If you’re interested in furthering honest political inquiry, consider playing the steel man game: “Can we steel man each other’s view, to make sure we understand them?” This is part of another game one of my graduate school mentors encouraged us to play, the “belief game”: First try to completely understand the other person’s philosophy, occupy it from the inside, see the world through that philosopher’s eyes. Only then are you in a legitimate position to speak to its flaws, if any survive that exercise in cognitive empathy. Playing the steel man game is a smaller version of that larger endeavor.
As I was reading the essay, I thought that perhaps I had written it. There is that much reinforcement of some of the political psychology and advice in my book.
Instead of general, and repeated, exhortations, how about something useful: What is the best website for left-wing political commentary?
Pretending to be liberal in California is a necessity.
In case you think the above poster is joking – no, he really isn’t.
As is pretending to be conservative in Idaho.
Yuk,yuk.
Really? I am not from Idaho, but I would bet you that in the fancy resort town such as Coeur d’Alene and virtually any of the college towns, being a liberal has been the norm. And, by the way, a good deal of the non-Progressives in Idaho are Libertarian leaning or Mormons. How intimidating the Mormon culture would be to a Progressive could be tested — and I think proven false — by the inflows into Utah (especially Salt Lake City). They are not coming from the Deep South.
The steel man game, the Ideological Turing Test, and the Belief Game can provide checks against intellectual complacency, cognitive biases, and motivated belief-formation. So far, so good.
But life is not a philosophy seminar.
At some point, decisions must be taken and policies made. Is there reason to believe that the steel man game and its variants will yield pragmatic consensus? My hunch is that disagreements will persist about facts, mechanisms, and values.
Is there reason to believe that people will agree to disagree with greater equanimity, simply because they have played the steel man game conscientiously? Or might people become more righteous about their positions, because they have left no stone unturned in reaching them?
At least in the sphere of collective decisions, there will remain room and need for mechanisms after arguing to reasoned disagreement; for example, bargaining and voting. By all means, cultivate the intellectual virtues with the steel man game and its variants, to improve arguing . But devise and develop also improvements in bargaining, voting, and other procedures and mechanisms for collective decisions and conflict resolution. For example, see Eric A. Posner & E. Glen Weyl, Radcal Markets (Princeton U. Press), chapter 4, about quadratic voting, which preserves political equality, but gives weight to intensity of individual preference and mimics logrolling where people disagree about a variety of issues.
Of course, there is a bootstrapping paradox: We must use current practices of arguing, bargaining, and voting to create better ones.
If there were more and better exit options, there would be more spaces for creativity and experimentation in voice options (arguing, bargaining, and voting).
+1
The trouble is, charity is not compatible with rigor.
Indeed, the concepts are in opposition to each other. With regards to scrutiny, charity implies lenience, while rigor implies strictness. You can’t be the teacher who is known to grade papers in the most rigorous fashion, and also the one who has a reputation of grading them in the most charitable fashion.
The trouble is that primary value are often in conflict, and one should not advocate for one without simultaneously expressing the limits imposed by the need to balance with another. Yes, be nice, charitable, humane, and so forth. But also be wise, judicious, sophisticated, and prudently skeptical and leery.
Consider: What refinements to the principle of charity are necessary to deal with the problem of Unprincipled Exceptions and Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility?
That is, in a political argument, the best and truest understanding of one’s opponent’s views and principles will sometimes give rise to an implication for a policy to change current social conditions – which should be viewed as morally intolerable in their framework – and this change would be manifestly unpopular and socially undesirable (at least, at the present time).
It is a very common tactic to give these social conditions a temporary pass as if there was some tacit understanding that they were unproblematic exceptions to the general rules, and to vociferously deny the policy implication out of pure political expediency. That is, up until the very moment it becomes politically possible to implement it in practice, when the former denials are declared innocent errors, or, more often, simply flushed down the memory hole.
Now, in rigorous but fair argumentation, it is perfectly valid both logically and rhetorically to point out that a particular ideological framework leads straight away to truly alarming and repugnant conclusions, as reasons to reject the framework as given.
But now we have two problems.
First, when these undesirable implications are pointed out, if one’s opponents try one of the various denial tactics, then there is a contradiction, and the application of charity forks. Do you (a) naively but generously take their word for it, regarding their own purported understanding of their own position, or (b) reject their personal, rhetorical claims and instead construct and follow the strongest forms of an argument from their stated principles? You can’t be charitable both ways!
For example, there’s been some discussion about ethical veganism lately (yes, I know, there are many subtleties and nuances and distinctions: please just follow along). If you follow the typical logic of a vegan ethical position, the immediate implication is quite obviously a moral mandate for prohibition and abolition of consumption of meat and all activities in the whole economy of the meat supply chain. Even the attempt to mitigate by introducing a logically limiting principle of libertarian tolerance doesn’t quite work, because the very nature of the root question is whether the circle of concern for some basic libertarian interests should be extended to certain (or all) animals, which would lead to auto-negation in this instance.
