Ten Commandments of Rational Debate

[babylonsister]

[redstatebluegirl]

1. All of us should take these to heart :-).

[TexasProgresive]

2. Here's a link with examples of each

http://www.relativelyinteresting.com/10-commandments-rational-debate-logical-fallacies-explained/

[Jim Lane]

11. I could find examples of each on DU, no external link needed.

Finding the examples here would be depressingly easy, too.

[Johnny Ready]

3. I Am A Masterdebater.

Awesome post, that I admittedly can benefit from thanks.

[Motown_Johnny]

4. Isn't it "Shalt not"?

(This is an attempt to start a debate on a thread about debate.)


I must admit, this post breaks #6 and reduces the argument down to two possibilities. So maybe that one is wrong. Sometimes things are either right or wrong. I suppose both could be correct, but if you are emulating the original Ten Commandments then it seems to make sense to use the same wording.






Bookmarking this and intend to use the OP image in response here on a regular basis. Thanks for this. I hope it catches on.

[DLnyc]

5. Very good. A lot of threads would be more interesting if more of these rules were followed.

Also useful would be avoiding certain phrases like "we all know", "obviously", "there is no question that . . .", "everybody knows" and so forth.

When I find myself tempted to use one of these phrases, I try to stop and think what actual evidence I have. Usually I find that it is not much evidence at all. That's why I was tempted to use the phrase in the first place!

[Archae]

6. There's one thing wrong with this list...

The first one.

Should I take seriously the arguments of, and not attack people like Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter?

People who have no credibility like Walid Shoebat or Jerome Corsi have no arguments, and deserve to be attacked.

[BelgianMadCow]

8. non sequitur ;-)

"Should I take seriously the arguments of, and not attack people like Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter? "

Why couldn't you take their arguments seriously AND attack them (preferably on the argument, not the person) at the same time?

In the purest tradition of debate, the socratic one, it is ONLY about arguments. Who says it matters not one bit. If the evidence is faulty, or the reasoning, that should become clear in the course of the debate.

Of course, in a world where information = overload and time = scarce, we all decide who is "credible" and who isn't.

[sibelian]

10. You don't have to take their "arguments" seriously at all...

But for your contribution in a debate with them to remain rational you have to avoid making the observation that their arguments are stupid because it's them making them.

Naturally you can dismiss them out of hand without the necessity for rational debate. It's your life! And it's not much fun maintaining a rational stance with someone whose default position is "if it pisses of libearls it must be true". So nobody's going to hold it against you...

And, of course, calling the words of Coulter et al moronic and not worth the air used to utter them and consequently entirely to be ignored is a perfectly sensible position to adopt, whether it's rational, strictly speaking, or not. They are obviously twits.

[DLnyc]

12. You could focus on pointing out where their arguments are wrong.

Simply pointing out that they are big assholes is emotionally satisfying, but not particularly enlightening. I would think that taking apart their arguments and lies in a rational way, although slightly more challenging than simply pointing out that they are assholes, would be more interesting and, in the long run, more productive.

[Archae]

14. I agree.

When they lie, I'll point it out.

Smears, innuendos, demagoguery, I'll try to point out where a person is wrong.

This can also apply to other topics besides politics, like when we discuss woo, or conspiracy theories, or whatnot.

[DLnyc]

15. Seems like a constructive approach

And I agree it applies to other areas.

Perhaps this is not what you meant, but I would find it much more interesting and enlightening to hear actual reasons WHY a theory is false, or even unlikely to be true, rather than simply CALLING the theory 'woo' or 'conspiracy'.

I guess it's a combination of 1 and 10 that bothers me in this case:

Just using words like "woo" or "conspiracy theory", without actually addressing the theory itself, seems like a form of 'ad hominem' -- claiming the theory must be bogus since it has 'brothers' that are bogus.

Also used sometimes is a sort of reverse of 'bandwagon fallacy' -- claiming a theory must be false because it is not popularly accepted.

I am not proposing that any bizarre theory that someone comes up with needs to be believed; I'm just saying it would be more interesting to give actual REASONS why a particular theory seems ridiculous, as opposed to just ridiculing it.

[PlanetaryOrbit]

16. It depends entirely on what the argument is.

If a right-wing conservative were to say, "5 times 7 equals 35," then technically that would be just as true a statement as if a left-wing liberal were to say the same thing.

[bhikkhu]

7. Once you become familiar with those

it seriously hurts your brain to listen to the RW radio crap. Hardly a sentence goes by that can't be taken apart and critiqued based on faulty logic, and they just keep coming, and coming...

[treestar]

9. A reminder needed every once in a while

[mick063]

13. Nice list to aspire to.

But I have to ask.

If someone poured gasoline on you and lit a match, could you hold a rational debate?


Pretty extreme example for sure, but get this:

There are a shitload of working poor in this nation. I expect many are well beyond rational debate.

Perhaps an understanding of basic human emotion and why the increasing "drama" is happening is in order.

I don't believe it is because folks have "quantum leaped" into obnoxious internet behavior. No, I think it is the real deal.

Real emotion. Understandable emotion.

People are pissed. The first casualty will be rational debate.

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Cough cough ahem ahem cough cough cough

Thank you for posting!

[Archae]

18. What about though...

If an argument is being made using a disreputable source?

Like WND or Russia Today?

[DLnyc]

21. That would show that the evidence is weak, not that the argument is false.

I think it is valid to say "I am not convinced, because the source you quote has turned out to be wrong many times in the past."

But I find it uninteresting and unconvincing to hear someone say "I know you are wrong, because your source sucks."

Maybe best is "That source doesn't carry much weight with me, do you have some evidence from a different source?"

[gulliver]

19. Necessary to know, but not sufficient.

They don't really work as commandments. People who engage in straw man arguments, for example, will dispute they are doing so. And they may or may not be right. You could add an 11th commandment I guess, and maybe that would help. 11. Thou shalt not blithely, ignorantly, or falsely accuse others of breaking the previous commandments.

[TrogL]

20. Amen Brother

[Scurrilous]

22. K & R

[PragmaticLiberal]

23. As far as I'm concerned numbers 2 and 6 seem to be the most prevalent on DU.

[SidDithers]

24. Sorry, this is DU...

those commandments don't apply here.



Sid