There’s the specific sense of “debate,” which are talking events where people on different sides of an issue argue with each other in front of an audience. Then there’s the more general sense of “debate,” which is a long-term public discussion in which people on different sides of an issue make arguments in various formats (books, blog posts, radio interviews, etc.) and respond to some of each other’s arguments. “Refusal to debate” in the general sense seems like a bad thing—it’s worth publicly knocking down their arguments to help the public learn the truth and to keep the marketplace of ideas open so that you don’t mistakenly shield established views from accurate criticisms.
I’m not as clear on the problems with “refusal to debate” in the specific sense of not holding talking events. Is the idea just that debates (meaning talking events) are an essential component of the public discussion, without which we’d be worse at educating the public and testing established ideas? They don’t seem like a great way to find truth, especially when one of the debaters is just trying to win the debate or create doubt or confusion. Among other things, audience members (who are the targets of the debate) have a limited amount of time to process information, the debaters can manipulate what they attend to, they can’t access any independent sources of information, and their impressions are heavily influenced by the personal characteristics of the debaters (their charisma, confidence, and so on). Maybe it’s all just about public perceptions of your willingness to debate rather than the debate itself, where you don’t want to seem scared to debate but you also don’t want to issue to seem like something debatable where a reasonable person could easily reach either conclusion.
There’s the specific sense of “debate,” which are talking events where people on different sides of an issue argue with each other in front of an audience. Then there’s the more general sense of “debate,” which is a long-term public discussion in which people on different sides of an issue make arguments in various formats (books, blog posts, radio interviews, etc.) and respond to some of each other’s arguments. “Refusal to debate” in the general sense seems like a bad thing—it’s worth publicly knocking down their arguments to help the public learn the truth and to keep the marketplace of ideas open so that you don’t mistakenly shield established views from accurate criticisms.
I’m not as clear on the problems with “refusal to debate” in the specific sense of not holding talking events. Is the idea just that debates (meaning talking events) are an essential component of the public discussion, without which we’d be worse at educating the public and testing established ideas? They don’t seem like a great way to find truth, especially when one of the debaters is just trying to win the debate or create doubt or confusion. Among other things, audience members (who are the targets of the debate) have a limited amount of time to process information, the debaters can manipulate what they attend to, they can’t access any independent sources of information, and their impressions are heavily influenced by the personal characteristics of the debaters (their charisma, confidence, and so on). Maybe it’s all just about public perceptions of your willingness to debate rather than the debate itself, where you don’t want to seem scared to debate but you also don’t want to issue to seem like something debatable where a reasonable person could easily reach either conclusion.