Now, the abolition of meat is, currently, a very unpopular position (in most places) and so the proponents and advocates for vegan principles will naturally deny, “No one is talking about banning meat, just persuading people to make different choices and trying to treat animals better …” or “we’re just talking about fois gras” or ‘factory farms’ or trying ‘Meatless Mondays’ or working on sustainability … up until the moment it becomes politically possible for them to simply ban meat without needing any other rationalization cover story besides what was clear and obvious from the beginning, that is, because they believe meat-eating is wrong, malum in se, and, really, just as wrong and worthy of enforced universal abolition as torture or slavery or genocide.
Now, one has to choose between two, mutually-exclusive ways to be charitable to these vegan advocates. You can be charitable in the sense of taking their claimed principles seriously, and assessing the logically consistent, strongest form, and clear implications of the argument deriving from those stated principles, on the one hand. Or, on the other hand, one could risk being played for a gullible chump and accept the politically expedient claims of the adherents to those principles, that unprincipled exceptions will continue to remain exceptions (for some un-explained reason) and that there is ‘nothing to worry about’ in terms of undesirable changes should those principles gain greater currency or become recognized in law. (Note: in these matters the game is often given away when, at the first efforts at reforming legislation, proposals to explicitly articulate and preserve the exception – or use anti-savings-clauses to self-terminate the law upon judicial invalidation of the exception – are rejected, often opposed as ‘unnecessary’, but then, why even bother opposing them?)
Besides the charity-forking problem, we also have the “Ignorant Misunderstanding Thesis Fallacy” problem. Briefly, it used to be popular to claim that an important contributing factor to partisan animosity and factional acrimony was a lack of genuine awareness and understanding of the other side’s beliefs, preferences, experiences, positions, the logic of their arguments, and so forth. If only we all could step into each other’s shoes and really understand what they’re trying to say, then we’d all realize we’re all good people trying to do good things, and how can you despise someone after that?
But actually, just like ignorance enables naive bliss even in the midst of gloomy real conditions, ignorance also enables charity from those of normally generous spirit and amicable personality, even in the context of deep conflict of interests and visions pregnant with potential for threatening domination and dangerous escalation. Ignorance allows the fantasy of assuming good will and the illusions seen through rose-colored glasses, but actual knowledge of ill will is disillusioning. That is, we find that the more we really get to know about the real and true positions of our political opponents, the less we like them, and the more alarmed and likely to succumb to the impulses of the ‘coalitional mentality’ as a manifestation of the sensible instinct to organize for self-protection.
Historically, the Anglospheric tradition has been one that has not put the onus for charity on the audience or interpreter, but has instead prized the basic mechanisms and incentives of adversarialism, of healthy competition and vigorous advocacy, under rules and constraints of ‘good sportsmanship’ appropriate to any particular competition, contest, or dispute. And competitors, if they want to be seen as worth and to be taken seriously, must be able to withstand harsh scrutiny and take it all in stride.
We don’t ask judges and juries to be charitable in interpretation but to merely fairly consider and place high (i.e. rigorous) burdens of proof the arguments and evidence to which they will be exposed, the quality of all of which we try to incentivize by design of the overall system. We demand plaintiff and defense counsel to present the best and strongest cases, to give it everything they have, within the rules of the game, which, of course, only works if they are justified in believing they won’t be penalized for such advocacy, for merely doing their job and performing a socially valuable role.
A solidly-crafted rigorous argument can prevail even if viewed in the worst possible light, even when one assumes its proponent has the worst possible character and motives. But the effort takes work and the right incentives to encourage that work. The right (and traditional) norm of a virtue trying to constrain normal human vices is impersonalism that is, “Don’t make it personal, and don’t take it personally,” which implies extoling the virtues of intellectual and psychological toughness and having a thick skin. Charity excuses intellectual and emotional incontinence, while rigor insists on strength of mind and spirit.
Notice how opposed all that is the current ethos in education and discourse, which is extremely personalized in ‘who over whom’ fashion, and which encourages and incentivizes claims of hypersensitvity and the endless running of the offensiveness treadmill.
In sum, it does not follow that a culture of charity will reduce partisanship or polarization at all, but it will give sloppy and undisciplined expression (thus thinking and believing) a pass. A culture of rigor, on the other hand, encourages people to think harder and more seriously before they spout off, since they know they will need to defend themselves against capable and determined adversaries looking for any weaknesses or flaws. Against truly motivated and bad-faith misinterpretation, little can be done. However, if someone does not wish for there to be innocent but still uncharitable misinterpretation, then he will take care in advance to express himself with more clarity.
Some of the best advice ever give to me: read the book first as if you agree and understand its gravamen. Read it again critically. Precisely the opposite is taught in high schools and colleges under the rubric of critical thinking!