(as with almost everything on this site, in progress)
(without asserting that he agrees with or supports anything i say here, some of this was inspired by ruadhan o'flanagan)
I think it would be useful to have codifications of what people believe to be the rules of rational discussion.
Here's some tenative notes/axiom proposals towards this goal:
Definitions:
- (definition of definition) A definition consists either of a precise, consistent formulation of the meaning of a word in terms of other words, or a list of examples of the usage of the word.
Axioms:
- (symmetry with respect to participants) All rules governing the discussion are as symmetric as possible; that is, the opportunities afforded to each participant are equal in every way (as much as possible).
- (clarity of rules regarding content) All rules which affect opportunities and which are not symmetric with respect to the content of the discussion must be explicitly and clearly given before the start of the discussion.
- (obligation to define words upon request) It is always permissible to demand that someone define the meanings of the words they use, and they are obliged to do so.
- (freedom of definition) It is always permissible to define the meanings of words however one wishes.
- (unanimous agreement on example-based definitions) If a definition is given in terms of a list of examples, any participant(s) may object that they do not understand the concept that is being driven at. In this case, the definer may enter into a subdiscussion with these participants to try and clarify. Until the meaning of the word can be communicated, the word is considered ill-defined and cannot be used.
- (testimony and credibility are permissible topics) It is permissible to use the testimony of witnesses (including oneself) as evidence of a proposition. However, such evidence is only as strong as the credibility of the witness. The credibility of a witness may itself be debated.
- (introspection) The rules governing the discussion may be referred to and stated in discussion, and arguments may be presented for and against the rules, although this does not necessarily in itself change the rules.
- (accusation) Any participant may accuse any other participant of having violated the rules governing the discussion. The accused may demand a precise explanation of exactly how they violated the rules, and exactly which rule(s) were violated; this is called substantiating an accusation (even if the axioms governing the discussion are vague, a precise rule must be stated in order to substantiate an accusation). An accusation does not have force if the accuser does not or cannot comply. The accused must have a chance to argue in their own defence against the accusation. Neither making nor responding to an accusation may in any way affect the opportunities of the participants.
- (right to leave) If a participant is to be penalized for breaking the rules, they must first be given option of withdrawing from the remainder of the discussion (without any retraction) rather than accepting the penalty.
- (meta) The participants may, by unanimous consent, change the rules, even if the new rules constrain beyond or conflict with the rules of rationality (in which case the discussion __as a whole__ is called rational, although parts of it may in themselves be called irrational), provided:
- The new rules include a symmetric mechanism for participants to express a proposal to change the rules, and for deciding if the proposal is accepted.
- Unanimous consent will be sufficient to change the new rules.
Etiquette of rational discussion
Optionally, layered on top of the rules of rational discussion may also be the rules of rational etiquette. By "layered on top", I mean it is possible for a rational discussion to be conducted without following the rules of rational etiquette -- for instance, it may be "permissible but offense" to say certain things.
These constrain the interpretation of concepts such as offense, apology, and merit.
- (offense is accusative) If you express that you take offense, this is a form of accusation.
- (facts cannot offend) It is never offensive to state an opinion about factual propositions.
- (hypotheticals cannot offend) Is is never offensive to hypothetically consider a proposal, that is, to develop a proposal, to consider its possible effects, to evaluate these effects as pros and cons, to think of persuasive arguments for and against a proposal, and to try to improve the proposal.
- (merit is just) The merit accorded to each participant can only be affected by things under their control.
- (deceptive definitions are offensive) It is offensive to define words with the intent to deceive.
- (pretended misunderstanding of words is offensive) It is offensive to claim that one does not understand the meaning of a word when one actually thinks that one does understand it.
- (dilatory offensiveness) It is offensive to demand the definition of words for the purpose of depleting the resources of other participant(s).
- (insults are offensive) It is offensive to assert that an entity lacks merit when such an argument has no direct bearing on the topic being discussed, and the testimony of that entity has not been used as evidence.
Some definitions and axioms about discussions in general
(definition of irrational) Rules which constrain what participants may say beyond those given here, either by narrowing the scope of permissibility of broadening the scope of offense, are "irrational".
A discussion involves a discrete number of discussion "participants", which are entities.
The types of actions that are involved in discussions are only speech actions; however, the content of discussions may refer to other types of actions.
Every time an entity has a choice, out of the choices it is faced with, those which are valid under the governing rules are called opportunities.
If something is permissible, then the rules do not penalize it. No opportunities are lost by taking a permissible action (including, of course, future opportunities).
A "factual proposition" is a proposition which has a definite truth value.
Propositions which involve deontological modals are never factual propositions, unless their scope is confined to a cited deontological authority (if you do not like this, then please replace all references to "factual propositions" in the rules with "factual propositions except ones with free deontological modals").
Predictions can be factual propositions (if you do not like this, then please replace all references to "factual propositions" in the rules with "factual propositions or predictions").
An "accepted fact" is a factual proposition accepted by all participants.
The rules of rationality/rational etiquette consist of all those constraints implied by the axioms of rationality/rational etiquette.
Note that the rules of rationality refer to "the rules governing the discussion". These may include other rules beyond the rules of rationality themselves.
An "irrational rule" is one which constrains what participants say beyond the constraints of permissibility given by the rules of rationality, or one which permits participants to say something forbidden by the rules of rationality.
A "symmetric" rule or set of rules is one which treats all participants the same.
A loss of merit in the eyes of others is not considered a penalty in the sense of (right to leave) because it does not affect the opportunities during discussion. Therefore, if you offend people, this may affect how they treat you outside of the discussion.
