自译
在批评对手的观点时，你应该有多亲善？如果对手（的论辩）存在明显矛盾之处，那么你当然应该强有力地指出它们。如果（对手的论辩）有些隐藏的矛盾之处，你应该小心地将它们展现在我们面前，然后说它们的“坏话”1。但是，寻找隐藏的矛盾经常跨入了吹毛求疵，如海洋律师般的诡辩和彻头彻尾地模仿（见本书前文）。（追着你对手的论述漏洞）穷追不舍（所带来）的刺激感，以及（他）必须在（论述的）某处隐藏他混乱的信念，某种程度上会催生你低亲善度的理解，给你一个易攻击的“靶子”。但是这些简单的“靶子”通常与真正的问题无关，只是浪费每个人的时间和耐心，即使他们给你的支持者带来了乐趣，对这种具有“讽刺对手”倾向痼疾的最佳解药，是多年前由社会心理学家和博弈论者 Anatol Rapoport（Robert Axelrod传奇囚徒困境锦标赛中获胜者，Tit-for-Tat战略的创造者）创建的一系列规则。
如何写出优雅的（意译）批评性评论：
You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”
- 您应该试着清晰，生动，公正地复述你对手的论述，以至于他说：“谢谢，我希望我能像你表述的这样优雅。”
- 您应列出任何能够达成一致的前提（特别在它们没有得到普遍认可时）。
- 您应当提出这个共同前提下，您从对手论述中的收获。
- 只有这样，你才可以继续反驳或批评。
遵循拉伯波特规则后，可以看到一些立竿见影的效果：您的对手将成为您批评的接受者：您已经表明您了解他们的立场,并对立场表现出良好的判断力（您在一些重要事项上同意他们的观点）甚至被他们所说的东西说服了。）
遵循拉伯波特规则，总是，或者至少对我而言，有些困难。坦率地说，有些目标不值得这种尊重，并且 - 我承认 - 大力鞭笞这些论点（原文，放在火上烧烤）可能更能获得快感。但是当它被要求（使用），并且它奏效时，结果是令人满意的。在我的《自由的进化》（Freedom Evolves，2003）一书中，我特别努力公正地对待罗伯特凯恩（1996）的不相容的自由主义（我对自由意志的观点，我非常不同意），并且我很敬重他写给我的回应。在我把章节草稿寄给他之后：
“...事实上，我喜欢它，尽管我们存在分歧。我的观点，存在广泛看法，而且通常是客观的，远远超过被批评者所收到的评价。你传达了我观点的复杂性以及我努力解决困难问题的严肃性，而不仅仅是将它们扫地出门。我很感激它们，以及后续论辩过程。”
Other recipients of my Rapoport-driven attention have been less cordial. The fairer the criticism seems, the harder to bear in some cases. It is worth reminding yourself /that a heroic attempt to find a defensible interpretation of an author, if it comes up empty, can be even more devastating than an angry hatchet job. I recommend it.
在我使用拉伯波特规则聚焦的其它论述上，其他人却没这么亲切。驳论越客观，在某些情况下越难承受。值得提醒的是，如果一个论述非常空洞，那么英勇尝试替作者辩护，可能比大肆挞伐作者论述更能破坏他的论证。我推荐这种方式。
（可能存在误区之处，已用括号标注）
原文
Just how charitable are you supposed to be when criticizing the views of an opponent? If there are obvious contradictions in the opponent’s case, then of course you should point them out, forcefully. If there are somewhat hidden contradictions, you should carefully expose them to view—and then dump on them. But the search for hidden contradictions often crosses the line into nitpicking, sea-lawyering,1 and—as we have seen—outright parody. The thrill of the chase and the conviction that your opponent has to be harboring a confusion somewhere encourages uncharitable interpretation, which gives you an easy target to attack. But such easy targets are typically irrelevant to the real issues at stake and simply waste everybody’s time and patience, even if they give amusement to your supporters. The best antidote I know for this tendency to caricature one’s opponent is a list of rules promulgated many years ago by the social psychologist and game theorist Anatol Rapoport (creator of the winning Tit-for-Tat strategy in Robert Axelrod’s legendary prisoner’s dilemma tournament).2
How to compose a successful critical commentary:
- You should attempt to re-express your target’s position so clearly, vividly, and fairly that your target says, “Thanks, I wish I’d thought of putting it that way.”
- You should list any points of agreement (especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement).
- You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
- Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.
One immediate effect of following these rules is that your targets will be a receptive audience for your criticism: you have already shown that you understand their positions as well as they do, and have demonstrated good judgment (you agree with them on some important matters and have even been persuaded by something they said).3
Following Rapoport’s Rules is always, for me at least, something of a struggle. Some targets, quite frankly, don’t deserve such respectful attention, and—I admit—it can be sheer joy to skewer and roast them. But when it is called for, and it works, the results are gratifying. I was particularly diligent in my attempt to do justice to Robert Kane’s (1996) brand of incompatib ilism (a view about free will with which I profoundly disagree) in my book Freedom Evolves (2003), and I treasure the response he wrote to me after I had sent him the draft chapter:
. . . In fact, I like it a lot, our differences notwithstanding. The treatment of my view is extensive and generally fair, far more so than one usually gets from critics. You convey the complexity of my view and the seriousness of my efforts to address difficult questions rather than merely sweeping them under the rug. And for this, as well as the extended treatment, I am grateful.
Other recipients of my Rapoport-driven attention have been less cordial. The fairer the criticism seems, the harder to bear in some cases. It is worth reminding yourself that a heroic attempt to find a defensible interpretation of an author, if it comes up empty, can be even more devastating than an angry hatchet job. I recommend it.
译注
1 Maritime law is notoriously complicated, strewn with hidden traps and escape clauses that only an expert, a sea lawyer, can keep track of, so sea-lawyering is using technicalities to evade responsibility or assign blame to others.
2 The Axelrod tournament (Axelrod and Hamilton, 1981; Axelrod, 1984) opened up the blossoming field of theoretical research on the evolution of altruism. I give an introductory account in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Dennett, 1995, pp. 479–480), and in more recent times there has been an explosion of variations, both simulations and experiments, in laboratories around the world. Rapoport’s wonderfully simple implementation of the idea “I won’t hit you if you don’t hit me” is the seed from which all the later studies and models have grown.
3 The formulation of Rapoport’s Rules here is my own, done from memory of correspondence with Rapoport many years ago, now apparently lost. Samuel Ruth recently pointed out to me that the original source of Rapoport’s Rules is in his book Fights, Games, and Debates (1960) and his paper “Three Modes of Conflict” 1984) opened up the blossoming field of theoretical research on the evolution of altruism. I give an introductory account in Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (Dennett, 1995, pp. 479–480), and in more recent times there has been an explosion of variations, both simulations and experiments, in laboratories around the world. Rapoport’s wonderfully simple implementation of the idea “I won’t hit you if you don’t hit me” is the seed from which all the later studies and models have grown.
3 The formulation of Rapoport’s Rules here is my own, done from memory of correspondence with Rapoport many years ago, now apparently lost. Samuel Ruth recently pointed out to me that the original source of Rapoport’s Rules is in his book Fights, Games, and Debates (1960) and his paper “Three Modes of Conflict” (1961), which articulates rule 1, attributing it to Carl Rogers, and variations on the rest of the rules. My version is somewhat more portable and versatile.
参考内容
- https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rapoport's_Rules
- 《直觉泵》，2018，浙江人民出版社，湛卢文化
耗时45min