People are more than their worst commitments, and relatives know the rest

The argument

A second argument for this position concerns how a person is to be judged. Proponents hold that a relationship with a relative is a relationship with a whole person across a whole life, and that a view they hold, even a seriously wrong one, is one fact among many. The relative knows what the person did when someone in the family was ill, what they gave up and for whom, where their convictions came from and which of them they have already abandoned. Proponents argue that this is not sentimentality but information, and that it is information a stranger judging the person on a single conviction does not have. The position draws a distinction between judging a view and discarding a person. A view can be condemned in the strongest terms, said so to the person's face, and refused any agreement, without the further conclusion that every tie is forfeit. Proponents hold that the opposite practice, in which anyone found to hold a bad view is written out entirely, treats people as the sum of their worst opinion, and they argue that few would accept that standard applied to themselves or to their own past. Proponents add that the point is clearest across generations. A relative formed in a different setting may hold views absorbed before the question was ever put to them, and may be slower and worse at revising than someone younger, without being in the same case as a person who takes up such views deliberately now. The position does not offer this as an excuse, and insists the view is wrong and should be contested every time it appears. It holds only that the relationship need not be the casualty of that contest.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Opponents argue that the reasoning proves too much. Every view, however serious, is one fact among many about the person who holds it, so the argument offers no point at which a relationship could ever be ended and therefore gives no guidance at all. They also contest the claim about information: knowing a person's history explains how a view was formed but does nothing to reduce its effect on the people it is directed at, and within families explanation is routinely mistaken for mitigation. The objection is sharpest where the relative asked to keep the peace is a member of the group being disparaged, for whom the whole person includes the part aimed at them.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Opponents hold that treating any view as merely one fact among many leaves no point at which a relationship could ever be ended, so the premise gives no guidance. [Rejecting P2] Knowing how a view was formed explains it without reducing its effect, and within families explanation is routinely mistaken for mitigation. [Rejecting P3] Condemnation that changes nothing and is followed by unchanged warmth is not a refusal of agreement in any sense the person will register. [Rejecting C] For a relative who belongs to the group being disparaged, the whole person includes the part aimed at them, so the conclusion does not follow.