LogicalMANIPULATIVE

Loki's Wager

What it is

Refusing to accept a conclusion, or to let a discussion proceed, on the ground that a key term cannot be defined with perfect precision — so that the impossibility of an exact boundary is used to deny that any judgment can be made.

How it works

The name is a folk label from the Prose Edda (Snorri Sturluson, c. 1220): Loki loses a wager with the dwarf Brokkr and owes him his head, then escapes by arguing that the dwarf may take the head but no part of the neck, and since no one can say where the neck ends and the head begins, the head cannot be taken. The underlying error is a cousin of the continuum fallacy: a concept's fuzzy edge is treated as proof that its clear cases cannot be identified, so nothing can be decided. As a tactic it is a demand for definition that is never meant to be satisfied — every proposed definition is met with an edge case, and the failure to produce a perfect one is declared a victory. It exploits the honest philosophical point (Williamson 1994) that most useful concepts lack necessary-and-sufficient conditions, and turns it into a veto. The honest version is a disputant who really believes that undefined means unusable. The knowing version uses the demand to stall a decision, a regulation, or a verdict indefinitely, with the bonus that the opponent looks unrigorous for failing to define a word everyone uses. The tell is “define it” repeated after every answer, with no definition ever offered in return.

Real-world examples

  • •The 2022 documentary “What Is a Woman?” built a polemic around asking interviewees for a definition and treating their difficulty as a refutation; in March 2023 a conservative commentator asked on air to define “woke” stumbled, and critics on the left treated the stumble as proof the term was empty. Both sides used the same move, and in neither case did the difficulty of definition settle the substantive dispute.
  • •Opponents of assault-weapon legislation argue that no precise definition of “assault weapon” exists, so no such law can be legitimate; supporters raise the same objection to “law-abiding gun owner.” Each demand is a Loki's wager when it is not accompanied by a willingness to work with paradigm cases.
  • •Justice Potter Stewart's “I know it when I see it” (Jacobellis v. Ohio, 1964) is the classic honest reply: a category can be applied to clear cases without a definition that handles every edge.
  • •In a negotiation, one party refuses a “reasonable efforts” clause because “reasonable” cannot be defined, although the term is standard and courts apply it daily.
  • •A content moderator is told that since “harassment” cannot be perfectly defined, no post can be removed for it — a standard that would end moderation of anything.

Ethical guidelines

  • ●Ask for a definition only when you will accept a working one; if no definition would satisfy you, say what you actually object to.
  • ●Offer paradigm cases and counter-cases when defining; a concept is usable when its clear cases are agreed, even if its edges are not.
  • ●Do not treat an opponent's inability to define a common word as a refutation of their claim; you cannot define most of the words you use either.
  • ●Distinguish a genuine dispute about the boundary (which may matter for a particular case) from a refusal to accept any boundary at all.

How to defend against it

  • ►Give the paradigm-case answer: “I cannot draw the exact line, and here are three clear cases on each side. Which side is this one on?” This moves the discussion from definition to judgment, where it belongs.
  • ►Return the demand: “Define it yourself, or accept that we will proceed with clear cases.” A speaker who cannot define the term either has conceded that definition is not the standard.
  • ►Name the wager: “You are saying that because we cannot say exactly where the neck ends, we cannot take the head. We can.”
  • ►Use the legal test: courts, doctors, and engineers apply concepts that are undefined at the edge (reasonable, fit, safe) every day using precedent and cases; perfect definition is not the standard anywhere that decisions actually get made.
  • ►Pre-agree working definitions at the start of a negotiation or debate, in writing, so the demand cannot be raised later as a stall.

References

  1. Snorri Sturluson (trans. A. Faulkes) (1220). Edda (Skáldskaparmál). Everyman / J. M. Dent (1987 translation)
    The story of Loki, Brokkr, and the head-and-neck wager from which the folk label is taken.
  2. Williamson, T. (1994). Vagueness. Routledge
    The philosophical point that vague concepts have clear cases even where they lack sharp boundaries or necessary-and-sufficient definitions.
  3. United States Supreme Court (1964). Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184 (Stewart, J., concurring). United States Reports
    The “I know it when I see it” concurrence as the honest paradigm-case reply.
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