Truth, Justification, and Comparison - Eric Palmer

Truth, Comparison, and Justification in LD Debate

Eric Palmer

Lincoln-Douglas debate characteristically faces periodic and largely intractable identity crises. This is perhaps natural, given that LD is often defined merely in terms of its perceived opposition to its older sibling, Policy Debate. This sentiment finds its most obvious expression in the oft-lampooned mantra “this is LD not policy!” What is needed to give sense to this expression is an account of what exactly makes LD distinct from Policy, or any other form of debate, for that matter. This issue is, in my view, at the heart of recent disputes about the role of debate theory, “pre-standards” issues, skeptical argumentation, and perhaps critiques as well. To be sure, these disagreements are likely amplified by the factious (and thoroughly regrettable) culture which currently plagues national circuit debate, but perhaps one might hope that efforts towards furnishing an intellectual center for LD might help us regain our lost sense of unity otherwise.

These broader aspirations may be hopelessly naïve, but it is still, I think, worthwhile to consider the prospects of grounding LD in some fundamental picture of what counts as good or worthwhile debate. One such proposal is the “comparing worldviews” paradigm, most recently defended by Adam Nelson. The animating notion behind this position is that the burden of the affirmative is not to defend the resolution as true (and consequently, the burden of the negative is not to say that the resolution is false), but rather to argue that it would be good for people to use the resolution as a principle governing conduct. This idea is not unique to him: Michael Mangus developed a similar proposal roughly a year ago. My aim here is to state some potential problems for this view and to recommend a potential alternative.

The comparing worlds paradigm is distinguished by two basic elements. These are:

1. The supposition that debates should not concern whether or not the resolution is true or false, but whether or not people (or governments, depending on the wording of the topic) should act on the resolution. In other words, we should compare which world (affirmative or negative) we should want to live in.

2. A repudiation of standards debate in favor of the “direct comparison” of impacts.

It is worthwhile to note that these elements are logically independent of one another, that is, acceptance of one does not entail acceptance of the other, and vice versa. One might think that debates ought to concern whether or not we should act on the resolution without supposing that the best method of ascertaining what we should do follows from a “direct comparison” of the impacts of acting on the resolution or failing to do so, and one might likewise reject the value criterion model without supposing that resolutions are not truth-apt. My own view will involve a rejection of (A) coupled with a qualified acceptance of (B). I share the comparing worlds view’s rejection of standards debate, as it is currently conceived, but I think the notion of “direct comparison” of impacts is suspect.

To unpack the first claim, it is worthwhile to consider precisely what proposition the truth-testing and comparative paradigms commit the affirmative to defending. Mangus says that this claim requires that we debate about whether “[the resolution] would be a good maxim for people to follow”. To make sense of this idea, consider the resolution “It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a threat”. What the truth-tester thinks the affirmative’s basic position can be given as follows:

Truth-Testing: The sentence “It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a threat” is true.

For the comparative view, I suggest the following parallel analysis:

Comparing worlds: We ought to act as though the sentence “It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a threat” is true.

This analysis requires some further modifications. For one, the word “we” requires the specification of a referent for the thesis to have any significance. The operative “we” could be human beings or rational agents in general, or one might want to replace the expression altogether with the agent embedded in the resolution (in this case, the United States). I assume this problem can be rectified by considering particular topics. Topics which do not state an agent of action may be read in the broader, unrestricted sense (as applying to human beings or rational agents generally).

Now one might naturally ask why I have implied that the comparativist should hold that agents ought to act as though the resolution is true. There is a straightforward route to this conclusion. Mangus’s claim that the resolution should be affirmed if “it would be a good maxim to follow” may be interpreted as stating that the resolution should be affirmed if it would be good for us to believe. This is because of the action-guiding character of beliefs: when we accord with a principle in action, it is presumably because we believe that principle to be true. If I pull a drowning child from the water and say that I did so because I accept the principle “save innocent lives”, my action and my avowal of the principle guiding my actions are (at least in normal circumstances) to be explained by my belief that I should save innocent lives. Now, one functional characterization of what it is to have a belief runs as follows: an agent believes a proposition p only if that agent acts as though p is true. To see why this is so, consider the previous example: I am credited with believing the proposition one should save innocent lives because I act as though that proposition is true. I prevent kids from drowning, and I assert things like “one should save innocent lives”.

With this analysis on the table, we can state an objection to the view. Call this objection no difference. One of the touted benefits of the comparing worlds theory is that it allows us to undercut skeptical arguments about whether, say, objective moral norms exist. Even if there are no objective moral norms, it might be desirable for us to act as though there were, or so the reply goes. The problem is that the claim which the affirmative defends on the comparative view (“we ought to act as though the resolution is true”) is still false if there are no moral norms. The “ought” which occurs in the proposition expresses an objective, action-guiding requirement for rational agents (or whatever other agent is substituted). If there are no facts about what we ought to do, then the affirmative cannot show that we ought to act as though we believe some proposition to be true. In other words, the comparing worlds paradigm only pushes the problem back from the direct question of whether a certain principle governing how we ought to act is true, to the second-order question of whether it is true that we ought to act as though a certain principle is true.

At this point a defender of comparing worlds might reply: “sure, by winning a moral skepticism argument the negative might successfully undermine the affirmative’s reasons for thinking that we should act as though the resolution is true, but on our account, to negate requires showing that we should act as though the resolution is not true, so the negative has only succeeded in showing that there is no reason to affirm or negate.” The immediate problem with this reply is that it allows debaters, whether affirmative or negative, to immediately force a resolution of the round via presumption by winning a moral skepticism argument. The affirmative could do this by extending the negative answers to the affirmative case then answering the negative case with “the NC says we should not act as though the resolution is true, but there are no facts about what we should and should not do, so decide on presumption” and winning the skepticism arguments. This is a ridiculous outcome for the comparing worlds view.

