Three Keys to Civil, Productive Debate

Below are three rules that seem to help discussions of controversial topics remain civil and productive: commonality, charity, and humility.

• 1. Commonality: Identify, emphasize, and leverage whatever it is you agree on. Even if people disagree about means (on how to help the poor or get to heaven), they generally agree about ends. Focus on that agreement.
• 2. Charity: Don’t work to “destroy” or “own” the person you are talking to. Reframe it in terms of a partnership: you are both working together to get at the truth. Give your discussant the benefit of the doubt and assume they are operating in good faith.
• 3. Humility: Be willing to learn and even change your mind. Hopefully, your discussant can learn something from you, but be willing to learn something from them. So important is this third one that it has some sub-steps:

• a. Separate what’s certain from what’s not. There are a few things that we are certain about, but almost everything else is, in the words of Thomas More, “capable of question.”
• b. Only debate what’s uncertain (empirically open). It’s OK to be closed-minded about something we are certain about (e.g., that it’s wrong to torture innocent children), but “fixed, final” truths are few and unempirical. Everything else is open to debate and able to be altered as we become aware of more empirical evidence.
• c. On those uncertain points, make sure to put truth (what’s right) ahead of victory (who’s right)