Zack says in his intro that “[people think] that if you’ve determined someone is in bad faith, you shouldn’t even be talking to them, that you need to exile them” and then makes the counter-claim that “being touchy about bad faith accusations seems counterproductive...it shouldn’t be beyond the pale to think that of some particular person, nor should it necessarily entail cutting the ‘bad faith actor’ out of public life.”
That sounds to me like a claim that you shouldn’t use bad faith as a reason to disengage. Admittedly terms like “exile” have implications of punishment, while “walk away” has implications of cutting your losses, but in both cases the actual action being taken is “stop talking to them”, right?
Also note that Zack starts with the premise that “bad faith” refers to both deception and bias, and then addresses a “deception only” interpretation later on as a possible counter-claim. I normally use “bad faith” to mean deception (not mere bias), my impression is that’s how most people use it most of the time, and that’s the version I’m defending.
(Though strong bias might also be a reason to walk away in some cases. I am not claiming that deception is the only reason to ever walk away.)
I’ll grant that “just walk away from deceivers” is a bit simplistic. I think a full treatment of this issue would need to consider several different goals you might have in the conversation (e.g. convincing the other side, convincing an audience, gathering evidence for yourself) and how the deception would interact with each of them, which seems like it would require a post-length analysis. But I don’t think “treat it the same as bias” is strategically correct in most cases.
Zack says in his intro that “[people think] that if you’ve determined someone is in bad faith, you shouldn’t even be talking to them, that you need to exile them” and then makes the counter-claim that “being touchy about bad faith accusations seems counterproductive...it shouldn’t be beyond the pale to think that of some particular person, nor should it necessarily entail cutting the ‘bad faith actor’ out of public life.”
That sounds to me like a claim that you shouldn’t use bad faith as a reason to disengage. Admittedly terms like “exile” have implications of punishment, while “walk away” has implications of cutting your losses, but in both cases the actual action being taken is “stop talking to them”, right?
Also note that Zack starts with the premise that “bad faith” refers to both deception and bias, and then addresses a “deception only” interpretation later on as a possible counter-claim. I normally use “bad faith” to mean deception (not mere bias), my impression is that’s how most people use it most of the time, and that’s the version I’m defending.
(Though strong bias might also be a reason to walk away in some cases. I am not claiming that deception is the only reason to ever walk away.)
I’ll grant that “just walk away from deceivers” is a bit simplistic. I think a full treatment of this issue would need to consider several different goals you might have in the conversation (e.g. convincing the other side, convincing an audience, gathering evidence for yourself) and how the deception would interact with each of them, which seems like it would require a post-length analysis. But I don’t think “treat it the same as bias” is strategically correct in most cases.