There is also a useful concept of charity that Scott Alexander occasionally gestures at, which is more about maintaining curiosity about explanations for others’ behavior/claims/beliefs, not settling for implausible caricature stand-ins that don’t offer a technical understanding of how certain behavior actually came to be. This is distinct from steelmanning, which is about using observed behavior/claims/beliefs as inspiration for engineering better beliefs/understanding than what is probably behind that behavior/claims/beliefs in reality. Both activities are worthwhile.
Rationality is about methodologies for good/reliable/accurate/useful thinking, so in these terms it’s more about steelmanning than charity, though lack of charity is a flaw of curiosity, so it’s also rationality’s business to appeal for reasonable attention to charity.
If charity is taken to mean curiosity about reasons for others’ claims/behavior, as I specified in this thread, then lack of charity is a systematic failure to pay some attention to figuring out those reasons. Curiosity is liveness of figuring things out, a rejection of not making progress on any of its subjects. Healthy curiosity keeps the investigation of all relevant topics going, and the actual reasons for someone’s ridiculous claims/behavior are relevant to engaging with them.
There is also a useful concept of charity that Scott Alexander occasionally gestures at, which is more about maintaining curiosity about explanations for others’ behavior/claims/beliefs, not settling for implausible caricature stand-ins that don’t offer a technical understanding of how certain behavior actually came to be. This is distinct from steelmanning, which is about using observed behavior/claims/beliefs as inspiration for engineering better beliefs/understanding than what is probably behind that behavior/claims/beliefs in reality. Both activities are worthwhile.
Rationality is about methodologies for good/reliable/accurate/useful thinking, so in these terms it’s more about steelmanning than charity, though lack of charity is a flaw of curiosity, so it’s also rationality’s business to appeal for reasonable attention to charity.
What?
If charity is taken to mean curiosity about reasons for others’ claims/behavior, as I specified in this thread, then lack of charity is a systematic failure to pay some attention to figuring out those reasons. Curiosity is liveness of figuring things out, a rejection of not making progress on any of its subjects. Healthy curiosity keeps the investigation of all relevant topics going, and the actual reasons for someone’s ridiculous claims/behavior are relevant to engaging with them.