Some observations/theorems
The rules of rational discussion do not make reference to the internal states of mind of the participants. However, the rules of rational etiquette do.
None of the rules of rational etiquette are irrational. (pf idea: every axiom of rre is consistent with rrd)
It may be considered offensive to advocate a proposal. (pf idea: every axiom is consistent with this)
(noninterference of rationality with etiquette) The concepts of offense and apology are not within the scope of the rules of rationality. (pf: they are not mentioned in the axioms)
(noninterference of etiquette with rationality) Something which the rules of rationality say is permissible is still permissible whether or not one gives offense; i.e. such a thing cannot be forbidden as punishment for giving offense. (pf: the rules of rationality constrain the definition of what is permissible without regard to what gives offense)
(ejection of participant) The (right to leave) effectively allows the group to eject a participant by the unanimous consent of everyone else, for any reason, even if they are "punishing" the target participant for an action which is permitted under the rules, because by (right to leave) everyone else can choose to leave the discussion without penalty, and then they could choose to begin a new discussion with rules that specify that the new discussion picks up where the previous one left off, but without the ejected participant. In fact, any subset of the group can always "eject" the rest of the group by withdrawing and then starting their own continuation of the discussion. This may or may not serve their goals.
Some useful conventions
- (conventions on accepting others' definitions) It is always permissible to object that another party to the discussion is defining a word "incorrectly", and to insist that henceforth, you will be using a different definition. However, the other party cannot be forced to change their definitions. The effect of such an objection is simply to notify everyone that you and the other party will henceforth be using different definitions. For the sake of convenience, one party or another may adopt one or another definition just for the duration of the conversation. However, it is forbidden for any person B to represent the position of another person A to a third party C who wasn't present for the conversation using words which are defined in any way other that A defined them.
Examples of the application of the rules
- As noted, there may be other rules governing a discussion beyond those given here, and as long as the other rules don't contradict these, the discussion is considered rational. Some examples of permissible other rules:
- Time limits on speaking
- A rule that, once an assertion has been made, if a participant does not note their disagreement to that assertion during their next speech, they are considered to have agree to the assertion, and hence once everyone else has had a chance to speak, if there was no disagreement, the assertion is to be considered an accepted fact
- A rule constraining the topic of the discussion
- A rule that to advocate the wearing of purple clothing is offensive.
- Rule (meta) permits the changing of the rules by unanimous consent. For example, perhaps one participant, Billy, is less skilled in rhetoric than other participants, and hence participants decide to give Billy twice as much speaking time as others. This conflicts with rule (symmetry with respect to participants) and hence a discussion conducted under this rule is irrational; however, the "whole discussion", which includes both the discussion under the new rule as well as the consenting of all participants to the new rule beforehand, IS rational.
- Examples of factual propositions are "Yesterday, Billy went shopping", or "Tomorrow, Billy will go shopping".
- Examples of assertions with deontological modals are "One must do X", "One is permitted to do Y". Examples of deontological authorities are, "the Ten Commandments", "Christian morality", "the laws of our country", "the system of ethics propounded by philosopher X", "the X system of ethics". So, for example, the proposition, "One must do X" is not factual, but "One must do X according to the Ten Commandments" might be (or it might not be, in the case that the Ten Commandments are not clear about whether or not they require one to do X).
Controversial examples:
If you find that these examples violate your norms of what makes a good discussion, then before rejecting these rules as useless, please consider the possibility that rationality may not always be what you want. For example, in one of the examples below, it is asserted that it would be irrational for a schoolteacher to take away speaking time from a student for making racist and insulting remarks if there were not an explicit rule against such remarks. I do not think not preventing the student from speaking further is a good idea, but rather than reject (clarity of rules regarding content) as a rule of rationality, I would say that grade school discussions have a goal of educating the students to be "nice", even if this means that the discussions are not always rational.
- Under rule (facts cannot offend), holocaust denial cannot be considered offensive because it is a dispute about facts. However, advocation of a proposal to discriminate against Jewish people may be considered offensive.
- Under rule (hypotheticals cannot offend), a proposal to forcibly control human population levels may be hypothetically put forth and considered, and persuasive arguments in favor of it may be developed (and in fact, someone who is against the proposal would do well to hypothetically consider it in this way, in order to determine how to best argue against it). The hypothetical consideration of the merits of the proposal is not to be considered offensive. However, actual (non-hypothetical) advocation of such a proposal may be considered offensive.
- Billy, a young grade school student, makes racist and insulting remarks, but at no time before the discussion was it made clear, even at the level of "standing rules" for all schooltime, that racist and insulting remarks were disallowed. By (clarity of rules regarding content), Billy cannot have his speaking time reduced if this is to be a rational discussion. However, provided that the "racist and insulting remarks" were not purely factual propositions (for example, value judgements about classes of people are not purely factual propositions), the other participants may still take offense.
- Before begining a discussion, the rules clearly specify that remarks which insult another's religion are out-of-bounds. However, by (introspection), this rule itself may (without penalty) be argued against during a discussion, although it may not be broken. So, a participant may say that e has some evidence which the audience would find quite convincing, but that the rules against insulting another's religion prevent em from introducing it.
todo
(???: how to reconcile with offensive opinions) (judgement) A proposition which is not a fact is a matter of opinion. To hold an opinion is called "judgement". Judgement is never offensive
???: * (symmetry with respect to content) The rules of the discussion are as symmetric as possible with respect to the content of the discussion. ???: * Billy makes racist and insulting remarks. In a rational discussion, Billy cannot have his remaining speaking time taken away, because this would violate (symmetry with respect to content). Even though he has given offense, by theorem (noninterference of etiquette with rationality), this does not allow the violation of (symmetry with respect to content).