The Principle of Charity in Argument
When you state an opposing view, state it in the strongest form you can find. This single discipline improves the quality of your thinking more than almost any other.
The principle of charity is a methodological commitment: when you state an opposing view, you state it in the strongest, most defensible form you can find. You do not state the weakest version of the opponent’s position. You do not exaggerate, oversimplify, or distort. You give the opponent the benefit of the doubt and engage with the best version of what they are saying.
This is harder than it sounds. The intuitive way to argue is to take the easiest target. The disciplined way is to take the hardest target. The principle of charity is the discipline.
Why it’s worth doing
Three reasons.
First, it makes your own arguments stronger. If you can refute the strongest version of an opposing view, you have done real argumentative work. If you can only refute the weakest version, you have not yet engaged with the actual disagreement. The principle of charity forces you to confront the real disagreement, not a caricature.
Second, it makes you better at understanding the world. Most enduring debates have intelligent people on both sides. If you cannot reconstruct why an intelligent person would hold the opposing view, you do not yet understand the topic well. The principle of charity is the discipline of building that reconstruction.
Third, it changes the dynamics of conversation. People you disagree with are less defensive when they feel accurately represented. Conversations that begin with a charitable summary of the opposing view are more likely to make progress than conversations that begin with a hostile caricature.
What it looks like in practice
When you encounter an opposing view, the principle of charity asks you to perform several operations:
Identify the strongest version of the argument. Not the version that sounds best to your side; the version that an articulate proponent of the opposing view would actually defend.
Identify the considerations that make the opposing view appealing. There are usually real considerations on both sides. If you cannot name the ones on the other side, you do not yet understand the disagreement.
State the opposing view in your own words, then ask whether the proponent of that view would agree with your summary. If they would not, your charity has been insufficient.
Only after these operations should you proceed to argue against the view.
The related concept of steel-manning
“Steel-manning” is a related discipline that goes one step further. Instead of just stating the opposing view fairly, you actively improve it — you find the holes in their argument and patch them, then engage with the improved version.
Steel-manning is the principle of charity at its strongest. It is also exhausting; few people sustain it consistently. The principle of charity in its weaker form — just state the opposing view fairly — is more achievable and still produces most of the benefit.
When it doesn’t apply
There are cases where the principle of charity is misapplied. Some arguments really are bad-faith arguments. Some claims really are not worth steel-manning. Applying the principle of charity to a position that is genuinely incoherent or genuinely cynical produces an exercise that does not match reality.
The judgment call is when to apply it. The default should be to apply it generously — assume good faith unless you have specific reason to think otherwise. Most arguments you encounter are made in good faith, even when the people making them are wrong. Charitable engagement is appropriate for them. The genuinely bad-faith cases are a smaller fraction than they appear to be, and reserving your skepticism for them is the right calibration.
