I don’t see anything wrong that debating style in itself; it can be informative to interview someone by highlighting possible ideological blind spots.
However, Cowen pressing Singer on tax cuts for charitable donations did make me roll my eyes. Singer acknowledged a specific point about encouraging donations with a targeted tax cut, and Cowen reshaped Singer’s acknowledgement into a sound bite easily misinterpretable as Singer taking a position in the broader, mainstream political argument about cutting taxes on the rich. Then Cowen nudged Singer into approving that rephrasing! If I were Singer I’d have been less polite and explicitly ADBOCed.
I don’t see anything wrong that debating style in itself; it can be informative to interview someone by highlighting possible ideological blind spots.
However, Cowen pressing Singer on tax cuts for charitable donations did make me roll my eyes. Singer acknowledged a specific point about encouraging donations with a targeted tax cut, and Cowen reshaped Singer’s acknowledgement into a sound bite easily misinterpretable as Singer taking a position in the broader, mainstream political argument about cutting taxes on the rich. Then Cowen nudged Singer into approving that rephrasing! If I were Singer I’d have been less polite and explicitly ADBOCed.