Tips for Political Debate, part 2 – Fake Nous

Tips for Political Debate, part 2 – Fake Nous

Here is part 2 of Huemer's tips on how to handle political debates. Continuing from the previous five tips Huemer offers the following: be charitable, don't confuse issues, don't be tribal, have modest aims, don't waste time, and don't misinterpret people.

In the first tip about being charitable Huemer recommends not straw-manning or weak-manning. Instead of straw-manning, "assume your opponent holds the most reasonable view that could plausibly explain his words, not the stupidest one." Regarding weak-manning, "when defending a position, don't just address the least reasonable opponents. Address the most plausible, most interesting, and/or most common opposing positions."

Huemer doesn't refer to another concept called steel-manning in which you try to improve your opponent's position to be even stronger than what they're offering then address that stronger position. Naturally this takes more effort and applies his tip of being charitable. Steel-manning might not be feasible to do in the heat of a discussion but we could think about an issue, say the opposing position on abortion or gun control, before getting into a debate then think about how to make their argument the best you can before coming up with your response.