I was engaged in a lively debate recently on the merits or demerits of a monarchical system. Personally I am a republican and in general I consider monarchism an outmoded relic of a bygone era of social repression.

As the debate wore on it became obvious that on most points I was possessed by the spirit of reason. The supporters of monarchy in general could only make appeals to tradition whereas mostly my arguments were based on sound pragmatic opinion.

Then they wheeled out what they consider their strongest argument. Namely “The Royals bring in so much money” i.e. through tourism and as industrial and trade ambassadors.

It is a fairly good argument. Why? Because it sounds empirical – rather than being an appeal to tradition this is an argument based on pragmatic concerns.

There is one problem – basically it is what Wittgenstein would call nonsense. The sentence or proposition though constructed in a way that is similar to an empirical proposition, a proposition about a definite state of affairs, is in fact a clever charade – and according to ‘logical’ rules is a non-argument.

The proposition reads: we must not abolish the monarchy as they provide substantial income for the nation through tourism and trade and industry ambassadorships.

The objection reads: Can you verify this – and is this open to falsification?

The conclusion is: technically one could only hope to measure the “value” of the monarchy by its abolition and subsequent measuring of financial effects.

Naturally no monarchist is going to vote for its abolition – so the argument is null.

The moral of the story – be careful of making psuedo-empirical propositions. When the falsity of their factual basis is uncovered you may find the validity* of your viewpoint eroding away rapidly.

* Validity depends on the language game being played. Just as Anselm famously said “God is a special case” one may choose to argue that psuedo-empirical propositions are in certain language games still valuable and valid as rhetorical tools.