Program / Course 24: Apologetic Practicum / Lesson 2.1
What you will learn
- Define steelmanning and contrast it with straw-manning.
- Restate an opposing position so that its holder would say, ‘Yes, that is what I think.’
- Use the opponent’s best reasons, sources and examples, not the weakest ones.
- Check a restatement against the opponent’s own writing.
The big idea
To steelman a view is to state it in its strongest and most reasonable form before you reply to it. This is the opposite of a straw man, which states a view in a weak form so that it is easy to knock down. Steelmanning is a matter of fairness and of strategy. It is fair because the other side deserves to be heard as it would speak for itself. It is wise because your answer is worth something only if it meets the real position and not a cartoon of it.
Key terms
- Steelman
- A restatement of an opposing view in its strongest, most defensible form.
- Straw man
- A weakened or distorted version of a view, attacked in place of the real one.
- Charity (principle of)
- The practice of interpreting others in the most reasonable way their words allow.
- Ideological Turing test
- A test in which you state a view so well that a person who holds it could not tell your statement from a real believer’s. The name is borrowed from a test of machine intelligence.
- Primary source
- A text or record from the person or tradition being described, in their own words.
- Secondary source
- A later description or analysis of a primary source.
- Caricature
- A picture that exaggerates a few features of a person or view until it is a joke.
Background
The commandment against bearing false witness against your neighbor (Exodus 20:16) is usually applied to courts and gossip, but many Christian teachers have applied it to the way you describe other people’s beliefs. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa Theologiae, is well known for a habit of method: he begins each question by setting out objections to his own position, often in strong form, before he gives his answer. That practice is a medieval ancestor of steelmanning.
The word steelman appeared recently in online discussion as a counterpart to straw man. The idea is old. Philosophers have long taught the principle of charity, and many traditions have schools of disputation in which each side must state the other’s view first. Rabbinic study of the Talmud preserves minority opinions beside the majority view, and Jewish teaching holds that the school of Hillel was honored in part because it taught the opinion of the school of Shammai before its own.
Steelmanning is not agreement. It does not require you to like a view or to think it right. It requires only that you understand it well enough to describe it accurately. After that, you remain free to disagree, to show where it fails and to give the reasons for your own view.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: Go to the source
Read the opponent in their own words, not in a hostile summary. If you wish to answer an atheist philosopher, read the philosopher. If you wish to address a Catholic doctrine as a Protestant, read the Catechism of the Catholic Church and not a polemical pamphlet. If you wish to explain Orthodox views on icons, read an Orthodox writer.
Note where the opponent’s best thinkers disagree with each other. Often the popular version of a view is much cruder than the scholarly version.
Step 2: State the view in its best form
Write the position in a few paragraphs. Use the terms its holders use. Include their strongest reasons, even those you find persuasive. Include the problem the position is designed to solve, since most views begin as answers to a real question.
Resist adding words that signal contempt, such as ‘claim’ or ‘allege’. Use neutral verbs like ‘hold’ and ‘argue’. Ask: if I read this aloud to a thoughtful holder of the view, would they say ‘Yes, that is what I think, and you put it well’?
Step 3: Find the best objections to your own view
A steelman is often most important at the point where the other side is strongest against you. If your own tradition has a difficulty, state it yourself before the critic does. Aquinas does this in each article of the Summa.
Ask: what is the single most serious objection to my belief? If you cannot name one, you probably have not studied the other side.
Step 4: Test the restatement
Show your restatement to a person who holds the view, if possible, and ask what you missed or distorted. If no such person is available, compare it with an authoritative statement from the tradition, such as a creed, catechism, confession or well-known defender.
The test is whether the holder would accept it, not whether you would.
Step 5: Reply to the steelman, not to the shadow
Only now do you reply. Your answer must meet the strongest form. Sometimes, after trying, you find that the strongest form is stronger than you thought. Then you may need to revise your view, qualify it or admit that reasonable people may disagree.
That outcome is not a loss. It is the aim of the practice: to find what is true and not merely to win.
- Have I read this view in the words of someone who holds it?
- Would a thoughtful holder accept my restatement as fair?
- What problem is this view trying to solve?
- What is the strongest reason in its favor, and do I feel its force?
- Have I used words that make the view sound foolish before I argue against it?
- Which objection to my own view do I find hardest to answer?
Examples
Steelmanning an atheist argument
Weak version: ‘Atheists just want to sin.’ Stronger version: ‘Many atheists hold that the world contains evidence of vast, pointless suffering, and that a good and powerful God would prevent it; they find the usual explanations strained, and they believe that honesty requires withholding belief until stronger evidence appears.’ A believer can now engage with the actual argument. (Constructed example.)
Steelmanning another Christian tradition
Weak version: ‘Catholics rely on the pope instead of Scripture.’ Stronger version: ‘Catholics hold that Christ gave his apostles and their successors a teaching authority, that Scripture and tradition come from one source, and that the church’s teaching office interprets both faithfully. They hold that without such a guide, interpretation fragments.’ A Protestant can disagree and still be accurate. (Constructed example.)
