The Principle of Charity in Argumentation
I just saw a call for a paper for a special issue on the principle of charity. Maybe I could contribute something. Let’s brainstorm. The principle of charity, as I teach it in my critical thinking classes, is to treat others as intelligent people. This means that we should interpret their arguments with a generous mind, correct for blunders, and help revise mistakes. Why be so charitable? Because if we don’t agree with them, showing that even the better version of their argument still doesn’t work is more effective, in contrast to the straw man fallacy, which is to debunk a much weaker version of the view they proposed. If we agree with them, everyone benefits from learning to present the view in more coherent or cogent ways. And if we haven’t settled on the issue, we wish for a quality exchange, not a populist debate like the ones politicians keep serving us these days.
What I can add following my recent work in Logic in the Wild to the debate is that being charitable isn’t only about the content of the views, but about the coherence. More importantly, logic can generate uncharitable reactions. How? By adopting the wrong logical standards of analysis. A clear case would be to treat an argument as being deductive when it is non-deductive, i.e., to dismiss the argument for being invalid when it wasn’t intended to live up to strict standards. Most people don’t know the difference between deductive and non-deductive arguments; indeed, the topic is controversial amongst experts. Most people aren’t attuned to valid argumentation, and I’m afraid to say, that’s also true for people who have taken classes in logic or critical thinking. The standards of validity aren’t appropriate, for instance, in the court of law that adopts a “beyond reasonable doubt” attitude. Beyond reasonable doubt leaves room for error, validity doesn’t. The same applies in everyday life, especially on difficult matters that are difficult to settle.
Being logically charitable, then, is to treat others not only as intelligent people but as coherent reasoners. It is to assume that people can organize their thoughts in a coherent fashion, even if the way they articulate their views might not live up to the strictest logical standards. If those standards aren’t fit for purpose anyway, to reject their view for being invalid is to treat them uncharitably.
