The fact is, it is loving people to help them see their logical inconsistencies and seek to bring them to right positions based on, that’s right, logic. If we want people to know truth, it necessitates showing them where (or if) their position is logically inconsistent and offer them a position that is logically more coherent. To win the person, we need to win the argument… logically.

I’m sure you’ve found yourself in a discussion and, at some point, somebody throws out the line, ‘you’re more concerned about winning the argument.’ It takes several forms. Sometimes it is said that way, other times it is something closer to, ‘you care more about the debate than people’ or ‘you need to win the person more than you need to win the argument.’ I have come to loathe this comment in all its variant forms.

For the record, I do think we need to think carefully about how we discuss with people. Whilst some might be won by the sheer power of our logic alone (such that logic is on our side), despite the claims of most modern people, few of us actually reason exclusively or even primarily logically. I once heard it said, logic is the tool we use to convince others we are right while believing things are true for a whole range of reasons of which logic is just one. So people need to be dealt with holistically, not just as computers that process logical statements. If we do want to win people, we do have to think about how we win them. That much is certainly true.

But the ‘win the person or argument’ dilemma is still an unhelpful one. For one, when I am in an argument, of course I want to win the argument. That is, essentially, why I am arguing with you. Now I want to win the argument for the purpose of persuading you of whatever it is we’re arguing about. That is, presumably, why you are in the same argument with me. I do not see that either of us will win the other by making logically inconsistent arguments. The very fact you are in an argument, putting forward arguments, suggests you feel the same.

Second, the ‘you just want to win the argument’ line is, itself, an argument. It is arguing that facts, or particular points, are not legitimate. It wants to say that the point you are making is so offensive that, even if true, won’t win anybody to your point of view because it is too upsetting. That is essentially to say that an argument should not be won or lost according to facts and logic. Arguments are to be won according to feelings. That undercuts the very ability to hold an argument – that both parties entered into at the beginning of the discussion on those terms – and is making a philosophical case for the ground of winning an argument. It is to say logic does not trump feelings. That may be a legitimate position to hold, unfortunately, you would need to fashion an argument to make the case which necessitates logic.

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