Good Faith Actors: Finding Agreement
If you're having a disagreement with someone one of the most important things you can and should determine as early as possible is whether you're dealing with a good faith actor, because that determines whether you're having a discussion or debate. If you're a good faith actor and you're dealing with a good faith actor then you can ask questions like "what do we agree on?" Take global warming, for example. You don't necessarily "agree" or "disagree" with global warming, there is a spectrum of potential agreement:
Two good faith actors can agree that the planet Earth exists and that there has been a warming trend but disagree on whether that trend was caused by CO2. They can agree that it was caused by CO2 but disagree on the portion of CO2 that is of human origin. They can agree on human CO2 but disagree on whether CO2 is the driving factor. But if you simply resist every argument on every front - if you deny any common ground, if you're trying to prove that a particular group is simply "boolean-wrong" while ignoring or shrugging off any hint of agreement between your position and theirs - then you're not a good faith actor.
In the case of global warming, that goes for proponents as well as deniers. You can say that global warming is bad, but if you're not willing to entertain the rationale of skeptics by considering an upper limit on how bad it could possibly be relative to the costs of proposed solutions then you're not acting in good faith either. Find what you agree on before you argue about what you disagree on. Spending mutual effort to resolve agreement can also be a good exercise to prevent the exchange from becoming unnecessarily adversarial.
- The planet Earth exists
- There has been a recent warming trend
- There has been a recent increase in atmospheric CO2
- The recent CO2 increase is in some part of human origin
- The temperature increase is caused in some part by CO2's role in the Greenhouse Effect
- Continued warming will be detrimental to human quality of life in some way that can be monetized and weighed against proposed solutions.
- Continued warming will be "fantastically apocalyptic", potentially killing a significant portion of the human population.
- Global warming will cook all life on earth, providing a great feast for the carnivorous insect-people who live inside the moon.
Two good faith actors can agree that the planet Earth exists and that there has been a warming trend but disagree on whether that trend was caused by CO2. They can agree that it was caused by CO2 but disagree on the portion of CO2 that is of human origin. They can agree on human CO2 but disagree on whether CO2 is the driving factor. But if you simply resist every argument on every front - if you deny any common ground, if you're trying to prove that a particular group is simply "boolean-wrong" while ignoring or shrugging off any hint of agreement between your position and theirs - then you're not a good faith actor.
In the case of global warming, that goes for proponents as well as deniers. You can say that global warming is bad, but if you're not willing to entertain the rationale of skeptics by considering an upper limit on how bad it could possibly be relative to the costs of proposed solutions then you're not acting in good faith either. Find what you agree on before you argue about what you disagree on. Spending mutual effort to resolve agreement can also be a good exercise to prevent the exchange from becoming unnecessarily adversarial.