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What Is 'The Principle of Charity'?

• It’s useful to assume people have reasons for what they say and do: try to find what they are before you disagree.
• Being able to express the other party's position makes it much easier to learn from the interaction and communicate in a productive way.

Josh Kaufman Explains 'The Principle of Charity'

Whenever you work with other people, you will often find yourself in disagreement. That’s not a huge problem, provided you learn to disagree in a way that’s productive for everyone involved.

The Principle of Charity is a way to overcome the tendency to disagree in a disagreeable way: instead of picking a fight, it’s useful to assume people have reasons for what they say and do. As a result, it’s a good idea to understand their position in more detail before assuming bad faith, ignorance, incompetence, or other unsatisfactory qualities.

That’s not to say that you have to agree with the other person’s point of view: you can take the time to understand their position, then come to conclusion that it’s ill-informed, inaccurate, or that their proposed solution doesn’t work for you. If that’s the case, understanding and being able to express the other person’s position makes it much easier to learn from the interaction and communicate in a way that preserves their sense of Safety and doesn’t produce Threat Lockdown.

Daniel C. Dennett, the renowned philosopher and cognitive scientist, published an eloquent interpretation of this idea in his book, Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, which is based on the work of Anatol Rapoport, a mathematical psychologist and systems theorist. Before you criticize someone’s work:

1. 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.’
2. You should list any points of agreement, especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement.
3. You should mention anything you have learned from your target.
4. Only then are you permitted to say so much as a word of rebuttal or criticism.

This level of understanding takes time and energy, both of which are limited resources. In an ideal world, we’d be able to dig into the details and motivations behind everything others say, but that isn’t practical in most cases. Even if you don’t have the capacity for extended conversation or deep research, the Principle of Charity is a useful rule of thumb that makes it easier to have productive conversations.

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"The reason listening is hard is that not-listening doesn’t feel like not-listening: it just feels like the other person is wrong."

Andrew Badr, programmer

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