The broader issue with this reply is that thus far, most of the defenders of the comparative view have said little about what negation actually is, according to their view. There are three ways of understanding negation if we take affirmation to constitute an endorsement of the proposition “we should act as though the resolution is true”, depending on what scope the negation operator takes with respect to that proposition:

1. It is not the case that (we should act as though the resolution is true).

2. We should not act as though the resolution is true.

3. We should act as though the resolution is not true.

Under (1), there is no way of making this reply to the no difference objection, since it is not the case that we should act in any particular way if there are no facts about what we should do. (2) permits the reply, but doesn’t give the result which most comparativists seem to want. For example, if the resolution is “It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a threat”, then the negation “we should not act as though ‘It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a threat’” could be true either because it is unjust for the US to act as the resolution prescribes, or because even though it is just for the US to act in that manner, there are good reasons to act contrary to justice in some circumstances. (3) likewise does not give the right result: it might be good for us to act as though the resolution were false because it is good to act contrary to justice sometimes, because the action prescribed is unjust, or because say, state action in particular is never just nor unjust, and as a result states should act on the basis of self-interest. In short, if the expected result is that the negative should defend that preventing acquisition would be unjust, on no reading does the comparativist thesis deliver.

I turn now to the issue of “direct comparison” of impacts. As I understand it, the idea works something like this: the affirmative says that acting as though the resolution is true leads to some good result x, the negative says that doing so would lead to some bad result y. The affirmative argues that x outweighs y. Now, this basic schema works well in Policy Debate, but this is because Policy generally presumes a form of utilitarianism (at least until this is challenged with some critical framework). One can say that extinction due to environmental collapse is worse than genocide, or vice versa, in utilitarian terms simply by comparing the expected utility of the two impacts. Expected utility is given by magnitude of effect multiplied by the probability of those effects occurring. Now, utilitarianism lets us state all impacts within the framework of expected utility because it supposes that all impacts are reducible to a common metric of evaluation in which all outcomes can be compared: outcomes are good if they cause more pleasure than pain, and outcomes are bad if they cause more pain than pleasure. If we do not assume that all values are commensurable, and that all values are measurable, then no such metric is readily available. Regardless, there is no reason why we ought to proceed in lockstep with our policy brethren and presume that utilitarianism is true, because as every debater knows by now, there are many good reasons to think that it may not be (at least in its crudest form).

Adam Nelson suggests what may be an alternate tack. He backs up his recommendation to switch to “direct comparison” of impacts with the claim that in our everyday lives, we often give weight to both deontological and utilitarian considerations. This may or may not be true. If it is true, then there are at least two explanations for that fact. It may be the case that in general, people do not have any form of systematic ethical theory in mind when they deliberate. If this is true, so much the worse for people in general, since this means that their decisions are motivated by disparate and incompatible justifications. There is no need for debate to cater to that fact. Alternately, it might turn out that there is an ethical theory which gives weight to both utilitarian and deontological considerations (such as Tim Scanlon’s Contractualism or Sam Scheffler’s hybrid theory) which can account for all of the average person’s seemingly disparate moral beliefs. If this explanation is right, then it seems like what is happening when one “directly compares” impacts is tacitly relying on an ethical theory, but without the aid of an explicit version of that account for the purposes of correcting errors in moral judgment. So it seems like Nelson’s alternative results either in adopting a fragmented picture of how to evaluate impacts, or an under-theorized version of something which could actually be made explicit as a standard.

My last objective is to sketch a possible alternative to both traditional truth-testing and comparing worldviews. For lack of a better name, call this the best justification paradigm. The animating idea behind this paradigm is the thought that the job of the affirmative is to justify accepting the resolution as true, while the job of the negative is to justify rejecting the resolution as false. The judge ought to affirm if the resolution is better justified than its negation, and vice versa. Returning to our now well-worn example, this yields the following analysis of the affirmative position:

Best Justification: The sentence “It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a threat” is better justified than the sentence “It is not the case that…”

There are two basic advantages of this account over traditional truth-testing. For one, truth-testing generates the problem of wayward “pre-standards” arguments. If, for instance, some argument which claims that the resolution is self-contradictory is dropped, truth-testing requires a negative verdict because the dropped argument entails the falsity of the resolution. On the best justification picture, however, the fact that the dropped argument entails the falsity of the resolution merely provides some evidence that a belief in the resolution is unjustified. How strong that evidence is depends on how strong the dropped argument was. If the argument was particularly well-developed, this may warrant a negation, but if the argument was a mangled blip, then it may be better to hold that the arguments developed by the affirmative are sufficient to justify the resolution’s truth in spite of the drop. To get a better grip on how this is supposed to work, consider a mundane case. My friend drives me to work one day in a Volvo. Suppose I have every reason to believe that she owns this car: I’ve seen her drive it many times, her family members all say it belongs to her, and I have seen her registration papers. On the basis of this evidence, I infer the proposition “my friend owns a Volvo”. Now suppose that someone else tells me that in fact she does not own that car; she was just borrowing it from her brother. For the sake of the example, assume that I have no way of discounting this evidence. Now, if true, my evidence that my friend was just borrowing the Volvo entails the falsity of my belief that “my friend owns a Volvo”, but given my preponderance of evidence to the contrary, it seems plausible to assume that I am better off retaining my belief and discounting the conflicting evidence. We can treat underdeveloped skeptical or other “pre-standards” issues in much the same fashion (note, however, that I do not want to exclude skeptical arguments altogether; if you want that result then find another paradigm).

Another advantage of the best justification paradigm over traditional truth-testing is that it preserves something like the offense/defense distinction employed in Policy. If the negative is not providing proactive reasons for thinking that the resolution has got to be false, then there is no reason not to accept the affirmative’s argumentation. The same more or less holds true for particular arguments. An argument may provide a good justification for some claim even if there are standing reasons for thinking that argument might be false in the event that the initial justification is more powerful than the reasons standing against it. This is more or less the moral of the “Volvo” example.

