century, when Oxford and Cambridge opened their doors to women, many families refused to let their clever daughters attend for fear that they would make themselves unmarriageable. From Gender roles in the 19th century.

Anecdotally, my aunt was required to resign from her teaching post when she married another teacher in the late 1930s. Married women's place was firmly in the home whether they liked it or not. Alansplodge (talk) 11:39, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I have to qualify my previous post:

A surprising number of women physicians in the nineteenth century - 25-35 percent - were married, a high percentage compared to the marriage rates of women in other prefessions. Mary Putnam Jacobi and the Politics of Medicine in Nineteenth-Century America (p. 162), although the situation may have been different in Britain. Alansplodge (talk) 12:03, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It was interesting to see in the source a reference to the foundation of The Skinners' Company's School for Girls at Stamford Hill as a fee-paying "middle-class school for girls". We knew it as just another grammar school turned comprehensive till it closed - the building was empty for years until Jewish people leased it. If Boris really wants to save his bacon, instead of selling off housing association homes and upgrading pounds and ounces (two of my friends became metric martyrs), he should restore the grammar schools. Our article could do with an update - it currently says "plans have been made to relocate ...in 2010". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C5:C719:7201:C926:9032:BA0F:EB88 (talk) 14:40, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See also Agnes Robertson Robertson, but only because Robertson was her middle name at birth and then she married a man named Robertson. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:12, 7 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It happens [8], [9]. Bill Clinton added Baden-Baden to the list (Queen Victoria stayed there for three weeks over Easter 1880, cf. George V's "Bu**er Bognor). 2A00:23C5:C719:7201:B4AF:8CD9:E283:245E (talk) 18:04, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Not to mention Grus grus, Vulpes vulpes and Mola mola. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 18:10, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned MacDonald of MacDonald. Alansplodge (talk) 22:25, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Traditionally in China and some neighboring countries, people with the same family name weren't supposed to marry at all -- see Same-surname marriage... AnonMoos (talk) 02:29, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not forget Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez. --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:30, 11 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]