It isn't necessarily arguing in bad faith. It's simply an argumentation technique, commonly used in high stake situations. My client can't have killed that person, because they were 1000 miles away. But even if that weren't the case, they have no motive. But even if they had a motive, they have no weapon. But even if they have the weapon and the motive, they have strong personal beliefs against violence.
For the sake of argument, assume all those things are true. That's a perfectly reasonable argument to use in a court situation. When there's going to be a final verdict, from which appeal is impossible or very expensive, you are an idiot if you only bring up the fact they were a 1000 miles away. You marshal every argument you possibly can. This isn't a dialog; you don't get a (cheap) response once the verdict is in.
I think this is a poor essay, blaming a standard argumentation technique for the poor behavior of certain industries. The problem isn't the four dog defense, the problem is the poor behavior of certain industries. I mean, remove the defense from those industries and what would change? Basically nothing; one would have to be some sort of very specific meta-contrarian cynic to claim otherwise. Clearly it's not the real problem.
Also, it's not the "Doggy-Dog World of Politicians"... it's the "Dog-Eat-Dog World of Politicians". I mention this because frankly it struck me as on par with the quality of the rest of the essay. Edit: In fact, on reflection, I've flagged it. It hasn't got much redeeming value.
> For the sake of argument, assume all those things are true.
This is about when your client did kill a person and you're using a slowly receding circle of lies to try to give them as much time as possible to skip town.
No, as the author of my post, I can assure you that my post was quite clearly about the fact that this style of defense is not intrinsically in bad faith, evil, or in any sense responsible for the bad behavior of the corporations in question. I double-checked with myself twice to be sure.
Blaming this defense is like blaming the fact that some companies are bad actors on the fact that they are using syllogisms. It's not the syllogisms. It's very weak thinking to think it could be. The problem is not the "four dog" defense, it's the bad actions themselves.
Agreed, I shared this article link yesterday in a comment on the Panera bread disclosures. I’m more of the school of thought that this is a technique that helps when you have no intention of fixing the root cause not neccesarily maintaining public image.
I wonder if it actually "helps" or if it's just the natural escalation of continued revelations about something you have no intention of fixing and no preexisting PR plan for.
I see it all the time and it's interesting that someone has given it a clever name.