One of the most interesting of epistemological arts is the art of debate. While we all like a good fight, we also like a fair fight, and those of us who are more interested in truth than victory like a civil debate rather than a heated, ad hominem attack-fest. Even contentious issues can be calmly and intelligently debated.
The late 1800’s and early 1900’s were a hotbed of public debate, especially on religion, and we can learn a lot about the art of debate from studying that time. One valuable and interesting book from that time period is Levi Hedge’s Elements of Logick: A Summary of the General Principles and Different Modes of Reasoning (1855) in which the author, among other helpful items, includes his rules for debate. This list of rules took on its own life and became Hedge’s Rules of Honorable Controversy. If we followed these rules, epithets like bigot, pig, pervert, and miscreant would be less oft used.
BONUS: You can also find a lot of advice for Christian debaters, including Hedge’s rules, in the booklet Christian Contend for thy Cause.
Hedge’s Rules of Honorable Controversy
1. Establish Clear Definitions
The terms, in which the question in debate is expressed, and the precise point at issue, should be so clearly defined, that there could be no misunderstanding respecting them. If this is not done, the dispute is liable to be, in a great degree, verbal. Arguments will be misapplied, and the controversy protracted, because the parties engaged in it have different apprehensions of the question.
A majority of time lost in fruitless discussion may be attributed to equivocationThe use of ambiguous language or expressions that have double meanings, often with the intent to deceive or mislead. It involves using words that can be interpreted in more than one way, allowing the speaker to avoid making a clear and unequivocal statement and miscommunication based on our different use of words and the possible breadth of their meaning. For example, consider the fact that the word evolution can be used to mean change over time, natural selection, common ancestry, micro or macro changes in biological creatures, or descent with modification.
2. Employ Mutual Respect
The parties should mutually consider each other, as standing on a footing of equality in respect to the subject in debate. Each should regard the other as possessing equal talents, knowledge, and desire for truth, with himself; and that it is possible, therefore, that he may be in the wrong, and his adversary in the right. In the heat of controversy, men are apt to forget the numberless sources of error, which exist in every controverted subject, especially of theology and metaphysics. Hence arise presumptions, confidence, and arrogant language; all which obstruct the discovery of truth.
Disrespect immediately indicates immaturity – even if the person is dull, obstinate, and ill-informed, maturity demands mercy and kindness, even when delivering it with instruction or boundaries.
3. NO Extraneous Arguments
All expressions, which are unmeaning, or without effect in regard to the subject in debate, should be strictly avoided. All expressions may be considered as unmeaning, which contribute nothing to the proof or the question; such as desultory remarks and declamatory expressions…
Not only should unrelated arguments be avoided (unmeaning, desultory), but also appeals to emotion (declamatory) rather than logic.
4. NO Personal Attacks
Personal reflections on an adversary should in no instance be indulged….Personal reflections are not only destitute of effect, in respect to the question in discussion, but they are productive of real evil… They indicate in him, who uses them, a mind hostile to the truth; for they prevent even solid arguments from receiving the attention to which they are justly entitled.
This is a serious claim – that when we engage in ad hominems, we are engaging in evil and are showing ourselves to be hostile to the truth itself, not just the person.
5. NO Motive Accusations
No one has aright to accuse his adversary of indirect motive.Arguments are to be answered, whether he, who offers them, be sincere or not; especially as his want of sincerity, if real, could not be ascertained. To inquire into his motives, then, is useless. To ascribe indirect ones to him is … hurtful.
Mind reading, or assuming the worst motives, is uncharitable and unhelpful. Assuming and voicing the best motives in your opponent is disarming, especially of they don’t have the best of motives.
6. NO Consequence Ownership
The consequences of any doctrine are not to be charged on him who maintains it, unless he expressly avows them. If an absurd consequence be fairly deductible from any doctrine, it is rightly concluded that the doctrine itself is false; but it is not rightly concluded that he who advances it, supports the absurd consequence. The charitable presumption, in such a case, would be, that he had never made the deduction; and that, if he had made it, he would have abandoned the original doctrine.
Me personally, I would at least imply that if they deny the logical consequences of such a position, it seems that they are not thinking it through or denying logic. But I will not accuse them of desiring or accepting such a consequence.
7. Truth Over Victory
As truth, and not victory, is the professed object of controversy, whatever proofs may be advanced, on either side, should be examined with fairness and candor; and any attempt to ensnare an adversary by the arts of sophistry, or to lessen the force of his reasoning, by wit, caviling, or ridicule, is a violation of the rules of honorable controversy.
Real maturity is a desire to get to the truth, wherever that leads, which includes the possibility of conceding, at least to think about changing your mind or expanding your model. And as a “victor” in the debate, you can generously leave room for such a concession through heeding Ben Franklin’s sage advice:
I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion, such as ‘certainly,’ ‘undoubtedly,’ etc., and I adopted, instead of them, ‘I conceive,’ ‘I apprehend,’ or ‘I imagine a thing to be so, or so,’ or ‘it so appears to me at present. “I continued this method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest diffidence; never using, when I advanced anything that might possibly be disputed, the words ‘certainly,’ ‘undoubtedly,’ or any others that give the air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, ‘I conceive’ or ‘I apprehend a thing to be so and so,’ ‘It appears to me,’ or ‘I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons,’ or ‘I imagine it to be so,’ or ‘It is so, if I am not mistaken.’ This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions and persuade men into measures that I have been from time to time engaged in promoting.” (Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)
“If you argue and rankle and contradict, you may achieve a victory sometimes; but it will be an empty victory because you will never get your opponent’s good will. (Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin)
For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. (Speech at the Constitutional Convention, 1787)
I would add this final thought, which I thought was an idea from Franklin, but can’t find the quote:
When disputing with others, do so using kind and tentative ways, so that if it is shown that you are wrong, you provide for yourself a graceful exit.