This is a linkpost for https://www.thefloatingdroid.com/dont-accuse-your-interlocutor-of-being-insufficiently-truth-seeking/
"I think you are being insufficiently truth-seeking" is definitely a thing I would want people to say to me sometimes. Sometimes I think dumb things (like rationalizing) and it's obvious to other people but I have no idea.
If you know the person you're talking to well, have a shared understanding of what is meant by the phrase, and have a strong sense that you are working together and it won't be taken negatively, then I can see this working out. But I think there are a lot of situations that lack this shared context and that are more adversarial. It seems to me like you can often get across similar info in a more specific way. For example, if you think someone is rationalizing you can focus on the underlying issue and hope to "shake them out of it" by walking through the logic of the issue, or you could identify a more specific "meta-issue" if you want to go to the meta-level. That would depend on exactly how they are "rationalizing", although again if you have a strong common understanding of what "truth-seeking" means, perhaps that is the best way to describe the meta-issue in your case.
Sometimes when discussing a controversial issue, people are kind of avoiding the most important points within it, and then it feels relevant to ask them what their interest in discussing it is. Their true interest will often be to control the political discourse away from some dynamic they perceive as pathological, but if they explained that, they would have to argue that the dynamic is pathological, which they often don't want to do because they risk triggering the dynamic that way. As a diversion, they will sometimes say that their motivation is to seek truth.
I think you see this a lot with racism/sexism-type stuff, where racists/sexists dissociate from the fact that they are racist/sexist in order to square their sense that their perspective ought to be considered with the common norm against sexism/racism. And then they consider enforcement of said norm to be pathological, but they're too dissociated/afraid to explain how, so they say they just care about the truth, even though their dissociation often prevents them from properly investigating said truth.
I think its worth thinking about what you are trying to achieve in any given discussion. Why do you need the person to acknowledge what you believe is their true interest? I do think people often describe there interests as being about finding or demonstrating "the truth" for a lot of topics, but to me there is a large possibility that going down that road mostly gets into semantics.
I'm not entirely sure I understand your point regarding racism/sexism, but I can imagine something like this. Someone has a belief that is considered racist. When confronted about why they talk about this belief so much, they say its because they think its true and its super important to stand up for the truth. My view is, often the person probably does genuinely believe the thing is true, but their degree of focus does come partially from what you say, the desire to have their belief not considered racist. Which one is the "real" reason? I think its kind of hopelessly entangled. They do believe the thing is true but its not like they are going around being really concerned about telling people the sky is blue, even though they also believe that is true. Often times if you are in a discussion related to this you can focus on whether the belief in question is or is not true, whether it is or is not racist, that kind of thing. I think you will often get more productive discussions this way than to go into what the individual person's "real reasons" are, unless you have an interest in them specifically (like they are your friend and you really want convince them of something about the topic). Even in that case, its not clear you can really "untangle" the reasons, but you might want to go more into their psychology if you care about them specifically.
It's often not just that they endorse a single belief, but also rather that they have a whole psychodrama and opinions on the appropriate areas of investigation. [Joseph Bronski](https://x.com/BronskiJoseph/status/1917573847810990210) exemplifies this when taken to an extreme.
And I wouldn't say that the real answer is to have their belief not be considered racist. I'd say the real reason is something like, they want to fight back against anti-racists. [Arthur Jensen probably described the best what they're trying to fight against](https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2019/04/a-kind-of-social-paranoia-a-belief-that-mysterious-hostile-forces-are-operating-to-cause-inequalities-in-educational-and-occupational-performance-despite-all-apparent-efforts-to-eliminate-prejudi/).
I'd go with "I don't think this conversation is helping us ________" (eg, come up with solutions, figure out what to do next, understand why we really disagree). It opens the door to suggest meta-level changes to how you're interacting without 1) accusing them, 2) suggesting that they're the only one who should change, or 3) inviting arguments about their intentions or internal state. It might also help reorient the conversation from a small-scale win/lose frame towards a broader shared goal of accomplishing something. Finally, it allows you to suggest specific changes to make the conversation more truth-seeking while also addressing whatever may be motivating them to not be truth-seeking (eg, fearing that if they "lose" then their needs won't get met, perceiving you as trying to pull status on them, trying to preserve their image for an external audience).
If you're having a debate that's mostly for an external audience, then maybe you should just call out that the liar is lying. If you're trying to work with them, then it's probably better to try to figure out what aspect of the conversation is motivating them to lie and trying to incentivise telling the truth instead. If you can't do that then it doesn't really matter what's going on in their head; you're not going to have a productive conversation anyway.
I'd go with "I don't think this conversation is helping us ________"
I think this can be fine, especially if in a context where you know the person well and you are working together on something explicitly (e.g. coworker), but I think this often won't work in context where you don't know the person well or that are more adversarial.