The account I have sketched thus far is compatible with the traditional value-criterion model, and nothing about it turns on whether or not we reject that model. I do think, however, that there is good reason to doubt the soundness of standards debate as it is currently practiced. My reasoning is somewhat different from that offered by defenders of the comparing worlds view. Oftentimes debaters will present warrants for a standard which are in truth, impacts to another standard which they are taking for granted. For example, consider a negative case which makes the following claims: (1) oppression can lead to genocide, genocide is bad, so the criterion is preventing oppression, (2) affirming allows the construction of threats, which stifles some criticism of the state; (3) not being able to criticize the state is a form of oppression. Given the supposition that sometimes oppression does lead to genocide, this NC is able to warrant the criterion “preventing oppression”. This in turn allows the negative to win off of the tiniest link to oppression, even if that form of oppression is probably not sufficient to lead to genocide, which is the real reason why we are supposed to be worried about oppression in the first place, according to this case. This is clearly a bad result: what this case has done is smuggled in a link to genocide which has virtually no probability of occurring. Additionally, the first premise of the case is clearly unwarranted without appeal to some genuine ethical framework. The case does not tell us why genocide is bad; it just takes it for granted. Of course, it is not particularly hard to prove that genocide is bad in virtually any ethical framework; the problem is just that one is not entitled to assume that without appeal to some ethical principle which tells us why genocide is a particular type of action which we should count as immoral.

The obvious remedy to this problem is to insist that standards express ethical theories. A better version of the case in question should fix on some ethical framework and then argue that the affirming is likely to lead to some form of oppression which is likely to lead to genocide, which is bad in terms of the given framework. Some might object to this suggestion on the grounds that it generates an unacceptable situation in which all standards debate devolves into a hackneyed dispute between deontology and consequentialism. This is not so: there are not only a wide variety of versions of each of those ethical theories which are designed to cope with the familiar objections, but there are also some alternative moral theories which break the deadlock altogether. I have already mentioned a couple options. If any reader is interested in hearing some suggestions about where to learn about these theories or others, don’t hesitate to email me (epalmer@fas.harvard.edu).

One parting thought: some have suggested that there is no reason to have a comprehensive theory of LD because part of what is best in debate is that students are able to challenge assumptions about what standards should be used to evaluate arguments. I am partly sympathetic to this point: it seems like debaters ought to be able to argue in-round that any judge should set aside some aspect of their default paradigm in order to make space for some particularly unusual sort of argument (a performance, for example). It is problematic, however, to suppose that we could get by without any fundamental picture of how arguments should be evaluated at all. How could judges evaluate a debater’s reasons for adopting a different paradigm for the purposes of a round at all without taking for granted certain assumptions about how arguments ought to be understood? At root, debate is a social practice which is constituted by the norms we choose. If no norms remain fixed, if there are no rules for the game at all, then judges would have no resources to use in evaluating proposals to adopt new norms. Judges must take some principles for granted when they approach rounds, and reflection is needed to determine what exactly those principles should be.

Thank you to Jon Cruz for posting this piece, and to Wade Houston, Michael O’Connell, Michael Mangus, and Mike Spirtos for comments and suggestions.

Towards a Comprehensive Theory of LD - Adam Nelson

Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Adam F. Nelson, J.D.¹

I. Introduction

Even following the admirable work of the LD Rules and Recommendations Committee, Lincoln-Douglas Debate is broken. There is a great deal of animosity between advocates of different approaches to the activity. There is a great deal of confusion amongst students and coaches about how best to adapt to those various styles. And there is a great deal of frustration resulting from the refusal of some individuals to engage in discussion about, or adapt to, those different styles. This article is an attempt to open a dialogue within our community about how best to resolve these issues, by offering a comprehensive vision of what I hope will be a step towards a universally agreeable approach to the activity, or at least a cease-fire.

II. The Role of LD

In my experience, educational enterprises are best served by specialization. And I have always been impressed by the many opportunities for specialization forensics provides. Original oratory seems a perfect vehicle for teaching students public speaking skills. Humorous, Dramatic, and Duo interpretation seem to be a perfect vehicle for teaching students about the interpretation of literature. Extemporaneous speaking seems to be a perfect vehicle for teaching students analytical thinking. And the debate events seem to be perfect vehicles for teaching students logical and strategic thinking. Given this understanding, the difference between the debate events is not the skills they teach, but the medium through which they teach those skills, giving students with different academic interests the same opportunity to master those skills. And, at most tournaments, our students are able to enter several of these events, allowing them the ability to maximize their mastery of a wide range of these skills.

Many may believe the primary educational value of the debate events to be the substantive knowledge about each resolution that students gain as a result of participation in the activity. But I believe that focus to be erroneous. Our expertise as educators has never been mastery of the subject matter implicated by the resolutions our students debate. Even though I am a lawyer, I am far from a law professor, and could not possibly hope to teach legal concepts to my students to the same extent they could expect from such a professional. And I am certainly neither a philosopher nor a professor of that discipline, and would never claim to have any specialized knowledge of philosophy when compared to that of my most advanced students, especially those who study even obscure works of philosophy in their free time.

But I, like my colleagues, do know debate, its theory, strategy, and practice, better than even my most successful students. And that is the unique education with which I can provide them. Accordingly, the activity should be structured in a way that maximizes its ability to teach those skills.

III. The Role of the Resolution

And that approach has implications for our understanding of the role of the resolution. Unfortunately, it seems many coaches, students, and judges approach the resolution as though it were a truth-statement, giving the affirmative the burden of proving that claim and the negative access to any strategy that denies the truth of the affirmative’s augments.

But the NFL’s new Lincoln Douglas Debate Event Description explicitly repudiates such a model by placing parallel burdens amongst one of the hallmarks of the activity:

No question of values can be determined entirely true or false. This is why the resolution is desirable. Therefore neither debater should be held to a standard of absolute proof. No debater can realistically be expected to prove complete validity or invalidity of the resolution. The better debater is the one who, on the whole, proves his/her side of the resolution more valid as a general principle.²

And the truth-statement model of the resolution imposes an absolute burden of proof on the affirmative: if the resolution is a truth-claim, and the affirmative has the burden of proving that claim, in so far as intuitively we tend to disbelieve truth-claims until we are persuaded otherwise, the affirmative has the burden to prove that statement absolutely true. Indeed, one of the most common theory arguments in LD is conditionality, which argues it is inappropriate for the affirmative to claim only proving the truth of part of the resolution is sufficient to earn the ballot.

