How to salvage reasoned debate in twelve easy steps

Public debate makes for grim viewing these days. A moment’s glance at the aggressive, inconclusive squabbles dominating our screens will soon set any head shaking. This, of course, is not a new phenomenon: you can’t turn left or right for anguished lament about incivility and intolerance. But this incapacity for measured debate is not some mental perversity born of the twenty-first century. Instead, in most cases, it stems from frighteningly frequent missing of the point. Many an argument ends in bitter impasse not because the two sides are irreconcilable but because neither party takes pains to understand the reasoning of their interlocutor. Even the most prominent debate in Britain, Prime Minister’s Questions, is typically rendered unwatchable by its absurdist blend of question and non sequitur: an exchange between Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn calls to mind Siri fielding an automated cold-call about PPI.

While we rightly aspire to ‘dial down’ and rehumanise our arguments, in person and online, there’s a much more pressing need. We must spot when others – and indeed ourselves – lose sight of the track and slip into logical fallacies, however simple or subtle. So, in the hope of salvaging reasoned debate, here are the dozen clangers that most obstruct contemporary discussion:

1) Opposite viewpoints start arguments, not end them:

A: Dogs are kind.

B: No, dogs are rank opportunists. But let’s agree to disagree.

No, let this difference of opinion mark the beginning of a constructive conversation. No opinion should be above discussion, regardless of how subjective and personal the subject.

2) Not all arguments weigh the same:

A: The monarchy is good because it benefits British tourism.

B: You miss the point: it’s expensive, outmoded and – a third reason to clinch the case – it’s elitist.

A 3-1 win for the second speaker? No: opinions are to be weighed, not counted. A dozen pros can be easily outweighed by a single con, if its importance is manifestly paramount.

3) Generalisations matter:

A: Britons always drive on the left.

B: What an unhelpful over-simplification, and an insult to the entire population of Gibraltar!

Spare a thought for the 0.04 per cent? No. A generalisation doesn’t lose its value if specific counterexamples can be found in the long grass. Instead, it’s precisely such pragmatic approximations that keep the engine of debate running.

4) Complexity can be tamed:

A: There is indeed real debate about quite where the boundaries of Europe begin and end.

B: Well, as far as I can see, there’s no agreement at all on that. So using the term ‘Europe’ is completely unhelpful.

Dismissing as unworkable a concept that reveals itself to be internally complex, and indeed without communal agreement, is a dereliction of duty. An imperfectly defined or understood issue should not be relegated from the realms of discussion. On the contrary, clear-headed engagement with that topic should make explicit the differences that matter – the differences that demand debate.

5) The future is not so frightening:

A: What will your response be if, as expected, your current proposal is unambiguously rejected?

B: That’s a hypothetical question! I’m really not prepared to speculate about what hasn’t yet happened. I’m focused instead on discussing the here-and-now.

Do grow up. Since the future is inherently uncertain, it’s desperately special pleading to refuse to talk about it because it’s ‘hypothetical’. Almost every deed and thought in the world operates as part of a nexus of working hypotheses, conscious and unconscious, correct and misguided. If you’re not prepared to talk about the future, you’re not fit for office in the present.

6) Slippery slopes aren’t that slippery:

A: We should, on good stretches of motorway, increase the speed limit to 80mph.

B: That is such a dangerous and absurd proposal: before we know it, the legal limit will have been raised to 100mph.

Ah, the slippery slope that, usually, offers strangely good grip underfoot. Where there’s scope for mature and managed control, everything can be tweaked by degrees: we should delegate trust to our future selves to apply the same reasoning that we do. If you eat a slice of cake, it need not follow that you’ll then and there devour the remainder because of its undeniable edibility.

7) Post hoc sed non propter hoc:

A: In June 2016 Britain voted for Brexit.

B: No surprise, then, that three months later the Royal Mint felt the need to issue 440,000,000 new five-pound notes.

Ah, the ‘because of Brexit’ fallacy is a thriving subspecies of the nonsensical assumption that any event succeeding another does so in consequence of it. Even in cases where a causal link can be shown, there may be any number of contributing causes, each differently weighted. So, unless you can demonstrate the cause, don’t go drawing the inference.

8) Correlation does not mean causation:

A: The population of Britain is rising annually.

B: Yes, and the cost of food increases every year: only by decreasing Britain’s population can we make prices fair again.

Yes. Wait, hold up: what’s the evidence that one causes the other? A myriad events happen in parallel. Even if both are tending in a similar direction and at a similar rate, that’s not sufficient to show that one relates to the other, let alone causes it.

9) Don’t assume the cause:

A: If a story is important, it will get good coverage in the media.

B: Well, since this particular story’s gone viral, it must be especially important.

No: while one situation causes another, it’s not true that the resulting situation can only arise from that cause. Often its causes are of negligible interest. Plenty of globe-trottingly viral stories – it hardly needs saying – are too trivial to merit even a glance from your weary eyes.

10) Keep your conditionals in order:

A: If you’re politically disengaged, you don’t bother casting a vote.

B: Agreed. So the UK election of 2017 showed us that the non-voting 31 per cent of the electorate are politically disengaged.

No – or not necessarily. If one thing leads to another, so be it; but it’s rarely true that the latter also determines the former. If it rains you raise your umbrella, but it won’t start raining every other time you do so.

11) Similarity of details can be deceptive:

A: It’s educationally unhelpful for phones to be used in the classroom.

B: Wrong. Phones are essential in the workplace, and our schools must offer an education that trains pupils for the workplace.

Some ring of plausibility here. But the equivalence is false: the use of phones in the workplace is far removed from that in the classroom. The same object need not play the same role in different situations, even if one scenario should ideally lead to the other.

12) Play the ball, not the man:

A: Stealing is wrong.

B: Says the man who was fined for filing his tax return late – and who’s been shown to have sent some pretty boorish tweets!

Such ad hominem distractions are now engrained in modern debate. It’s become entirely acceptable to ignore the validity of opinions, either through wilful whataboutery or desperate allegations of hypocrisy. This is abject bigotry which we must rise above. Any well-reasoned argument, regardless of the subject, should be free of personal baggage.

So there’s a swift recovery package for popular discourse. If you’re now shaking your head at the self-evident simplicity of all the above, good. Do make sure your friends (while they last) get back on board too. If instead you’re left scratching your head, Godspeed to you. But do brace yourself for some trouble ahead: far from winning the countless arguments you’ll go falling into, you’ll find that you can never end or escape them. What’s more, you’re destined to the worst fate possible – of never changing your mind at all.