Parts of legal training and advise can be applicable to rationality and truth-seeking—much of it is designed to reduce ambiguity and produce clear, direct propositional statments. But this doesn’t seem to be in that set.
It’s very much adversarial and starting with the presumption of deception and evasion, rather than simple ambiguity or misunderstanding. This isn’t truth-seeking, it’s result-seeking.
Whether or not you are truth seeking or not depends on your own goals and not whether you presume that the other side engages in deception and evasion.
Using strategies that still work when some people act adverserial with you and try to deceive you is in line with being rational.
Using strategies that still work when some people act adverserial with you and try to deceive you is in line with being rational.
I think this gets close to the insight that motivated my post: a part of ourselves often tries to curl into a ball and deny reality to avoid emotional stress, interacting with that part of you is kind of adversarial.
If truth helps one side, it probably hurts the other side. Well, not literally; there may be factual statements like “the crime happened on Tuesday” that neither side objects to. But the ultimate goal is, for one side to get the other side punished, for the other side to avoid punishment.
Dealing with “I don’t know”. Two broad strategies are outlined: [...] “Convince the witness that while he/she ‘may not know’ or they are ‘not sure’, there is a plausible explanation/definition/standard that they will (inevititably) accept as true.”
Not sure what this means in practice, but my first impression is quite bad. Saying “I don’t know” in proper context may be the right thing to do.
Parts of legal training and advise can be applicable to rationality and truth-seeking—much of it is designed to reduce ambiguity and produce clear, direct propositional statments. But this doesn’t seem to be in that set.
It’s very much adversarial and starting with the presumption of deception and evasion, rather than simple ambiguity or misunderstanding. This isn’t truth-seeking, it’s result-seeking.
Whether or not you are truth seeking or not depends on your own goals and not whether you presume that the other side engages in deception and evasion.
Using strategies that still work when some people act adverserial with you and try to deceive you is in line with being rational.
I think this gets close to the insight that motivated my post: a part of ourselves often tries to curl into a ball and deny reality to avoid emotional stress, interacting with that part of you is kind of adversarial.
If truth helps one side, it probably hurts the other side. Well, not literally; there may be factual statements like “the crime happened on Tuesday” that neither side objects to. But the ultimate goal is, for one side to get the other side punished, for the other side to avoid punishment.
Not sure what this means in practice, but my first impression is quite bad. Saying “I don’t know” in proper context may be the right thing to do.
“I don’t know” can be a accurate. I think the advice is intended against people playing dumb, like Bill Clinton’s “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” or this witness denying knowledge of what a photocopier is. I know I’ve pulled this bullshit on myself at least once.