Such a model of the resolution also gives the negative access to a range of strategies that many students, coaches, and judges find ridiculous or even irrelevant to evaluation of the resolution. If the negative need only prevent the affirmative from proving the truth of the resolution, it is logically sufficient to negate to deny our ability to make truth-statements or to prove normative morality does not exist or to deny the reliability of human senses or reason. Yet, even though most coaches appear to endorse the truth-statement model of the resolution, they complain about the use of such negative strategies, even though they are a necessary consequence of that model. And, moreover, such strategies seem fundamentally unfair, as they provide the negative with functionally infinite ground, as there are a nearly infinite variety of such skeptical objections to normative claims, while continuing to bind the affirmative to a much smaller range of options: advocacy of the resolution as a whole.

Instead, it seems much more reasonable to treat the resolution as a way to equitably divide ground: the affirmative advocating the desirability of a world in which people adhere to the value judgment implied by the resolution and the negative advocating the desirability of a world in which people adhere to a value judgment mutually exclusive to that implied by the resolution. By making the issue one of desirability of competing world-views rather than of truth, the affirmative gains access to increased flexibility regarding how he or she chooses to defend that world, while the negative retains equal flexibility while being denied access to those skeptical arguments indicted above. Our ability to make normative claims is irrelevant to a discussion of the desirability of making two such claims. Unless there is some significant harm in making such statements, some offensive reason to reject making them that can be avoided by an advocacy mutually exclusive with that of the affirmative such objections are not a reason the negative world is more desirable, and therefore not a reason to negate. Note this is precisely how things have been done in policy debate for some time: a team that runs a kritik is expected to offer some impact of the mindset they are indicting and some alternative that would solve for that impact. A team that simply argued some universal, unavoidable, problem was bad and therefore a reason to negate would not be very successful. It is about time LD started treating such arguments the same way.

Such a model of the resolution has additional benefits as well. First, it forces both debaters to offer offensive reasons to prefer their worldview, thereby further enforcing a parallel burden structure. This means debaters can no longer get away with arguing the resolution is by definition true of false. The “truth” of the particular vocabulary of the resolution is irrelevant to its desirability. Second, it is intuitive. When people evaluate the truth of ethical claims, they consider their implications in the real world. They ask themselves whether a world in which people live by that ethical rule is better than one in which they don’t. Such debates don’t happen solely in the abstract. We want to know how the various options affect us and the world we live in.

This does not, however, mean this “worldview comparison” model would necessarily remove the ability of debaters to argue values or philosophy in the abstract. We have long recognized that purely deontological arguments have offensive impacts that can be compared against other such implications. This model would simply require debaters to more directly compare, for example, the importance of avoiding treating people as means to an end or protecting rights with the importance of saving lives or maximizing economic efficiency, for reasons I will explore shortly.

Consequently, I believe worldview comparison better adheres to the NFL’s vision of the activity while providing better, more real-world, education about how to effectively and persuasively discuss the issues implicated by LD resolutions.

IV. The Role of the Ballot

But this raises important questions about the appropriate role of the ballot. Yet the implications of the worldview comparison model are, for the most part, not the least bit revolutionary. Instead of focusing on whether the affirmative proved the resolution true, or even on whether the resolution was proven more likely true or false, the decision ought to be made on the basis of which world is more desirable: that of the affirmative or that of the negative.

The affirmative still has the ability to interpret the resolution as he or she sees fit. And the negative, instead of being able to either disprove the affirmative or prove the converse of the resolution, has the option of either defending the desirability of a world in which we follow an ethical rule mutually exclusive of that of the affirmative or in which the affirmative’s ethical rule simply is not followed. Either way, both debaters have to be making offensive arguments defending those claims.

As discussed briefly above, this also means neither debater has access to arguments that purport to either affirm or negate by definition, or that reject our ability to make or evaluate statements like that of the resolution. The affirmative world cannot be desirable simply because it is, or currently exists. And the negative world cannot be desirable if it is impossible to evaluate its desirability.

The most important contribution of the worldview comparison model, in my estimation, is that it makes it possible to reject the value/criterion model that many new students, coaches, and judges find counter-intuitive, and provides a coherent alternative to that approach.

When first exposed to Lincoln-Douglas Debate, many believe that the value/criterion model to be an awkward method of evaluating ethical claims. They object, quite intuitively, that even the simplest questions should be decided on the basis of more than one standard. With my students, for example, I use a simple resolution, like Resolved: Macs are better than PCs, to introduce the many concepts necessary to be successful in debate. And I’ve found this approach to be quite successful in explaining the fundamentals of argument, such as the claim/warrant/impact structure of argumentation, and even some components of case construction. But, almost universally, students are stumped when asked to provide a value and criterion for evaluating the resolution. Certainly, the value provided by each type of computer is crucial in evaluating its desirability. But how does one measure how much of a value a computer is? Cost is certainly a factor. But cost alone is insufficient to determine value; the benefits offered by each type are equally important. Yet, to adopt a generic “cost/benefit analysis” criterion is too vague to be of any use in helping us understand the relevant factors in making out decision. Why waste time articulating a criterion when all it will ultimately be is some vague explanation that the winner should be the debater who proves they provide the most benefits for the least costs? So, when presented with these options, students remain either confused about what a criterion is supposed to be or unconvinced that such a structure is useful in their debating.

Similarly, it is impossible to construct a useful criterion for evaluating the resolutions we actually debate. Take the current resolution as an example: Resolved: It is just for the United States to use military force to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by nations that pose a military threat. Presumably, one would use justice as their value. Yet, what standard could possibly be a useful mechanism for determining justice? Giving each their due? But what are people due, and how is that determined? Protection of rights? But certainly there are things people are due beyond their rights. Even if rights are the most important component of what people are due, that doesn’t mean everything else is irrelevant to the evaluation of the resolution. Our options appear to be either being unrealistically narrow-minded in our evaluation or wasting time stating the obvious, that the affirmative world is more desirable if its benefits outweigh its costs.

Instead, it seems we should accept that obvious conclusion: any reason why the affirmative or negative world is either desirable or undesirable is relevant to evaluating the resolution. It makes no sense to exclude arguments from our discussion merely because they do not link to some arbitrary standard established external to consideration of the resolution itself.

