Ten rules of argumentation

ibis wrote:

Non-humorous, I'm afraid. The following ten rules have been put forward for reasonable discussion:

• Freedom rule. Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or from casting doubt on standpoints.
  
• Burden of proof rule. A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked by the other party to do so.
  
• Standpoint rule. A party’s attack on a standpoint must relate to
  the standpoint that has indeed been advanced by the other party.
  
• Relevance rule. A party may defend a standpoint only by advancing argumentation relating to that standpoint.
  
• Unexpressed premise rule. A party may not disown a premise that has
  been left implicit by that party, or falsely present something as a
  premise that has been left unexpressed by the other party.
  
• Starting point rule. A party may not falsely present a premise as
  an accepted starting point nor deny a premise representing an accepted
  starting point.
  
• Argument scheme rule. A party may not regard a standpoint as
  conclusively defended if the defense does not take place by means of an
  appropriate argumentation scheme that is correctly applied.
  
• Validity rule. A party may only use arguments in its argumentation
  that are logically valid or capable of being validated by making
  explicit one or more unexpressed premises
  
• Closure rule. A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the
  party that put forward the standpoint retracting it and a conclusive
  defense of the standpoint must result in the other party retracting its
  doubt about the standpoint.
  
• Usage rule. A party must not use formulations that are
  insufficiently clear or confusingly ambiguous and a party must
  interpret the other party’s formulations as carefully and accurately as
  possible.
  

Any comments?

Auditor #9 wrote:

ibis wrote:

Non-humorous, I'm afraid. The following ten rules have been put forward for reasonable discussion:

• Freedom rule. Parties must not prevent each other from advancing standpoints or from casting doubt on standpoints.
  
• Burden of proof rule. A party that advances a standpoint is obliged to defend it if asked by the other party to do so.
  
• Standpoint rule. A party’s attack on a standpoint must relate to
  the standpoint that has indeed been advanced by the other party.
  
• Relevance rule. A party may defend a standpoint only by advancing argumentation relating to that standpoint.
  
• Unexpressed premise rule. A party may not disown a premise that has
  been left implicit by that party, or falsely present something as a
  premise that has been left unexpressed by the other party.
  
• Starting point rule. A party may not falsely present a premise as
  an accepted starting point nor deny a premise representing an accepted
  starting point.
  
• Argument scheme rule. A party may not regard a standpoint as
  conclusively defended if the defense does not take place by means of an
  appropriate argumentation scheme that is correctly applied.
  
• Validity rule. A party may only use arguments in its argumentation
  that are logically valid or capable of being validated by making
  explicit one or more unexpressed premises
  
• Closure rule. A failed defense of a standpoint must result in the
  party that put forward the standpoint retracting it and a conclusive
  defense of the standpoint must result in the other party retracting its
  doubt about the standpoint.
  
• Usage rule. A party must not use formulations that are
  insufficiently clear or confusingly ambiguous and a party must
  interpret the other party’s formulations as carefully and accurately as
  possible.
  

Any comments?

Sounds good to me.

Will we be putting this to a Referendum!?

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I wouldn't be in favour of any of these rules.
reasons:
- First and foremost, people might beat others over the head with these rules.
- not all posts deserve or need an answer.
- every post should stand on its own two feet. If you are making a point and not just contradicting somebody else then you won't need a reply.
- writing a post that demands an answer is a skill. If it is not answered then everybody can see it.
- it is bad manners and counter-productive to require somebody to admit they are wrong. If you point out a factual inaccuracy and you are not refuted then that should be enough.
- people are busy and don't have time to comply with rules which require them to post certain things such as acknowledgements or replies.
- I don't like rules per se.
I think we are all doing ok as is with the good will and manners that people are displaying in their posts.

I broadly agree with Zhou in relation to Ibis's list. I don't think rules can solve all the issues that arise on a site like this. Some things are determined by custom and practice and good modding. Overall I think the posting here is good and people have been able to express their views without the slapstick abuse you see on other fora.

I think basic ground rules for the site are important but should be kept to a minimum and should be simple. We have quite a lot of rules in the draft Charter and Site rules. If there are problems we should refer back to them first and see if there is an answer there. If there is not, and if the problem looks like being regular, then we should amend the Site Rules.

My only comment would be that they are good rules for how to identify a properly constructed logical argument. However, unless posters are compelled to post only in formal logic which has been passed through a theorem prover, they are unlikely to be easy to apply in practice. The inherent ambiguity of natural language is enough by itself to provide endless space for meta-argument about the applicability of the rules.

When you add in the fact that very few if any people argue from a purely rational basis, you have a recipe for lots of fighting. For example, the validity rule would, in my opinion, rule out all mention of deities - but I doubt that any such rule would make for an atmosphere of free debate.

In sum, while I think that it's a good guide to analysing an argument, it's unlikely to work as moderation rules for a bulletin board.

Part of my reason for posting the rules was that I feel they express what is generally felt to be fair and unfair in discussions. I think the majority of posters would accept the bulk of those rules, in their less formal expression:

1. people should be allowed to discuss any subject, and respond to any claim

2. people feel that you should defend your claims, not just say "take it or leave it"

3. no straw man arguments - people have to deal with the actual claims being made, not attack something they pretend the other person is saying

4. you can't just drag any old rubbish into the discussion and pretend it supports your claims

5. if you're arguing that people should have fewer kids in order to reduce the world population, you have to be able to defend the premise that reducing world population is a good thing - but people can't pretend that you're claiming killing people is good if you haven't said that

6. you can't pretend that 'everyone agrees' that reducing population is a good thing in order to avoid point 5

7. you can't claim to have successfully defended your claim when you haven't

8. only logical arguments allowed

9. if you can't defend your claim you should retract it

10. you mustn't present your arguments in a deliberately ambiguous or confusing way.

Of them all, I would only see 8 as a problem.

Zhou_Enlai wrote:

I wouldn't be in favour of any of these rules.
reasons:
- First and foremost, people might beat others over the head with these rules.
- not all posts deserve or need an answer.
- every post should stand on its own two feet. If you are making a point and not just contradicting somebody else then you won't need a reply.
- writing a post that demands an answer is a skill. If it is not answered then everybody can see it.
- it is bad manners and counter-productive to require somebody to admit they are wrong. If you point out a factual inaccuracy and you are not refuted then that should be enough.
- people are busy and don't have time to comply with rules which require them to post certain things such as acknowledgements or replies.
- I don't like rules per se.
I think we are all doing ok as is with the good will and manners that people are displaying in their posts.

I agree with what you say here Zhou - you have to allow that other people will weigh up the arguments presented and decide for themselves. A lot of online fora descend into proverbial peeing matches wherein two people are fighting for an acknowledgement from the other that is never going to materialize.

I think another consideration is to hold back from posting too much. It's tempting but often counterproductive to fire a response off to something immediately and end up posting screeds of posts which don't really make the discussion interesting/informative so much as monopolise the thread - and difficult for other readers/posters to raise other aspects of the subject. Better to hold back and try to limit oneself to fewer, more considered posts as a general rule of thumb? On the other hand, there are times when two well informed people are having a decent and illuminating discussion on a thread and it's good to let that take its course.

This all doesnt add up to an exact rule, though, now does it ?