PhronesisCharitable interpretation, when functioning as intended, refers to the capacity to extend good faith to others in conditions of genuine ambiguity—to resist premature negative attribution and remain open to benign explanations when evidence is insufficient to decide. Compulsive charitable interpretation (CCI) designates a qualitatively different pattern: the systematic assignment of maximally favorable intent to others' behavior regardless of evidence, maintained not as an epistemic stance but as a psychological compulsion.
We formalize CCI as a wrong attractor W_ CCI in the space of interpretive states, drawing on the displacement framework to characterize the accumulated cost (t) as a monotone function of the gap between attributed and actual intent over time. The ground state S^0, Calibrated Reality Assessment, is defined as the capacity to form intent attributions that are responsive to evidence—updating toward charitable interpretations when evidence supports them and toward accurate negative assessments when it does not.
We identify three principal sustaining mechanisms that constitute the basin of attraction: (1) uncharitable-interpretation-as-cruelty, in which accurate negative assessment is experienced as moral failure, making evidence-responsive interpretation feel unkind or presumptuous; (2) charitable-interpretation-as-relational-lubrication, in which positive framing maintains surface harmony, rendering accurate assessment threatening to the relationship; and (3) beneficence-as-identity, in which the self-image as a generous-spirited person makes reality-testing feel like a character defect.
We establish the Charity Paradox: by always interpreting harmful behavior charitably, the interpreter prevents the other person from receiving accurate feedback about behavioral impact, maintaining the harmful pattern and rendering the interpreter complicit in their own harm. We trace developmental roots in environments where negative interpretations of authority figures were dangerous, and outline return paths centered on evidence-responsive practice, separation of motive-understanding from impact-excusing, and reality-testing with calibrated others.
Nine propositions with formal proofs are presented, alongside three definitions and two remarks organizing the formal apparatus.