Now, that does not mean all costs and/or benefits ought to be treated equally. Indeed, there are many persuasive arguments that, as far as justice is concerned, economic efficiency is irrelevant, or at least of very little significance, to any question of justice when rights are being violated. Yet, there are also many who would advocate the need for economic stability and vitality before rights are the least bit important. And this is an issue students should be prepared to debate. But that should not end the conversation. Even if protection of rights is more important, that does not mean economic efficiency is utterly irrelevant. Yet, that is precisely the result in the status quo: if one standard is proven to prerequisite, impacts to the other will be considered irrelevant. (This is another reason to reject the value/criterion model: we’ve all seen the frustrating debates where students spend much of their time arguing which standard is prerequisite to the other, in hopes of precluding their opponent’s offense entirely, when, intuitively speaking, impacts to both standards are extremely important to evaluation of the resolution.)

Contextualizing this debate, by forcing debaters to directly compare the importance of their contentions, rather than their criteria, will provide a more intuitive, and more realistic, experience for our students. The current approach to the criterion debate allows debaters to avoid some of the most difficult, and important, questions posed by the resolution. When a deontological standard is employed, teleological implications of the resolution become irrelevant. When a teleological standard is employed, deontological implications of the resolution become irrelevant. Yet, we consider both sides of that coin when we debate moral questions in out everyday lives. The debate is not about which is important, but about which is more important, and how much. We don’t, to take a common example from this season’s September/October resolution, say the number of innocents executed is irrelevant to the justness of capital punishment, seeing as it is a proportional punishment. We argue the execution of a small number of innocents, though regrettable, is not a reason to reject the death penalty entirely, given the need for a proportional punishment for murder. Shouldn’t our students do the same? While such debate is, of course, possible under the current model, the worldview comparison model makes such clash necessary.

It seems the most likely objection to this reasoning is that there simply is not enough time to contextualize comparison of impacts in an LD round. But I think that argument is problematic for two reasons. First, I don’t think contextualization of the impact debate will take significantly longer than the value/criterion debate does currently. In the examples I’ve given above, the contextualized comparison takes only a little more time than does the attempt to preclude one’s opponent’s impacts so common in the status quo. And, under the worldview comparison model, there is no need to spent time establishing and explaining a value and criterion, thereby easily making up any additional time needed to debate impacts under that model. Second, I think it’s unwise to allow such a relatively minor practical concern to prevent such a significant improvement in the educational value of the activity, especially given our primary role as educators. (See how easy, and much more realistic, contextualized impact comparison is?)

V. The Role of Presumption

That leaves the thorny issue of presumption, the decision to vote consistently for either the affirmative or negative in the event of a tie or the failure of either debater to successfully generate offense.³ Presumption has always been somewhat controversial in LD, given the NFL’s explicit repudiation of any prescribed burdens in the activity.⁴ And giving one side the burden of proof, the functional result of presumption, is clearly such a burden.

But that often leaves judges in an impossible position. They are forced to make a decision in each and every round, based solely on the debaters’ performance in that round. Yet, they are supposed to refrain from imposing any sort of prescribed burden upon the debaters. So, what is a judge to do in the event of a tie? Certainly some judges will vote for the debater with the better speaking skills, but not all judges are comfortable making their decision on that basis. And, more importantly, that is not always an option: a judge may at some point be faced with a round that is tied in every sense of the word, from the substance of the argumentation to the quality of delivery.

Perhaps the best option available to judges is to grant presumption to the debater who most closely advocates the status quo.

In policy debate, the negative has presumption because they defend the status quo, and there are opportunity costs associated with changing the way things are that would require some justification to endure. Thus, when the affirmative fails to effectively prove the desirability of their plan, there is no reason to spend those resources, and the judge negates. Similarly, in LD, there are risks associated with adopting a new value system. We know the problems attendant with the status quo, and, despite these problems, the world continues to function. We cannot have that same certainty regarding the consequences of some new ethical system, and the implications of particular changes could be significantly worse than the status quo.

And, at the same time, it is rarely entirely clear which side most closely represents the status quo. Even with resolutions where it may seem obvious that one side is forced to defend the way things are, that debater still has the option to advocate some other system. Take, for example, this season’s November/December topic: Resolved: In the United States, plea-bargaining in exchange for testimony is unjust. At first glance, it would seem clear that the negative is forced to defend the desirability of the status quo: obviously, there is currently plea-bargaining in exchange for testimony in the US right now. Yet, remember the negative is not necessarily bound to the converse of the affirmative advocacy. The negative could just as easily advocate the desirability of some ethical rule that is otherwise mutually exclusive with that advocated by the affirmative. So, in a round in which the affirmative argues plea-bargaining in exchange for testimony should merely be prohibited, the negative could very well advocate more sweeping reform that would solve the problems identified by the affirmative while preserving the ability of prosecutors to plea-bargain in exchange for testimony. While such a negative advocacy would obviously depend on that debater proving the use of the word “is” in the resolution does not limit the debate solely to the desirability of the way things are now, I think it is entirely feasible the negative could win that argument. And that would leave the affirmative defending the world that most closely resembles the status quo: the number of plea-bargains in exchange for testimony are relatively small, so their elimination would not be nearly as drastic as some radical restructuring of the criminal justice system.

Therefore, status quo presumption would not give one side an inherent advantage, or impose on either debater some prescribed burden. It would simply require debaters who fear they may need to rely on presumption to engage another issue in round. And there would be strategic advantages and risks associated with arguing either you or your opponent better represents the way things are now. An affirmative. For example, might advocate changing the status quo because of his or her personal belief in, and therefore ability to persuasively make and defend, those arguments. Yet, at the same time, that incurs the risk of needing to win some offensive reason to prefer the desirability of their advocacy in order to win. Similarly, an affirmative might choose to defend the status quo, thereby gaining the advantage of being able to win in the event of a tie, but risking a creative negative case that offers a well researched, and extremely persuasive, alternative to the way things are. And, either way, both students are forced to engage that issue, and debate just who it is that has access to defense of the status quo. Consequently, by not being necessarily tied to either side of each resolution, status quo presumption both remains true to the NFL rules and guidelines and gives judges a way to make their decision based solely on the arguments made by the debaters during the course of the round even when neither debater is able to win offensive arguments defending the desirability of their ethical statement.

