In Defence of Moral Error Theory

Moral error theorists typically accept two claims - one conceptual and one ontological - about moral facts. The conceptual claim is that moral facts are or entail facts about categorical reasons (and correspondingly that moral claims are or entail claims about categorical reason); the ontological claim is that there are no categorical reasons-and consequently no moral facts-in reality. I accept this version of moral error theory and I try to unpack what it amounts to in section 2. In the course of doing so I consider two preliminary objections that moral error theory is (probably) false because its implications are intuitively unacceptable (what I call the Moorean objection) and that the general motivation for moral error theory is self-undermining in that it rests on a hidden appeal to norms. | Direct Link to PDF

Moral Minds: The Nature of Right and Wrong

THE CENTRAL IDEA of this book is simple: we evolved a moral instinct, a capacity that naturally grows within each child, designed to generate rapid judgments about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar of action. Part of this machinery was designed by the blind hand of Darwinian selection millions of years before our species evolved; other parts were added or upgraded over the evolutionary history of our species, and are unique both to humans and to our moral psychology. These ideas draw on insightsfrom another instinct: language. | Direct Link to PDF (e-book)

Oxford Studies in Metaethics

The full book is available online for free:Oxford Studies in Metaethics is designed to collect, on an annual basis, some of the best new work being done in the field of metaethics. I’m very pleased to be able to present this third volume, one that has managed so successfully to fulfill the aims envisioned for the series. | Direct Link to Book

Moral Judgment

i. Moral rules are held to have an objective, prescriptive force; they are notdependent on the authority of any individual or institution.ii. Moral rules are taken to hold generally, not just locally; they not only proscribebehavior here and now, but also in other countries and at other times in history.iii. Violations of moral rules involve a victim who has been harmed, whose rightshave been violated, or who has been subject to an injustice.iv. Violations of moral rules are typically more serious than violations ofconventional rules. | Direct Link to PDF

Boredom? ADHD?

John Plotz in the New York Times: Their Noonday Demons, and Ours

These days, when we try to get a fix on our wasted time, we use labels that run from the psychological (distraction, “mind-wandering” or “top-down processing deficit”) to the medical (A.D.H.D., hypoglycemia) to the ethical (laziness, poor work habits). But perhaps “acedia” is the label we need. After all, it afflicted those whose pursuits prefigured the routines of many workers in the postindustrial economy. Acedia’s sufferers were engaged in solitary, sedentary, cerebral effort toward a clear final goal — but a goal that could be reached only by crossing an open, empty field with few signposts. The empty field is the monk’s day of spiritual contemplation in a cell besieged by the demon acedia — or your afternoon in a coffee shop with tiptop Wi-Fi.

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Obama/Clinton?

Nobel Prize winner and former US Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, makes the case for the "natural" Obama/Clinton ticket in 2012:

Why do I say this? Because Obama needs to stir the passions and enthusiasms of a Democratic base that’s been disillusioned with his cave-ins to regressive Republicans. Hillary Clinton on the ticket can do that.

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The Boundaries of Justice

The overarching concern in the idea of justice is the need to have just relations with others—and even to have appropriate sentiments about others; and what motivates the search is the diagnosis of injustice in ongoing arrangements. In some cases, this might demand the need to change an existing boundary of sovereignty—a concern that motivated Hume’s staunchly anti-colonial position. (He once remarked, “Oh! How I long to see America and the East Indies revolted totally & finally.”) Or it might relate to the Humean recognition that as we expand trade and other relations with foreign countries, our sentiments as well as our reasoning have to take note of the recognition that “the boundaries of justice still grow larger,” without the necessity to place all the people involved in our conception of justice within the confines of one sovereign state.

Amartya Sen, in The National Review, "The Boundaries of Justice."

What Position Will Win the TOC?

First, I just want to give a shout-out to the Mountain Brook tournament in Birmingham. This is the second year I've been, and once again the hospitality and timeliness have been exceptional. Jeff Roberts really goes out of his way to bring good judges to the tournament and put on a good show (and the MB students do a great job keeping things running). If you live in the South and don't make it to this tournament, you're missing out!On to the substance of today's post: what position will win the TOC?

