Debate

Debating is a critical aspect of collaboration, as it is often through debate that the best solutions arise. A debate is where people holding opposite positions use fact-based logical arguments to prove that they are correct.

Scholastic and political debates usually have formal rules the participants have to follow, such as the order in which people can speak, the length of time people get to speak, and the topics they are allowed to speak about. Formal debates tend to have moderators that enforce the rules, the goal of which is to keep the debate focused on the topic being discussed, and to not let it get out of hand.

In a professional workplace debates are often free-form and self-regulated. This allows them to happen organically and spontaneously, but also invites situations where an unmoderated debate devolves into a fight, where a fight is nothing more than people trying to win by any means necessary. Once someone has stopped debating and started fighting, they tend to use tactics that utilize misdirection, deception, and dishonesty in an attempt to seem like they are right when they cannot prove they are right. This collection of debate tactics is called logical fallacies.

There are many logical fallacies, but some of the most common are: the ad hominem, where someone attacks the person making the argument rather than the argument a person is making; the straw man, which is where someone changes what is being debated to a topic that is easier for them to win; the red herring, where someone introduces something unrelated to what is being debated to intentionally distract their opponent; the bandwagon fallacy, which makes an argument that something should be done because a lot of people do it; the false dilemma, where someone takes a complex situation with many options, and reduces it down to only two options; the slippery slope, which tries to make the case that if we do something, it will necessarily lead to something terrible; and the hasty generalization, where a single example is used as evidence of a general phenomenon.

As logical fallacies are deceptive by their nature, they are often very difficult to spot, especially when interwoven into fact-based logical arguments. Further, in a moment of desperation, we are all subject to using logical fallacies - whether we realize it or not - as we reach for anything we can think of just to avoid losing.

Imagine you were having a debate with a colleague about whether or not the project that you both were working on needed more time. Let's say that you believed the project would benefit from a deadline extension, but your colleague believed that a deadline extension was unnecessary because everything is on schedule.

You might say, "I believe we are behind schedule, and should reset expectations by asking for a deadline extension." Your colleague replies, "You always panic whenever you think we're going to be late, and the last time we got an extension it turned out we didn't need it. If we keep asking for extensions all the time, people are going to think we're either not doing our work or don't know how to do our work. Nobody else is asking for extensions, so you should stop complaining about how much work we have to do, and just focus on getting your work done."

In this example, our colleague has strung together several logical fallacies in an attempt to demonstrate that you are wrong.

First, they begin with an ad hominem by saying, "You always panic when you think we're running late," which attacks your credibility in determining if the project is running late without addressing the issue of needing more time.

Next, them saying, "The last time we got an extension it turned out we didn't need it," can be thought of as a hasty generalization, as it implies that the single case of not needing an extension last time means that no extensions would be needed in the future.

This is then followed by, "If we keep asking for extensions all the time, people are going to think we're either not doing our work or don't know how to do our work," which is a slippery slope fallacy that claims asking for an extension will necessarily lead to dire consequences, but also includes a false dilemma of people reaching only one of two conclusions, where there are many reasons why someone might ask for more time.

Next, "Nobody else is asking for extensions," is a bandwagon fallacy, as even if this is true, just because no one else is asking for an extension, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't ask for an extension.

Next, saying, "You should stop complaining about how much work we have to do," is a straw man argument, as it is an argument your colleague would be able to win easily if you took up the opposite position, as you would have to argue that you should complain about how much work you have to do - but this is something you never brought up at all.

Finally, saying that you should, "just focus on getting your work done," can be thought of as a red herring, as your level of focus has nothing to do with the issue of being behind schedule and asking for a deadline extension.

The key to having a healthy debate is simply not using logical fallacies yourself, and assertively stopping your colleagues when they have used a fallacy, as directly and diplomatically as you are able.

For example, when your colleague said, "You always panic whenever you think we're going to be late," you might say, "Let me stop you right there, the issue at hand is that we are behind schedule, which is based on the fact that we have completed none of the tasks we have to get done, and the deadline is tomorrow morning. I propose that we reset expectations now, rather than wait until we've missed our deadline."

Assertively interrupting a colleague that is using dishonest techniques in an attempt to prove that you are wrong can be very uncomfortable, but is necessary in order to maintain a communication culture that is conducive to healthy debate. Over time, your colleagues should come to understand that you are open to debate, so long as it is made up of fact-based logical arguments, and is free of logical fallacies.