Yet, there is always a possibility the issue of who is most closely associated with the status quo will remain unresolved at the end of the round. But that frequently occurs with critical issues, even given the way things are now. And, in that case, the judge would simply be forced to intervene, just as they must in such circumstances in the status quo. Under the worldview comparison model, however, the judge would merely intervene in favor of the debater he or she felt most closely defended the status quo, given the arguments that were made during the course of the round. And I expect that form of intervention to be more, or at the very least just as, predictable as that occurring in the status quo, thus alleviating concerns that this model would make judges’ decisions less based on the arguments made by debaters in the round.

I also think this more closely approximates real-world ethical reasoning. Often, during debates about value judgments in a variety of contexts, we will hear participants referring to the traditional acceptance of their position as a reason to reject change. But such arguments are rarely persuasive in the face of justifications for such reform. And that is precisely how LD rounds would work out under this model.

VI. The Role of Theory Debate

One effect of the current state of flux in the activity that, while not unique to my proposals, may be exacerbated by adoption thereof, at least in the short term, is the relative proliferation of theory debate, attempts to determine the appropriate rules for LD during rounds themselves. Many students, coaches, and judges are uncomfortable with this development, either because of its misuse or the common perception that such claims are merely an excuse for “whining” about particularly good arguments made by one’s opponents.

But I firmly believe the evolution of theory debate in LD is desirable, for a number of reasons. First, it forces debaters to be even more familiar with what it takes to be logical and strategic thinkers, by making them engage in another kind of reasoning that adds another layer of strategic complexity to the activity. Second, it provides debaters with a language to persuasively force the round to return to a discussion of the substance of the resolution. Frequently, the most unfair or uneducational arguments, and therefore those that are most theoretically objectionable, also serve to prevent discussion of the central conflict posed by the resolution. And the threat of having to defend against a particularly persuasive theory argument will create an incentive to avoid making such arguments in the first place, this increasing substantive discussion of topics in the long run. Moreover, it is an intuitive form of argumentation that can level the playing field. In a world in which theory debate is discouraged, the only way to deal with complex, yet theoretically objectionable, arguments is to first lose to them and then invest a great deal of time researching the best answers to the argument. And, even then, the nature of such arguments is that one will likely continue to lose against them regardless, unless one employs a strategy that seeks to preclude the argument without having to engage it substantively. Either way, the result is less desirable than substantive engagement of the fair and educational approaches to the resolution. Yet, anyone can make theory arguments, even those who don’t have large teams or experienced coaches who assist them in research. And, once there is the consistent threat of having to deal with an especially persuasive theory argument when one runs such strategies, the incentive will be to avoid making those arguments in the first place. Finally, it consists purely of analytical reasoning. Accordingly, even when rounds arise in which debate theory is appropriately made an issue, it allows judges to evaluate who is the better debater, which is ultimately what the round seeks to determine.

Moreover, theory debate, like all the practices I have advocated here, has clear parallels in the real world, especially the legal profession with which I am most familiar. During trials there are two obvious opportunities for attorneys to debate the rules of the proceeding. First, throughout the process, litigants will file procedural motions and make objections. While these are sometimes rote appeals to established rules, there are often issues of interpretation that need to be debated by the participants. And a skilled attorney, by successfully arguing such motions, can significantly influence the outcome of a trial. Second, when a jury is involved, the judge needs to instruct those individuals on how to make their decision. But those instructions are far from set in stone. Indeed, common practice is for the judge to ask both parties’ counsel to submit their proposals, which are often discussed in the judge’s chambers or a more formal setting before the judge decides on the final instructions to be the read to the jury. And, once again, success at this stage of the proceeding can dramatically increase one’s chances of success in the trial as a whole. So, not only is debate about the rules of a proceeding during the course of that same event far from unique to academic debate, it is a useful skill that serves our students well in their careers.

Concordantly, I am a strong advocate of theory debate, and would like to see such arguments made more frequently and be more widely accepted by our community. For the reasons I have articulated above, I truly believe it to be a useful vehicle for addressing many of the challenges the activity currently faces.

VII. Conclusion

This article is far from a comprehensive proposal, and is not even the most complete defense of these ideas possible. (I wouldn’t want to bore you with all the details. It is instead intended merely to start a more open and frank discussion about the activity, and the optimal way to teach and play the game. I welcome your comments, questions, and challenges, and hope they will appear in these pages. But, in the event you would like to discuss these issues more privately, please feel free to contact me at adamn@harker.org.

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1 Director of Lincoln-Douglas Debate and Mock Trial at The Harker School, San Jose, CA. I would like to thank Michael Mangus, whose writings provided the basis for many of these ideas, Ryan Lawrence, who convinced me to adopt my current view of the value/criterion model and whose late-night conversations at VBI first got me thinking about alternative approaches to LD, and to Cameron Baghai and Daniel Khalessi, whose final round at this season’s CPS tournament provided the impetus for the writing of this article.

2 http://www.nflonline.org/uploads/AboutNFL/distman102007.pdf, last accessed 12/26/2007.

3 While this issue may be too technical for some, or even most, judges and coaches, there are many in our community who struggle with this issue. And, just as importantly, I think it is an issue we are all faced with, whether we recognize it or not, and is therefore a matter we should all consider. Accordingly, I have attempted to offer an alternative to current thinking on this issue. Those uninterested in this discussion, for whatever reason, are welcome to skip to the next section, which discusses an issue I hope will be more universal.

