“A steelman argument is a dialectical technique where you restate an opponent’s position in its strongest, most charitable, and most convincing form, even better than they presented it, before you offer your counterargument, aiming to understand the truth and engage.” – Steelman argument
The purpose is not to score rhetorical points, but to understand the underlying truth of the issue, test your own beliefs, and engage respectfully and productively with those who disagree.
In a steelman argument, a participant in a discussion:
- Listens carefully to the other side’s position, reasons, evidence, and concerns.
- Reconstructs that position as logically, factually, and rhetorically strong as possible, eliminating obvious errors, clarifying ambiguities, and adding reasonable supporting considerations.
- Checks this reconstruction with the opponent to ensure it is both accurate and recognisable – ideally something they would endorse or even prefer to their original wording.
- Only then advances their own critique, counterarguments, or alternative proposals, addressing this improved version rather than a weaker one.
This makes steelmanning the conceptual opposite of the straw man fallacy, where a position is caricatured or simplified to make it easier to attack. Where a straw man trades on distortion to make disagreement easier, a steelman trades on fairness and intellectual generosity to make understanding deeper.
Core principles of steelmanning
Four principles underpin effective steelman arguments:
- Charity – You interpret your counterpart’s words in the most reasonable light, attributing to them the most coherent and defensible version of their view, rather than assuming confusion, bad faith, or ignorance.
- Accuracy – You preserve the core commitments, values, and intended meaning of their position; you do not quietly change what is at stake, even while you improve its structure and support.
- Strengthening – You explicitly look for the best reasons, analogies, and evidence that could support their view, including arguments they have not yet articulated but would plausibly accept.
- Verification – You invite your interlocutor to confirm or refine your restatement, aiming for the moment when they can honestly say, “Yes, that is what I mean – and that is an even better version of my view than I initially gave.”
Steelman vs. straw man vs. related techniques
| Concept | What it does | Typical intention |
|---|---|---|
| Steelman argument | Strengthens and clarifies the opposing view before critiquing it. | Seek truth, understand deeply, and persuade through fairness. |
| Straw man fallacy | Misrepresents or oversimplifies a view to make it easier to refute. | Win a debate, create rhetorical advantage, or avoid hard questions. |
| Devil’s advocate | Adopts a contrary position (not necessarily sincerely held) to expose weaknesses or overlooked risks. | Stress-test prevailing assumptions, foster critical thinking. |
| Thought experiment / counterfactual | Explores hypothetical scenarios to test principles or intuitions. | Clarify implications, reveal hidden assumptions, probe edge cases. |
Steelman arguments often incorporate elements of counterfactuals and thought experiments. For example, to strengthen a policy criticism, you might ask: “Suppose this policy were applied in a more extreme case – would the same concerns still hold?” You then build the best version of the concern across such scenarios before responding.
Why steelmanning matters in strategy and decision-making
In strategic analysis, investing, policy design, and complex organisational decisions, steelman arguments help to:
- Reduce confirmation bias by forcing you to internalise the strongest objections to your preferred view.
- Improve risk management by properly articulating downside scenarios and adverse stakeholder perspectives before discarding them.
- Enhance credibility with boards, clients, and teams, who see that arguments have been tested against serious, not superficial, opposition.
- Strengthen strategy by making sure that chosen options have survived comparison with the most powerful alternatives, not just weakly framed ones.
When used rigorously, the steelman discipline often turns a confrontational debate into a form of collaborative problem-solving, where each side helps the other refine their views and the final outcome is more robust than either starting position.
Practical steps to construct a steelman argument
A practical steelmanning process in a meeting, negotiation, or analytical setting might look like this:
- 1. Elicit and clarify
Ask the other party to explain their view fully. Use probing but neutral questions: “What is the central concern?”, “What outcomes are you trying to avoid?”, “What evidence most strongly supports your view?” - 2. Map and organise
Identify their main claims, supporting reasons, implicit assumptions, and key examples. Group these into a coherent structure, ranking the arguments from strongest to weakest. - 3. Strengthen
Add reasonable premises they may have missed, improve their examples, and fill gaps with the best available data or analogies that genuinely support their position. - 4. Restate back
Present your reconstructed version, starting with a phrase such as, “Let me try to state your view as strongly as I can.” Invite correction until they endorse it. - 5. Engage and test
Only once agreement on the steelman is reached do you introduce counterarguments, alternative hypotheses, or different scenarios – always addressing the strong version rather than retreating to weaker caricatures.
Best related strategy theorist: John Stuart Mill
Although the term “steelman” is modern, the deepest intellectual justification for the practice in strategy, policy, and public reasoning comes from the nineteenth-century philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill. His work provides a powerful conceptual foundation for steelmanning, especially in high-stakes decision contexts.
Mill’s connection to steelmanning
Mill argued that you cannot truly know your own position unless you also understand, in its most persuasive form, the best arguments for the opposing side. He insisted that anyone who only hears or articulates one side of a case holds their opinion as a “prejudice” rather than a reasoned view. In modern terms, he is effectively demanding that responsible thinkers and decision-makers steelman their opponents before settling on a conclusion.
In his work on liberty, representative government, and political economy, Mill repeatedly:
- Reconstructed opposing positions in detail, often giving them more systematic support than their own advocates had provided.
- Explored counterfactual scenarios and hypotheticals to see where each argument would succeed or fail.
- Treated thoughtful critics as partners in the search for truth rather than as enemies to be defeated.
This method aligns closely with the steelman ethos in modern strategy work: before committing to a policy, investment, or organisational move, you owe it to yourself and your stakeholders to understand the most credible case against your intended path – not a caricature of it.
Biography and intellectual context
John Stuart Mill (1806 – 1873) was an English philosopher, economist, and civil servant, widely regarded as one of the most influential thinkers in the liberal tradition. Educated intensively from a very young age by his father, James Mill, under the influence of Jeremy Bentham, he mastered classical languages, logic, and political economy in his childhood, but suffered a mental crisis in his early twenties that led him to broaden his outlook beyond strict utilitarianism.
Mill’s major works include:
- System of Logic, where he analysed how we form and test hypotheses, including the role of competing explanations.
- On Liberty, which defended freedom of thought, speech, and experimentation in ways that presuppose an active culture of hearing and strengthening opposing views.
- Principles of Political Economy, a major text that carefully considers economic arguments from multiple sides before reaching policy conclusions.
As a senior official in the East India Company and later a Member of Parliament, Mill moved between theory and practice, applying his analytical methods to real-world questions of governance, representation, and reform. His insistence that truth and sound policy emerge only from confronting the strongest counter-arguments is a direct ancestor of the modern steelman method in strategic reasoning, board-level debate, and public policy design.
Mill’s legacy for modern strategic steelmanning
For contemporary strategists, investors, and leaders, Mill’s legacy can be summarised as a disciplined demand: before acting, ensure that you could state the best good-faith case against your intention more clearly and powerfully than its own advocates. Only then is your subsequent decision genuinely informed rather than insulated by bias.
In this way, John Stuart Mill stands as the key historical theorist behind the steelman argument – not for coining the term, but for articulating the intellectual and ethical duty to engage with opponents at their strongest, in pursuit of truth and resilient strategy.
References
1. https://aliabdaal.com/newsletter/the-steelman-argument/
2. https://themindcollection.com/steelmanning-how-to-discover-the-truth-by-helping-your-opponent/
3. https://ratiochristi.org/the-anatomy-of-persuasion-the-steel-man/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veeGKTzbYjc
5. https://simplicable.com/en/steel-man
6. https://umbrex.com/resources/tools-for-thinking/what-is-steelmanning/
