I think that this post relies too heavily on a false binary. Specifically, the description of all arguments as “good faith” or “bad faith” completely ignores the (to my intuition, far likelier) possibility that most arguments begin primarily (my guess is 90% or so, but maybe I just tend not to hold arguments with people below 70%) good faith, then people adjust according to their perception of their interlocutor(s), audience (if applicable), and the importance of the issue being argued. Common signals of arguments in particularly bad faith advanced by otherwise intelligent people include persistent reliance on most listed logical fallacies (dismissing that criticism and keeping a given point after its fallacious nature is clearly explained; sealioning and whataboutism are prototypical exemplars), moving the goalposts, and ignoring all contradictory evidence.
Another false binary: this also ignores the possibility of both sides in an argument being correct (or founded on correct factual data). For example, today I spent perhaps 10 minutes arguing over whether a cheese was labeled as Gouda or not, because I’d read the manufacturer’s label which did not contain that word but did say “Goat cheese of Holland” and my interlocutor read the price label from Costco which called it “goat Gouda.” I’m marginally more correct because I recognized the contradiction in terms (in the EU gouda can only be made from milk produced by Dutch cows), but neither of us was lying or arguing in bad faith, and yet I briefly struggled to believe that we were inhabiting the same reality and remembering it correctly. They were a very entertaining 10 minutes, but I wouldn’t want to have that kind of groundless argument more than once or twice a week, and that limit assumes a discussion of trivial topics as opposed to an ostensibly sincere debate on something which I hold dear.
I think that this post relies too heavily on a false binary. Specifically, the description of all arguments as “good faith” or “bad faith” completely ignores the (to my intuition, far likelier) possibility that most arguments begin primarily (my guess is 90% or so, but maybe I just tend not to hold arguments with people below 70%) good faith, then people adjust according to their perception of their interlocutor(s), audience (if applicable), and the importance of the issue being argued. Common signals of arguments in particularly bad faith advanced by otherwise intelligent people include persistent reliance on most listed logical fallacies (dismissing that criticism and keeping a given point after its fallacious nature is clearly explained; sealioning and whataboutism are prototypical exemplars), moving the goalposts, and ignoring all contradictory evidence.
Another false binary: this also ignores the possibility of both sides in an argument being correct (or founded on correct factual data). For example, today I spent perhaps 10 minutes arguing over whether a cheese was labeled as Gouda or not, because I’d read the manufacturer’s label which did not contain that word but did say “Goat cheese of Holland” and my interlocutor read the price label from Costco which called it “goat Gouda.” I’m marginally more correct because I recognized the contradiction in terms (in the EU gouda can only be made from milk produced by Dutch cows), but neither of us was lying or arguing in bad faith, and yet I briefly struggled to believe that we were inhabiting the same reality and remembering it correctly. They were a very entertaining 10 minutes, but I wouldn’t want to have that kind of groundless argument more than once or twice a week, and that limit assumes a discussion of trivial topics as opposed to an ostensibly sincere debate on something which I hold dear.