Against steelmanning - by Noah Smith - Noahpinion
The other day, an editor at the Washington Post called me up and made a proposal. She wanted me to write a series of articles “steelmanning” Donald Trump’s economic policy proposals — in other words, making the strongest case I could possibly make for Trump’s ideas. Her rationale — like that of many proponents of steelmanning — was that if people are going to be persuaded that Trump’s ideas are bad, it will be more persuasive to first present the very strongest version of those ideas, so that people know Trump’s opponents are arguing in good faith, and would therefore find criticisms more persuasive.
I politely refused, 1 and I told her that when the series came out, I would use it as an occasion to write about why I think steelmanning is usually a bad idea. But why wait? There’s nothing special about one singular instance of steelmanning. And I can tell you right now why I think it’s generally misguided.
A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent's argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one's own position. Developing counters to steel man arguments may produce a stronger argument for one's own position.