Steelmanning a Protestant position
Weak version: ‘Protestants reject the early church.’ Stronger version: ‘Protestants hold that the early councils accurately expressed Scripture, which is why most accept the Nicene Creed, but that the church can err and that Scripture is the final norm. They argue that later doctrines should be tested against it.’ An Orthodox or Catholic Christian can then reply to the real claim. (Constructed example.)
Different perspectives
Catholic thought
The scholastic method taught in Catholic schools, as in the Summa Theologiae, states objections first. Catholic teaching on dialogue also asks that other traditions be described in ways their members would recognize as fair.
Orthodox thought
Orthodox tradition has often stressed that disagreements must be understood from within. Orthodox participants in ecumenical conversations frequently ask Western partners to speak of Orthodoxy by its own sources and not by Western categories.
Protestant thought
Many Protestant teachers urge fairness toward opponents on the basis of the ninth commandment. Protestant history also contains much polemic that did not meet this standard, and modern historians of the Reformation often say that both sides misrepresented one another.
Jewish tradition
Rabbinic study preserves minority opinions beside the majority. The tradition about the schools of Hillel and Shammai, in the Talmud, says Hillel’s school studied the other’s view before its own, which is often cited as a model of fair disputation.
Scholarly and secular view
Philosophers call this the principle of charity. Some also warn about a different risk: a steelman can be so generous that it is no longer the opponent’s actual view. The aim is accurate strength, not invented strength.
Why it matters
Most religious arguments are won on paper and lost in person, because the person who is answered does not recognize the view being answered. Steelmanning keeps you honest, helps you learn, and gives others a reason to listen to you. It also changes the spirit of an argument from conquest to inquiry, which fits the Christian call to love one’s neighbor even in disagreement.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: Steelmanning means agreeing with the other side.
Correction: It means stating their view accurately and strongly. You can then disagree for good reasons.
Misunderstanding: A steelman means making up a better argument than the opponent has.
Correction: The goal is the best form of the view they actually hold. If you invent a position that nobody holds, you have created a new straw man.
Misunderstanding: I do not need to steelman people who are obviously wrong.
Correction: Views that look obviously wrong are the ones most likely to be misread. Taking the trouble to describe them accurately is often how you discover how you should reply.
Misunderstanding: Steelmanning wastes time in a debate.
Correction: A short, fair restatement often saves time, since the other person will confirm or correct it and you can then discuss the true point.
Knowledge check
What is the difference between a steelman and a straw man?
A straw man weakens or distorts a view so that it is easy to refute. A steelman states the view in its strongest and most reasonable form, in terms its holders would accept. One avoids the real argument; the other faces it.
How can you test whether you have steelmanned fairly?
Ask a holder of the view whether your restatement is accurate, or compare it with an authoritative statement of the position. The test is whether the holder would accept your description as a fair account of what they believe, not whether you find it convincing.
Why does steelmanning not require agreement?
Because it is about accurate understanding, not approval. You can describe a view as strongly as its defenders do and still hold that it is mistaken. In fact, you can only reply honestly after you have described it fairly.
How did Aquinas’s method resemble steelmanning?
In the Summa Theologiae he begins each question by setting out objections to the view he will defend, often in strong form. He then gives his answer and replies to each objection. The method makes the opposing case visible before it is answered.
Why should you read primary sources when preparing a steelman?
Summaries by critics often distort. Primary sources show how holders of a view express it, which terms they use and what problems they think they are solving. Your restatement is then built on the actual position and not on hearsay.
Think it through
- Which view that you reject do you understand least well? What would it take to understand it well?
- Have you ever been misrepresented in an argument? How did it feel?
- How might fair description of a rival tradition change the way you speak about it in church?
- Can you steelman a view that you find morally offensive? Where is the limit?
Independent assignment
A fair statement of a hard view
In your own notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Choose a view that you disagree with (for example, a type of atheism, a position of another Christian tradition, or a moral critique of Christianity). Read at least one primary source or authoritative statement. Write a steelman of 300 to 400 words that a thoughtful holder would accept. Then write 150 to 250 words on what you learned and whether it changed how you will reply. If possible, ask a person who holds the view to read your statement. Keep this private.
Further study
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Open any article and see how objections are stated before the answer.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Hume on Religion Hume’s critique of religion in a careful modern summary, useful to practice a fair restatement.
- Catholic Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church A primary source for Catholic teaching, for restating Catholic views accurately.
- Westminster Assembly, The Westminster Confession of Faith A primary source for Reformed Protestant teaching.
- Timothy (Kallistos) Ware, The Orthodox Church An accessible account of Orthodox belief and practice from within the tradition.
- Exodus 20:16 Do not bear false witness against your neighbor.
- Proverbs 18:13 Answering before hearing is folly.