It seems to me that devil's advocacy is a very useful tool in situations that are actually complex, with good arguments for and against. Let's say you're going to buy a car. You can throw out some options right away - you don't have the cash for a Rolls, you don't want to buy a Jeep because you live in the city, and Ladas are junk. Some options will very obviously dominate others. But then you'll get down to a smaller set of cars that you might actually want, and you have an actual, reasonable choice between. You could very easily default to one car based on pure feel without considering other parts of it. Devil's advocacy could easily kick you out of that line of thought, into a better overall decision. "Well, I like the A-mobile, but the B-mobile is $2000 cheaper and a lot more reliable...hey, that's not such a bad idea after all". Forcing yourself to argue the merits of the contrary position, to see if any are convincing, is a good way to avoid making a decision too fast, and perhaps of helping yourself come to better conclusions.
There are limits to it, of course, just like there are to most tools. But in the right circumstance, it's a pretty reasonable thing to do.
It's not really devil's advocacy if you're unsure of the truth of the positions. It's just looking reasonably at the alternatives.
Today's post, Against Devil's Advocacy was originally published on 09 June 2008. A summary (taken from the LW wiki):
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