Rule 1
Nothing and no one is immune from criticism.
Rule 2
Everyone involved in a controversy has an intellectual responsibility to inform himself [or herself]
of the available facts.
Rule 3
Criticism should be directed first to policies, and against persons only when they are responsible
for policies, and against their motives or purposes only when there is some independent evidence
of their character.
Rule 4
Because certain words are legally permissible, they are not therefore morally permissible.
Rule 5
Before impugning an opponent's motives, even when they legitimately may be impugned, answer
his arguments.
Rule 6
Do not treat an opponent of a policy as if he were therefore a personal enemy or an enemy of the
country or a concealed enemy of democracy.
Rule 7
Since a good cause may be defended by bad arguments, after answering the bad arguments for
another's position present positive evidence for your own.
Rule 8
Do not hesitate to admit lack of knowledge or to suspend judgment if evidence is not decisive
either way.
Rule 9
Only in pure logic and mathematics, not in human affairs, can one demonstrate that something is
strictly impossible. Because something is logically possible, it is not therefore probable. "It is not
impossible" is a preface to an irrelevant statement about human affairs. The question is always one
of the balance of probabilities. And the evidence for probabilities must include more than abstract
possibilities.
Rule 10
The cardinal sin, when we are looking for truth of fact or wisdom of policy, is refusal to discuss,
or action which blocks discussion.
"[S]cience may be considered as a field of continuing controversy which leaves behind it not burning hatreds, but vast accumulations of knowledge."
Sidney Hook, *Philosophy and Public Policy*. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980, pp. 122-23.