Excerpts from a FB comment I made about the principle of charity. Quote blocks are a person that I’m responding to, not me. Some editing for coherence has been made. tl;dr: it’s fine to conclude that people are acting selfishly, and even to think that it’s likely that they’re acting selfishly on priors regarding the type of situation they’re in.
The essence of charitable discourse is assuming that even your opponents have internally coherent and non-selfish reasons for what they do.
If this were true, then one shouldn’t engage in charitable discourse. People often do things for entirely selfish reasons. I can determine this because I often do things for entirely selfish reasons, and in general things put under selection pressure will behave in accordance with that pressure. I could elaborate or develop this point further, but I’d be surprised to learn that you disagreed. I further claim that you shouldn’t assume that something isn’t the case if it is often the case.
That being said, the “non-selfish” qualifier doesn’t appear in what Wikipedia thinks the principle of charity is, nor does it appear in r/slatestarcodex’s sidebar description of what it means to be charitable, and I don’t understand why you included it. In fact, in all of these cases, the principle of charity seems like it’s meant to apply to arguments or stated beliefs rather than actions in general...
Tech people don’t like it when the media assumes tech companies are all in it just for the money, and have no principles. We shouldn’t do the same.
You should in fact assume that tech companies are in it for the money and have no principles, at least until seeing contrary evidence, since that’s the standard and best model of corporations (although you shouldn’t necessarily assume the same of their employees). Regarding “we shouldn’t do the same”, I wholeheartedly reject the implication that if people don’t like having certain inferences drawn about them, one shouldn’t draw those inferences. Sometimes the truth is unflattering!
I think you (and Wikipedia and Scott) are limiting your ideas of what the principle really means. _IF_ you only care about rationality, it’s about assuming rationality. For those of us in conversations where we _ALSO_ care about intent, nuance, and connotation, it can include assuming goodwill and best intentions of your conversational partners.
In all cases, the assumption is only a prior—you’re getting a lot of evidence in the discussion, and you don’t need to cling to a false belief when shown that your opponent and their statements are not correct or useful.
Excerpts from a FB comment I made about the principle of charity. Quote blocks are a person that I’m responding to, not me. Some editing for coherence has been made. tl;dr: it’s fine to conclude that people are acting selfishly, and even to think that it’s likely that they’re acting selfishly on priors regarding the type of situation they’re in.
If this were true, then one shouldn’t engage in charitable discourse. People often do things for entirely selfish reasons. I can determine this because I often do things for entirely selfish reasons, and in general things put under selection pressure will behave in accordance with that pressure. I could elaborate or develop this point further, but I’d be surprised to learn that you disagreed. I further claim that you shouldn’t assume that something isn’t the case if it is often the case.
That being said, the “non-selfish” qualifier doesn’t appear in what Wikipedia thinks the principle of charity is, nor does it appear in r/slatestarcodex’s sidebar description of what it means to be charitable, and I don’t understand why you included it. In fact, in all of these cases, the principle of charity seems like it’s meant to apply to arguments or stated beliefs rather than actions in general...
You should in fact assume that tech companies are in it for the money and have no principles, at least until seeing contrary evidence, since that’s the standard and best model of corporations (although you shouldn’t necessarily assume the same of their employees). Regarding “we shouldn’t do the same”, I wholeheartedly reject the implication that if people don’t like having certain inferences drawn about them, one shouldn’t draw those inferences. Sometimes the truth is unflattering!
Whether it is more charitable to assume someone is or isn’t selfish can depend on context.
I think you (and Wikipedia and Scott) are limiting your ideas of what the principle really means. _IF_ you only care about rationality, it’s about assuming rationality. For those of us in conversations where we _ALSO_ care about intent, nuance, and connotation, it can include assuming goodwill and best intentions of your conversational partners.
In all cases, the assumption is only a prior—you’re getting a lot of evidence in the discussion, and you don’t need to cling to a false belief when shown that your opponent and their statements are not correct or useful.