Applying methodology to the Assange debate
There's a debate going on about Julian Assange. I thought it might make a good example for my debate mapping technique, which I want to turn into software some day when I have time (or a horde of devoted coding minions).
Rules are posted below. They'll probably seem more relevant after you've seen them in use, but you can read them first if you'd rather.
- 1. The government is harassing Julian Assange.
- 1a. X We know this isn't true because there is no substantial evidence to support it.
- 1a1. X There's no substantial evidence to support this allegation.
- 1a2. √ Absence of evidence is not the same as evidence of absence.
- 1b. X We know this isn't true because the government has a legitimate case against him.
- 1b1. X The government has a legitimate case.
- 1b1a. (X) The sexual charges against Assange are legitimate.
- 1b1a1. (X) It's possible that Assange is guilty as accused.
- 1b1a1a. (X) Regardless of whether Assange is a major force for good in some ways, he may nonetheless have failed to use a condom during nonmarital sex. (More strongly: Activists can still be rapists.)
- 1b1a1a. (X) Point 3 (It seems to be undisputed that the "crime" actually took place, with two different partners.)
- 1b1a2. (X) Point 2 (Failure to use a condom in non-marital sex is a crime where Assange lives.)
- 1b1a3. (X) Point 3 (It seems to be undisputed that the "crime" actually took place)
- 1b1a1. (X) It's possible that Assange is guilty as accused.
- 1b1a. (X) The sexual charges against Assange are legitimate.
- 1b2 √ Just because they have a legitimate case doesn't mean they aren't harassing him.
- 1b1. X The government has a legitimate case.
- 1c. There is circumstantial evidence that the government is using intimidation against Assange.
- 1c1. The response to the purported crime was greatly disproportionate.
- 1c1a. Assange was placed on the Interpol "most wanted" list for a relatively minor crime. [BigThink]
- 1c2. It is unusual for authorities to act quickly on uncorroborated sexual charges. [BigThink]
- 1c3. X If the government wanted to set up Assange, they would have picked a crime people would take seriously.
- 1c3a. [req] (X) They're prosecuting him on the basis of failure to use a condom during non-marital sex.
- 1c3b. [req] (X) Failure to use a condom during nonmarital sex is a crime that people don't take seriously.
- 1c3b1. (X) Sex-related crimes in general tend to be forgiven, or even blamed on the victim.
- 1c3c √ Intimidation doesn't require impeachment in the court of public opinion.
- 1c3c1 The government is using intimidation to discourage Assange from publishing leaks they find "damaging".
- 1c3c2 Simply harassing someone with repeated charges, baseless or not, will cause them to expend personal resources (energy/focus, money, jail time) and thus can be a significant deterrent.
- 1c3d √ The government is harassing Assange as discouragement to other whistleblowers ("making an example").
- 1c3d1 √ Frivolous charges might even be more effective than genuine ones, in this context. The target audience might dismiss genuine charges if they know (or believe) they haven't committed any crimes which would normally be taken seriously -- but if the government succeeds in causing trouble with frivolous accusations, then anyone can be harassed.
- 1c4. The charges are "trumped up" -- they would not have been brought if the government wasn't trying to make trouble for Asssange.
- 1c4a. X The government persuaded the plaintiffs to bring charges.
- 1c4a1. √ There is evidence that the plaintiffs had no animosity towards Assange prior to the charges being filed.
- 1c4a2. X There is no evidence that the government was somehow involved in attempting to coerce them.
- 1c4a3. X There is no evidence that they were coerced by anyone (a thread which might lead back to hitherto-undetected government influence if followed).
- 1c4b. The government has a strong motivation to make trouble for Assange (i.e. his work with WikiLeaks, especially the recent releases).
- 1c4c. The government certainly has sufficient power to make trouble for Assange, regardless of his actual guilt, if they decided to.
- 1c4a. X The government persuaded the plaintiffs to bring charges.
- 1c1. The response to the purported crime was greatly disproportionate.
- 1a. X We know this isn't true because there is no substantial evidence to support it.
- 2. Failure to use a condom in non-marital sex is a crime where Assange lives (Sweden).
- 3. It seems to be undisputed that the "crime" actually took place, with two different partners (although details are murky due to lack of official information [BigThink]).
This isn't perfect, but I've ended up spending most of the day on it (which I totally hadn't intended), so I'm going to leave it as it is.
I had to keep rephrasing my conclusion in order to fit in all the arguments -- in some cases the conclusion was too easily defeated, and in others the counter-arguments didn't apply.
In real-world usage (i.e. with software doing all the re-numbering and logic-checking), each of these false starts would show up as separate conclusions -- some of which would be defeated and some of which would stand -- with many of the same supports and counters making appearances. "The government wants to set up Assange", "The government is trying to falsely accuse Assange", and "The government is going after Assange" each had their turn.
To me, this indicates that the technique is useful, because it forces each claim/conclusion to be phrased very specifically; arguments are too often based on different understandings of the same sentence. I suspect that more than one phrasing might have turned out to be "true", which would help further define the shape of what we know about this case.
Argument map rules
Logic rules:
- any conclusion may have zero or more pieces of evidence, each of which may support it or contradict it
- a conclusion with no contradictory points is considered "valid" (or "active")
- a single valid contradictory point invalidates its parent conclusion
- a contradictory point which has been invalidated does not invalidate its parent
- the same point (piece of evidence) can be used in support of multiple parent-conclusions, but such points need to be stated as separate conclusions so that they can be argued.
- a point may not be used as evidence anywhere in the tree of sub-points under it (this would be circular reasoning)
- conclusions are furthest outdented, with supporting or countering evidence indented/underneath
- disproven conclusions are stricken
- evidence contradicting the primary conclusion is prefixed with a red X
- evidence contradicting its immediate parent but supporting the primary conclusion is prefixed with a green checkmark
- chains of reasoning where all sub-points must be true in order to prove the parent conclusion (i.e. syllogisms) are prefixed with a "[req]"
- points which cause their parent to be stricken are shown in boldface, if there are multiple points and some of them support the parent
- evidence contradicting the primary conclusion but supporting their immediate parent (i.e. the parent contradicts the primary conclusion) have their red X in parentheses (an "agreeing X")