Against steelmanning
It's usually not a good idea to try to make arguments look stronger than they really are.
The other day, an editor at the Washington Post called me up and made a proposal. She wanted me to write a series of articles “steelmanning” Donald Trump’s economic policy proposals — in other words, making the strongest case I could possibly make for Trump’s ideas. Her rationale — like that of many proponents of steelmanning — was that if people are going to be persuaded that Trump’s ideas are bad, it will be more persuasive to first present the very strongest version of those ideas, so that people know Trump’s opponents are arguing in good faith, and would therefore find criticisms more persuasive.
I politely refused,1 and I told her that when the series came out, I would use it as an occasion to write about why I think steelmanning is usually a bad idea. But why wait? There’s nothing special about one singular instance of steelmanning. And I can tell you right now why I think it’s generally misguided.
Wikipedia defines steelmanning thus:
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent's argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one's own position. Developing counters to steel man arguments may produce a stronger argument for one's own position.
Daniel Dennett recommends something like this in his list of rules for “how to compose a successful critical commentary”, attributing the rules to Anatol Rapoport:
You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”
You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
I can certainly envision cases in which this is the best approach to an argument. For example, if you’re in a group of people who are all arguing in good faith, and everyone just wants to find the truth, this can be a very fruitful approach — it’s a way of making sure you don’t accidentally toss out a good argument just because you accidentally attacked a straw-man version of it.
Alternatively, if you’re talking privately with one other person who disagrees with you, and your goal is to persuade that person that their ideas are wrong and your ideas are right, then this may sometimes be the most effective approach. It’s an empirical question. There is a voluminous research literature on persuasive techniques (even economists have gotten in on that game). It might be that demonstrating intellectual charity will make someone more likely to listen to you…or it might not.
But these are special cases. In most cases, the audience for an argument is a lot bigger than just you and the people who disagree with you. When you argue in public, on blogs or in Washington Post articles, there are lots of onlookers reading your arguments. Those include the voting public at large; intellectuals both informed and uninformed, truth-seeking and polemic; politicians and policymakers; propagandists on your side and propagandists on the other side; and so on. (In fact, maximizing the number and diversity of the people reading your arguments is key to building a successful media business!)
And when we consider how many different kinds of people might be reading an argument, I think a number of serious weaknesses in the steelmanning technique become apparent. So let me try to lay out some of those. And at the end, I’ll describe what I think is a more effective approach to intellectual charity.
Steelmanning can easily turn into strawmanning
This point was previously made in 2016 by a pseudonymous blogger called Ozymandias, whose post was also called “Against Steelmanning”. But I’ll try to make it again.
Basically, a critic of an idea is inherently an unreliable guide to the best version of an idea. Personally, I don’t think mass deportation is a good policy. I’ve considered it. I won’t say it has zero appeal to me — law and order are important. I know it’s popular. But overall I just think it’s a bad idea — it wouldn’t really have any economic benefits, it would be disruptive and distasteful, some legal residences would probably get deported by accident, and we know better, less disruptive ways to get illegal immigrants to leave the country. That’s why I’m an opponent of mass deportation.
So if I tried to write an argument in favor of mass deportation, and if I kept it intellectually honest, I probably wouldn’t do a very good job of it.
My argument might be weaker than the proponents of mass deportation would prefer. I might say “Mass deportation doesn’t really do much for us, but at the end of the day, law and order have to take precedence.” That might just be the best steelman I could come up with, without being actively and intentionally dishonest.
Or, my best argument might just be unrelated to the arguments of people who actually support mass deportation. For example, I might argue that mass deportation would give us the policy space to increase legal immigration by a lot. But proponents of mass deportation probably don’t want to increase legal immigration by a lot.
So if I tried to steelman the argument for mass deportation in an intellectually honest way, I’d probably have actual proponents tearing their hair out. They would think “This jerk is doing a fake steelman — he can actually see all our excellent points, but he’s pretending not to, just so he can trick all his readers into thinking his weak-sauce B.S. is the best we’ve got.” Or they might just think I was mocking them. Either way, it would be unlikely to generate good will and honest dialogue.
Also, if you’re an ideologically neutral Washington Post editor whose only goal is to show public the best versions of each argument and then let the public decide, you probably don’t want Noah Smith writing in favor of mass deportation. You’ve hired the wrong man for the job.
Steelmanning can easily turn into “sanewashing”
Alternatively, there’s another way you can steelman an argument you don’t agree with: You can make an intellectually dishonest case in favor of it. In other words, you can act like your opponent’s lawyer, pleading their case to the best of your rhetorical abilities, even if deep down you think it’s wrong.
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