Defining Factors, Arguments, and Example Viewpoints

The core of a Fairmind Guide is a structured comparison of the strongest arguments on each side—organized into shared factors that let opposing views meet head-on, and illustrated through example viewpoints that show how thoughtful people reach different conclusions. This page explains how to develop each element and how they connect to one another.

Arguments

Begin by gathering the arguments from each side, ordered by their prominence in public discourse. Good sources include:

• Advocacy organizations on each side.
• Legislative testimony and debates.
• Court rulings and legal briefs.
• Reporting and analyses by third parties like journalists, academics, and analysts. Be attentive to whether the writers are regarded as neutral observers or are affiliated with a particular side or agenda.
• AI queries or pro-con websites that summarize arguments for the issue. Don’t overly rely on these, but use them to check your work and, if they point to sources, to find sources. Always pursue the original sources.

Then filter for the primary arguments. For each argument, apply a two-part test:

• Is it defensible? Arguments that cannot withstand scrutiny should not appear as primary guide content. If they are nonetheless prominent in the discourse, they belong in Editorial Choices.
• Is it decisive? A defensible argument that is merely a secondary or reinforcing reason—one that wouldn’t change where a person stands if removed—should also go to Editorial Choices if prominent, or be omitted otherwise. We want arguments that are decisive for people’s viewpoints.

We call the arguments that survive the filtering primary arguments because they are sufficient to determine where most people stand on the guide’s overall question.

Factors

Derive the factors from the primary arguments. The goal is to to recast opposing primary arguments into a shared neutral context—a factor for the reader to consider—so that they address the same underlying question and can meet head-on rather than talk past each other.

In many cases, opposing primary arguments will map naturally onto a common factor. For example, in the death penalty debate, each side makes an argument about the morality of killing as punishment. For many people, this is a core consideration in their overall viewpiont. So Morality is a good choice for a factor.

Sometimes a primary argument from one side will have no clear counterpart from the other. In that case, do not manufacture a false equivalence. Instead, construct the strongest available counter-argument from the public discourse, or, if none is adequate, have the opposing side’s argument acknowledge the point and make the case that it is a less important consideration relative to other factors.

Aim for two to five factors. If you only need one, then the structure of a Fairmind Guide is likely to be overkill. And if you have more than five factors, they will overload readers cognitively. Keep in mind that, as an author, you will have gone deep on the topic, and your tendency will be to want to include more factors. Don’t. Much of your value is in “essentializing” the topic down to what really matters for readers to know in forming their own fair-minded and informed viewpoints.

If you can’t see any way to cover your topic with five or fewer factors, ask whether the topic is actually a composite of multiple topics. For example, if you try to create a guide on “the gun debate,” you will find there is no central policy question like there is in topics like abortion or the death penalty. Instead, in the United States, the gun debate is about a constellation of more than a dozen types of policies. Better in that case to focus on a single representatitive policy than to try wedging several different policy debates into one guide. For example, we chose concealed carry as the best represetantive topic, which then made the factors tractable.

Example Viewpoints

Derive the Example Viewpoints from the factors and their arguments. Every viewpoint should reflect a coherent combination of factor positions and weightings. Together, the example viewpoints show how thoughtful people might reach different conclusions based on different judgments and weightings of the factors. The viewpoints should represent the main positions in the issue’s public discourse, across a range of perspectives.

Write a viewpoint in the voice of the person who holds it. Whereas the rest of a guide’s content uses what we might call “analyst voice,” the viewpoints are meant to illustrate how people who’ve reached a conclusion would explain it. So in writing an Example Viewpoint, you don’t need to acknowledge other views or caveat the claims. An exception: If a viewpoint takes a moderate stance in part due to recognition of uncertainity or concern about a strong opposing argument, then those reasons should of course be included.

Check viewpoint-factor alignment: If an important aspect of an Example Viewpoint is referring to something not represented in the factors, that something needs to be incorporated into an an existing factor or a new factor. Conversely, if a factor is not represented in at least one (ideally more) of the Example Viewpoints, it should not be a factor. If it’s a prominent part of the public discourse, a briefer version of it can be included in Editorial Choices.

How Much Content?

Use viewpoint stability as your calibration test. A guide has enough content when two conditions are met: adding more wouldn’t change most readers’ conclusions, and removing anything would leave some readers without a basis for a defensible viewpoint.

Apply the test at every level, not just to factors. The stability test also applies to argument depth and Example Viewpoints. Although arguments and viewpoints should normally be limited to a paragraph, the test can still help you decide how much or little of a paragraph you need. When considering an addition, always ask: Compared to the existing content, would this addition cause some readers to change their positions? When in doubt, leave it out of the main content. If readers could reasonably question the omission, explain it in a section in Editorial Choices.

Aim for 2,000 to 2,500 words for the main content. This is roughly eight to ten minutes of reading at a standard pace. It’s long enough to treat an issue responsibly while not being overwhelming. See these guides for examples.