If you're having a debate that's mostly for an external audience, then maybe you should just call out that the liar is lying.
Sometimes you should be I think its totally possible you shouldn't (and I think you should have a very high bar for doing so).
If you're trying to work with them, then it's probably better to try to figure out what aspect of the conversation is motivating them to lie and trying to incentivise telling the truth instead. If you can't do that then it doesn't really matter what's going on in their head; you're not going to have a productive conversation anyway.
This will obviously depend on the situation, but I think its totally possible that you can have a productive conversation even when someone is lying, you don't call them out, and you can't motivate them to tell the truth. It just depends what counts as "productive" from your perspective. That should depend primarily on your goals for the conversation, not some cosmic principle about "truth-seeking". If I'm trying to buy a car and the salesperson lies to me about how the one I'm looking at is surely going to be sold today, I can just keep that to myself and use my knowledge to my own advantage, I don't have to try to make the salesperson more honest.
What about when they say, "you're strawmanning me!" and slightly change their argument? You believe their argument from two minutes ago was wrong, and that they are now intentionally misleading you so they can maintain their position and eternally shift the burden of disproof back onto you.
What about when they say, "you're strawmanning me!"
Depends, were you strawmanning them? If so, say "you're right, I was strawmanning", if not say "no I'm not".
More seriously, it depends what direction you want to take the discussion. I think it comes down to the same bifurcation I identify above (going vs not going meta). My "hot take" is that often you don't actually want to emphasize the meta-issues you have with the other person, even if you think they're doing bad stuff.
So, in your example, I think you can break it down like this:
That happens? Nobody has ever accused me of strawmanning them in my entire life. To the contrary, they usually agree with the strawman, so I give them a cowardly lion too and they journey together along the Yellow Brick Road down to the Wizard of Oz.
I've only have it happen with one person... but it happens every time with that particular person. I've mostly stopped debating with them.
... Aren't most statements like this wanting to be on the meta level, same way as if you said "your methodology here is flawed in X, Y, Z ways" regardless of agreement with conclusion?
same way as if you said "your methodology here is flawed in X, Y, Z ways" regardless of agreement with conclusion?
This raises an interesting issue. A meta-argument is an argument about an argument. Arguments about methodology are indeed "meta", but they are "meta" in a different way than "you are insufficiently truth-seeking" is. You can argue about methodology because you think certain methodologies are more reliable, and thus there is still a strong connection to the object level. Thus I would be tempted to call this a meta-object-argument, a meta-argument who's purpose is to help address the object level.
"You are insufficiently truth-seeking", can be meta in the sense that it raises a higher order issue, that the person in the discussion is doing something bad. We might call it a meta-meta-argument, a meta-argument who's purpose is to address a meta-level issue.
Aren't most statements like this wanting to be on the meta level
I think in many cases it's genuinely unclear. For reasons of humor my post kind of implies a fairly adversarial framing, where it often is going to be the case that people are intending to "go meta", but I think you can invoke the idea of truth-seeking in a much softer way as well, were its not necessarily intended to be "meta" but often will end up getting you there anyway.
Even when you are fully intending to "go meta", I believe my advice still applies.
I argue that you shouldn't accuse your interlocutor of being insufficiently truth-seeking. This doesn't mean you can't internally model their level of truth-seeking and use that for your own decision-making. It just means you shouldn't come out and say "I think you are being insufficiently truth-seeking".
Before I explain my reasoning, I'll start with what you should say instead:
People are wrong a lot. If you think they are wrong just say so. You should have a strong default for going with this option.
For when you basically thinking they are lying but maybe technically aren't by some definitions of "lying".
What about if they are being unintentionally misleading? That's usually just being wrong, you should probably just say they are being wrong. But if you really think the distinction is important, you can say they are being unintentionally misleading.
For when they are lying.
You can also add your own flair to any of these options to spice things up a bit.
It's not clear what you are even accusing them of. "Insufficient truth-seeking" could arguably be any of the options I mentioned above. Just be specific. If you really think what you're saying is so important and nuanced and you just need to incorporate some deep insight about truth, use the "add your own flair" option to sneak that stuff in.
The most common purposes you might have for engaging in the discussion and why invoking "truth-seeking" doesn't help them:
You want to discuss the object-level issue
You just fucked yourself because the discussion is immediately going to center on whether they actually are insufficiently truth-seeking and whether that accusation was justified. You're going to have to gather The Fellowship, take your argument to Mordor, and throw it into the fire of NEVER GO META before you're ever going to be able to discussion the object level again.
You want to discuss your interlocutor's misconduct
You again fucked yourself because:
Don't accuse your interlocutor of being insufficiently truth-seeking. Just say they are wrong instead.