Principle of Charity

Consider this example from an article discussing a computer programming textbook.  The first paragraph is from the textbook; the second from the article

Your computer can only understand machine logic, a compact series of computer-readable instructions that makes no sense to any human.  They make sense only to some advanced computer gurus.

Therefore, computer gurus are not humans.

(note: this is a syllogism which is deductively valid).

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I think the main fallacy is that the words of the author weren't intended to be taken literally--when he said the instructions made no sense to "any human", he didn't literally mean that all humans couldn't understand it, just that in general, most humans wouldn't understand it.  In fact, in deciding whether there is a fallacy in his words, we should try to interpret his words in a way that is most "charitable" to what he meant.*

There is a principle in philosophy, including logic, called the Principle of Charity.

As one website summarized it:

"The Principle of Charity is a philosophical principle that denotes that, when interpreting someone’s statement, you should assume that the best possible interpretation of that statement is the one that the speaker meant to convey. Accordingly, to implement the  Principle of Charity, you should not attribute falsehoods, logical fallacies, or irrationality to people’s argument, when there is a plausible, rational alternative available."**

This is in effect the opposite of Straw Man; not only should you not distort the opponent's position and then attack the distorted position, you should actually give the speaker the benefit of the doubt, take the interpretation of what they say that is most favorable to their position (so long as it's reasonable), and only then challenge it.  Perhaps this is what I should have been referring to in my posting yesterday.

Obviously, we all (myself included) violate the Principle of Charity.   It would seem that violating it (as in taking the initial initial paragraph literally) can itself be a fallacy.

*see  https://larchie.blogspot.com/2008/01/argument-analysis-principle-of-charity.html

**https://effectiviology.com/principle-of-charity/

A compact series of computer-readable instructions that makes no sense to any human.  They make sense only to some advanced computer gurus.

This is a self-contradictory statement. It can both "make no sense to any human" and make sense to some humans at the same time. This is just sloppy wording. Valid arguments are not as important as sound arguments. But you know this...

The reason we don't allow people to get away with sloppy arguments, is because they turn their false statements into soundbites to sway public opinion. If you don't have to be accurate, and you can say things that are blatantly false, and claim "people will know what I mean," this is directly from Trump's playbook. This is very different from extending the principle of charity or steel-manning an argument , as it is more commonly known.

When one is conversing with an interlocutor acting in good faith , it is good practice to steel man what might be a sloppy argument in order to move the conversation forward productively, rather than spending time debating what nobody said or even suggested. Again, this is common with two-way conversations where one can steelman the argument and ask for confirmation . It does not work when discussing a third party when confirmation of what was meant is inaccessible. If this were the case, (and as we see), we have people supporting all sorts of horrible rhetoric by justifying it with "what was meant was..."

Remember, that 1/2 the population are below average in intelligence and many don't have the cognitive skills and training to parse bad arguments to get to what the speaker probably meant--they take it literally. Heck, there are over a billion people in this world that take the Bible literally and think the earth is 6000 years old.

While it is certainly important to practice the principle of charity, it is often far more important to call out bad or sloppy arguments so people don't accept the literal argument rather than a "softer" version that might have been the intention—especially when discussing an argument from an inaccessible third party.