I found this illuminating, and agree that the use of the motte-and-bailey concept you describe isn't fair or helpful. But I'm not convinced the real problem here is with the appeal to the motte-and-bailey fallacy.
I find the motte-and-bailey concept quite helpful, but you can only legitimately pick out a motte-and-bailey if the self-same person is guilty of shifting between the two within the same work (or within multiple works intended to be consistent with one another). It's extremely common for individual people to personally motte-and-bailey within the space of a conversation (or 5-page paper), and having a concept to describe that is quite helpful.
So it seems to me that the real problem... (read more)
I found this illuminating, and agree that the use of the motte-and-bailey concept you describe isn't fair or helpful. But I'm not convinced the real problem here is with the appeal to the motte-and-bailey fallacy.
I find the motte-and-bailey concept quite helpful, but you can only legitimately pick out a motte-and-bailey if the self-same person is guilty of shifting between the two within the same work (or within multiple works intended to be consistent with one another). It's extremely common for individual people to personally motte-and-bailey within the space of a conversation (or 5-page paper), and having a concept to describe that is quite helpful.
So it seems to me that the real problem... (read more)