I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not a big fan of the principle of charity—often defined as the rule that you should interpret other people’s arguments on the assumption that they are not saying anything stupid. The problem with this is that other people are often saying something stupid. Because of that, I think charitable is over-rated compared to fair and accurate reading. When someone says something stupid, you don’t have to pretend otherwise, but it’s really important not to attribute to people stupid things they never said.
Getting principle of charity right can be hard in general. A common problem is when something can be interpreted as stupid in two different ways; namely, it has an interpretation which is obviously false, and another interpretation which is vacuous or trivial. (E.g.: “People are entirely selfish.”) In cases like this, where it’s not clear what the charitable reading is, it may just be best to point out what’s going on. (“I’m not certain what you mean by that. I see two ways of interpreting your statement, but one is obviously false, and the other is vacuous.”) Assuming they don’t mean the wrong thing is not the right answer, as if they do, you’re sidestepping actual debate. Assuming they don’t mean the trivial thing is not the right answer, because sometimes these statements are worth making. Whether a statement is considered trivial or not depends on who you’re talking to, and so what statements your interlocutor considers trivial will depend on who they’ve been talking to and reading. E.g., if they’ve been hanging around with non-reductionists, they might find it worthwhile to restate the basic principles of reductionism, which here we would consider trivial; and so it’s easy to make a mistake and be “charitable” to them by assuming they’re arguing for a stronger but incorrect position (like some sort of greedy reductionism). Meanwhile people are using the same words to mean different things because they haven’t calibrated abstract words against actual specifics and the debate becomes terribly unproductive.
Really, being explicit about how you’re interpreting something if it’s not the obvious way is probably best in general. (“I’m going to assume you mean [...], because as written what you said has an obvious error, namely, [...]”.) A silent principle of charity doesn’t seem very helpful.
But for a helpful principle of charity, I don’t think I’d go for anything about what assumptions you should be making. (“Assume the other person is arguing in good faith” is a common one, and this is a good idea, but if you don’t already know what it means, it’s not concrete enough to be helpful; what does that actually cash out to?) Rather, I’d go for one about what assumptions you shouldn’t make. That is to say: If the other person is saying something obviously stupid (or vacuous, or whatever), consider the possibility that you are misinterpreting them. And it would probably be a good idea to ask for clarification. (“Apologies, but it seems to me you’re making a statement that’s just clearly false, because [...]. Am I misunderstanding you? Perhaps your definition of [...] differs from mine?”) Then perhaps you can get down to figuring out where your assumptions differ and where you’re using the same words in different ways.
But honestly a lot of the help of the principle of charity may just be to get people to not use the “principle of anti-charity”, where you assume your interlocutor means the worst possible (in whatever sense) thing they could possibly mean. Even a bad principle of charity is a huge improvement on that.
There are I think two other related aspects that are relevant. First, there’s some tendency to interpret what other people say in a highly non-charitable or anti-charitable fashion when one already disagrees with them about something. So a principle of charity helps to counteract that. Second, even when one is using a non-silent charity principle, it can if one is not careful, come across as condescending, so it is important to phrase it in a way that minimizes those issues.
Getting principle of charity right can be hard in general. A common problem is when something can be interpreted as stupid in two different ways; namely, it has an interpretation which is obviously false, and another interpretation which is vacuous or trivial. (E.g.: “People are entirely selfish.”) In cases like this, where it’s not clear what the charitable reading is, it may just be best to point out what’s going on. (“I’m not certain what you mean by that. I see two ways of interpreting your statement, but one is obviously false, and the other is vacuous.”) Assuming they don’t mean the wrong thing is not the right answer, as if they do, you’re sidestepping actual debate. Assuming they don’t mean the trivial thing is not the right answer, because sometimes these statements are worth making. Whether a statement is considered trivial or not depends on who you’re talking to, and so what statements your interlocutor considers trivial will depend on who they’ve been talking to and reading. E.g., if they’ve been hanging around with non-reductionists, they might find it worthwhile to restate the basic principles of reductionism, which here we would consider trivial; and so it’s easy to make a mistake and be “charitable” to them by assuming they’re arguing for a stronger but incorrect position (like some sort of greedy reductionism). Meanwhile people are using the same words to mean different things because they haven’t calibrated abstract words against actual specifics and the debate becomes terribly unproductive.
Really, being explicit about how you’re interpreting something if it’s not the obvious way is probably best in general. (“I’m going to assume you mean [...], because as written what you said has an obvious error, namely, [...]”.) A silent principle of charity doesn’t seem very helpful.
But for a helpful principle of charity, I don’t think I’d go for anything about what assumptions you should be making. (“Assume the other person is arguing in good faith” is a common one, and this is a good idea, but if you don’t already know what it means, it’s not concrete enough to be helpful; what does that actually cash out to?) Rather, I’d go for one about what assumptions you shouldn’t make. That is to say: If the other person is saying something obviously stupid (or vacuous, or whatever), consider the possibility that you are misinterpreting them. And it would probably be a good idea to ask for clarification. (“Apologies, but it seems to me you’re making a statement that’s just clearly false, because [...]. Am I misunderstanding you? Perhaps your definition of [...] differs from mine?”) Then perhaps you can get down to figuring out where your assumptions differ and where you’re using the same words in different ways.
But honestly a lot of the help of the principle of charity may just be to get people to not use the “principle of anti-charity”, where you assume your interlocutor means the worst possible (in whatever sense) thing they could possibly mean. Even a bad principle of charity is a huge improvement on that.
There are I think two other related aspects that are relevant. First, there’s some tendency to interpret what other people say in a highly non-charitable or anti-charitable fashion when one already disagrees with them about something. So a principle of charity helps to counteract that. Second, even when one is using a non-silent charity principle, it can if one is not careful, come across as condescending, so it is important to phrase it in a way that minimizes those issues.