4 Id.

Value Comparison - Michael Mangus

the value-comparison paradigm: a turn away from truth-testing
michael mangus

I. the dominant paradigm

a. groundwork. controversial as he may be, jason baldwin captured the view of a large number of coaches, judges and debaters when he asserted in a recent vbd interview that “The most important element of my view of burdens is that it’s the RESOLUTION that debaters are supposed to be trying to prove true or false.” [http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2007/01/22/the-winningest/ emphasis italic in original; changed for formatting reasons]. however, i believe that the emphasis in that sentence has been misplaced. the most fundamental question is not whether or not we ought to debate about a resolution, but rather whether we endeavor to prove that resolution true or false. while there has been some discussion on this (including this thread from the ldep message board that i uncovered in researching this article: http://www.ldep.org/viewtopic.php?t=20), it seems to me that the truth-paradigm is still dominant in how rounds are decided.

b. the rise of the a priori. this is perhaps most evident in the rise of what many debaters call 'a priori' arguments – arguments which attempt to prove the resolution true or false independent of any substantive (synthetic?) application or practical implementation. examples of these that seem particularly common are definitional strategies which impact to either tautology or contradiction. this leads to some pretty awful debates: “corporations are composed of individuals, so the resolution is tautological – they're the same thing!” vs. “no you have it all wrong, that makes the resolution incoherent – it must be rejected!” also common are skeptical arguments that deny some assumption behind affirmation of the resolution. one example is a language k which asserts that indeterminacy means we can't make objective truth claims: if we dont know what the terms in the topic mean, then you cant affirm it!

these strategies are problematic in a number of ways:

1. aff strategy skew. i am a huge fan of the spread, of tricky arguments, and of very fast debate. however, negative spreads have become horizontal rather than vertical. in other words, instead of making 40 answers to the affirmative case, negatives have taken to running multiple 'a priori' off-case positions. while i believe that off-case debate is good, aff's are in a rough place when it comes to answering these particular types of horizontal spread because each issue is a gateway argument – the affirmative must answer each position to win the debate, but they will be hard pressed to garner offense on them. in other words, if you prove language does in fact have meaning and causality does in fact exist and zeno's paradox is in fact resolvable, you will at best break even. the 1ar might be forced to spend 1.5-2 minutes answering back arguments that they have no chance of impact-turning – half of a speech dedicated to defense.

while many theory arguments are similarly gateway questions, there is a fundamental difference. when you, for example, run a case that is not topical, you have made a direct choice to engage a particular topic area and should be prepared to defend that that topic area is legitimate affirmative ground. however, you do not choose the resolution and all the accompanying assumptions thereof; it's a burden imposed on you by the topic, not by your own volition. moreover, theory arguments have impacts that can be turned: education, fairness, etc. are all implications of debatable desirability. truth, on the other hand, is not an impact that you can prove good/bad – your only option is defense: deny the internal links (no, that is not true).

2. neg strategy skew. to compensate for these horizontal a priori spreads, affirmatives have increasingly relied on hidden a priori spikes in the 1ac. as a consequence, we have some very prominent debaters who win rounds by presenting a claim in the 1ac, a warrant in the 1ar, and an impact in the 2ar. arguments are insufficiently developed and negatives have little to no indication of what arguments in the aff are important. while critical thinking and strategic prediction are valuable skills, its unreasonable to expect a negative to read and answer every sentence of the 1ac. even when spikes can be isolated, answering them is problematic because they are often so vague that a complete response is impossible.


3. irresolvable debates. instead of reaching a sortof strategically-skewed synthesis, these two forces instead create debates that leave judges dumbfounded. the affirmative will drop an overview that “proves” the resolution contradictory while the negative will drop a spike that “proves” the resolution tautological. if the judge is lucky, one of these arguments will somehow respond to or undermine the other and a decision can be rendered with some degree of fairness. oftentimes, however, there is no comparison between the arguments and no obvious interaction between them. even in the first case, this is not the pinnacle of substantive debate. in the latter case, it is a direct invitation for judge intervention. this is not isolated to the lower brackets of tournaments either – many high-powered prelims and elimination rounds feature these strategies.

4. defense-only strategies. especially on the negative, debaters increasingly defend that their opponent is wrong, not that they are right. after all, the neg gets to defend ~p. even on the affirmative, many affirmatives tend to win debates with defensive arguments: ~~p <=> p. under this framework, debaters are trained as sophists, not advocates. this also leads to debates that are difficult to adjudicate and, frankly, boring – if neither side is winning a clear impact to why their side is good (or true, under the dominant paradigm), its difficult to evaluate the winner of the round in a non-arbitrary way.

II. value-comparison as an alternative to truth-testing

a. the resolution. under a value-comparison paradigm, the resolution is the starting point for the debate rather than its end point. topics are to be viewed as a delineation of ground, not as a claim to be truth-tested by the debaters. the affirmative must defend that the world would be a better place if everyone were to do what the resolution dictates. the negative must defend that the world would be a better place if everyone were to not do what the resolution dictates.

b. offense/defense. the value-comparison paradigm endorses an offense/defense model of debate that has been lacking in traditional approaches to ld.

1. the basis. under this paradigm, a debater must win offensive impacts to win the debate. defensive answers mitigate the risk of an argument; however, there is still, of course, some risk of the impact. consequently, you need to win offense to win a debate. a 1% risk of an impact one way is going to outweigh in the absence of any impacts going the other way. even if debater x wins that there is a 0% risk of debater y's impact claims, x will not win the debate without some impact (even a very small one) in their favor.

2. presumption. there remains a question of what a judge would do if neither side is winning offensive impacts. under the current model, the case is typically made for neg presumption based on the idea that a positive statement must be proven and is otherwise presumed false. there is no intrinsic presumption for either side in the value-comparison model and instead presumption is determined by whose defense is 'more terminal.' in other words, a judge would evaluate the quality of the defensive args made and whoever has the better one wins. this is fundamentally different from how we treat presumption now (a 'failsafe' decision in the face of awful debating). however, this new approach seems more fair. in a matchup of two horrendous debaters it is unreasonable that the neg prevails by default. i do think a method for determining presumption is necessary, but i dont think that presumption has to always go one way. in the worst-case-scenarios (a round where, for example, both debaters are completely silent for 13 minutes each and waive cx) it is no worse to flip a coin than to pick whoever's neg. after all, that coinflip is more random than a side assignment.

c. the role of standards. i am not married to the idea of a value/criterion, or even of any particular standard being advanced in the debate. however, the value-comparison paradigm maintains the possibility for advancement in the community in either direction. on the one hand, standards can be a focus of the debate – they determine what it means to say that the world is 'better' or 'worse' after all, and so its possible that debates would continue to revolve around standards-based claims. however, this impact comparison can happen just as easily in later speeches with specific comparison between the impacts being extended. while i personally favor the latter, it is by no means a requirement. standards debate could continue without much change.

d. the death of the a priori. the implication of this for arguments appealing to the topic's truth or falsity should be readily apparent. since the affirmative must now defend that the maxim presented in the topic is good rather than true, definitional strategies only frame affirmative ground rather than giving a reason to accept the resolution. similarly, a negative strategy which indicts the resolution is now a meta-issue to be evaluated like other procedural or discursive objections. such objections require an offensive impact – the neg must prove that the affirmative methodology is bad rather than incomplete. this revives a space for vital impact turn ground. defense-only strategies are no longer viable – a debater must win that either their world is good or that the other side's world is bad. this mandates more impact comparison and more substantive debate rather than a repetition of non-specific skeptical claims.

e. debate in the postmodern era. it is outdated to believe that any activity, especially one like ours, could possibly establish a complete account of the truth or falsity of a statement. the value-comparison approach recognizes the contingency intrinsic to truth judgments in general and value judgments in particular by forcing a debate based on the topic's implications for action rather than any abstract metaphysical truth-content. affirmatives now have an option to 'no link' a number of k's that have guaranteed links under the truth-testing paradigm.

III. no really, its not that bad, i promise – answers to critics.

a. “this is ld, not policy!” i agree.

1. the locus of the debate. the value-comparison paradigm still endorses the key factor that makes ld unique: a focus on philosophical argument about moral issues. while policy debate asks what government institutions ought to do, ld resolutions are issues that individuals deal with outside the realm of law. the value-comparison paradigm does nothing to undercut this aspect of the discussion.

2. plans. the value-comparison paradigm does make plans feasible but it does not make them necessary (or even advisable). the affirmative could, in theory, win that a particular subset of people {x} have to do what the resolution says to stave off nuclear catastrophe and thus a negative world would be super-ultra bad. however, unlike policy debate, the value-comparison approach to ld still has the resolution as the governor of ground, not the affirmative advocacy. consequently, negatives generate uniqueness and links from the topic and affirmatives are still held to defend that topic in its entirety. thus, an extremely specific plan is a bad idea for the affirmative – it doesnt narrow the number of neg arguments that link, but it does narrow the range of impacts you can plausibly claim on the aff.

b. “resolutions must be modified!” i also agree in a limited sense. i think that for the most part resolutions as they are written now wouldnt need modification to work in this paradigm. there might be some tweaking needed to how they are interpreted. for example, just as we now imagine "it is true that..." to be implied by each resolution, we could just as easily imagine "people ought to behave based on the maxim that..." to be implied instead. there is a unique challenge to resolutions that prescribe a certain goal – for example, “democracy is best served by strict separation of church and state.” in such cases, the domain of discourse is limited – it only makes sense to address certain people taking the action prescribed by the resolution since the resolution has a particular context. prashant rai has noted that this seems to exclude impact-turn ground because it forces us to presume that democracy is the best world [http://www.theldboards.org/theboard/viewtopic.php?t=6&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=25]. this doesnt pose a major threat to the paradigm advanced here for a number of reasons.

1. reciprocity. neither side of that debate actually defends that democracy is good. consequently, no one loses ground by that inability to impact turn since no one gets to say its good or bad. in other words, the debate only questions what is better when viewed through the lens of democracy – it does not require a defense of that lens as good or bad.

2. uniqueness. many topics make assumptions about the good, so if we accept that topics in general are workable under this framework then topics worded like the strict separation resolution are unproblematic. for example, “a government's obligation to protect the environment ought to take precedence over its obligation to promote economic development” probably tacitly assumes that both those obligations exist.

3. the (perhaps intrinsic) perm. we should accept the value-comparison paradigm while working to create more open-ended and clearly written topics. theory debate (particularly on a topicality level) will check abuse in the interim. at worst, this objection means there is some lack of clarity in resolutional interpretation under the proposed paradigm, not that it is in any way unworkable or bad.

c. “blippy strategy skew is inevitable.” to some extent, it is true that debaters will always compress arguments in a time-pressured debate. however, there are two mechanisms in the value-making paradigm to check against extremes.

1. we can create incentives for the direction arguments will go. by removing the incentive to go for one-sentence no-links-or-impacts-necessary a priori arguments, the value-comparison paradigm at the very least ensures that there are internal links to be contested and impacts to engage.

2. a concomitant acceptance of the offense/defense approach to evaluation means that shallow arguments are unlikely to carry much weight. if an argument is extremely briefly explained and has unclear impacts, it ought to – and probably will – fall by the wayside in the judges ultimate decision calculus.

d. “there will still be a priori definitional claims and language k's.” again, i agree. however, most of these arguments become unproblematic in a framework where they must have offensive impacts to some standard of goodness/badness instead of truth/falsity. definitional arguments lack impact unless incorporated into a meaningful procedural objection which can then be answered like any other t/theory arg. in terms of k's, i think we should embrace the theoretical legitimacy of any criticism as long as it has impacts and a (clear, non-utopian) alternative so that the aff can garner offense in response to it. the k is good and id like it to continue.

IV. implementation

a. judging and coaching. i consider (and debaters ought to consider) this article to be an aspect of my judging paradigm. i encourage others to pick any and all parts of this framework that they agree with and implement those principles in how they judge and coach. this does not mean that i am no longer willing to judge rounds in the dominant paradigm. i will not automatically vote for a debater who runs these arguments (or drop one who doesnt). with that said, this represents my default presumption. we all have our biases and, though i'll try my best, i imagine that arguing in favor of truth-testing would be an uphill battle and i would really rather it not come down to that.

b. debating. i encourage debaters to structure arguments with this paradigm in mind. i also encourage them to make framework arguments in rounds that endorse this paradigm of debate, especially if faced with an opponent who is debating on the undesirable extremes of the current model. theory change begins in rounds. only YOU can prevent bad debate.

opening

the purpose of this site is to provide a place for discussion regarding theoretical issues which are relevant to the high school lincoln-douglas debate community. quite simply, this is meant to be a forum for thinking about debate - why we ought to debate a certain way, how we treat resolutions, what sorts of arguments are and aren't acceptable. anyone interested in making a contribution, or with any other concerns, questions, comments, etc. should feel welcome to send me an e-mail at mjocon AT gmail DOT com so that we can work to increase a communal understanding of lincoln-douglas debate.

michael o'connell