I'll try not to answer my own question (since I'm more interested in others' thoughts), but I will say this: debaters are doing themselves a strategic disservice by running away from the plausibly true positions on this topic. I describe the loss as a "strategic" one, because I'm reasonably certain that no one will be persuaded by pedagogical risks.

The debates that start off on dubious premises (thanks to ridiculous case positions) almost always become side-tracked by theoretical and procedural questions that can rarely be resolved predictably. This is especially true in elimination rounds against strong competitors—the marginal utility of a "non-stock" position is significantly diminished when assured that your opponent will either shift the debate to theory or respond with an even more "outside the box" argument. The race to the bottom of absurdity can quickly become a counterproductive exercise, or one that at best terminates in a coin-flip decision.

While I hesitate to make any predictions, I certainly hope that high-level debates will explore the contextually unique accounts of self-defense that tend to permeate this topic in real-world discussion. I believe that the most researched account of this issue can and should take center stage. Off-the-wall positions may be decisive in prelims and lesser tournaments, but the most consistently and universally successful positions are true ones.

What do you expect to see come out on top?

Three Judging Practices That Need To Stop by Adam Torson

All of these practices are tempting, but a moment’s reflection should suggest to most judges that they are inappropriate.

1. Speaker Point Games

Enough with the paradigms that promise increased speaker points for goofy behavior. You might think it’s hysterical to promise a thirty for bringing you a cookie, saying “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” or dancing a jig, but it’s not. Judging is not about you – the debaters aren’t there for your entertainment.

If it were harmless fun nobody would care, but speaker points matter. They affect who you debate in prelims (especially later in a tournament when brackets are smaller), whether you break, and out-round seeding. On more than one occasion I have seen a speaker point game change who breaks and who doesn’t. It’s not fair, and it should stop.

2. Berating Debaters

A certain amount of irritation at poorly debated rounds is natural, but it’s stunning how often judges go way over the top. Expressing outrage at the state of debate or the obnoxiousness of some particular practice may be cathartic, but it’s hardly constructive. Getting angry and berating debaters is self-indulgent; the oral critique is not about your anger. It is reprehensible to be proud of making a debater cry.

Sometimes anger is appropriate, as when a debater is rude or patently offensive, but this is relatively rare. Yelling at someone because they made an argument you don’t like suggests a dramatic lack of perspective – the kids are learning what a good argument is, people have different views on what a good argument is, and students are coached in different ways. The RFD is not about showing off how smart you are or how much you know about debate. Get over yourself and make your comments constructive. You are not entitled to adjudicate a tournament full of mistake free rounds.

3. Calling Tons of Evidence

Everyone seems to want debaters to be clearer, but many of us engage in a practice that incentivizes exactly the opposite. The debaters’ opportunity to effectively convey the meaning of their evidence is the constructive. Figuring out what evidence means after the round and making it part of the decision calculus is blatant intervention. There are judges who routinely call virtually every argument read in the round and reconstruct their flow on that basis. Give me a break.

I suspect this is mostly motivated by ego – none of us likes to admit that we didn’t understand an argument. But – I feel like a broken record – it’s not about you. It is unfair and pedagogically unsound to vote for arguments you straight up don’t understand – even more so when you are doing things like supplying evidence comparison for the debaters. Have enough courage to admit when you don’t get something, even at the risk of teenagers thinking you’re not as smart as they otherwise would.

Paradigms and Principles: Withholding Advice

This week I would like to discuss the following question:A. Is it appropriate for a judge to withhold advice in post-round critiques so that weaknesses in a debater’s case position or strategy can later be exploited by the judge’s own students?

There are a variety of reasons for us to be uncomfortable with the fact that so much judging is done by people who are simultaneously coaching for the competitors of the students they judge. The consensus, which I think is correct, is that most judges do not purposely make decisions for competitive or political reasons, as this would be unfair and inconsistent with the educational mission of the activity. The concerns are far outweighed by the fact that coaches tend to be the best judges (although this is not always the case), because they spend substantial time thinking about and working on the activity and the topic.

We would all agree that a judge should not pick a winner or assign speaker points based on a motivation to advantage his own students. What about post-round advice? I again presume that giving purposely erroneous advice to secure a competitive advantage would be improper. But what about simply withholding certain comments, e.g. about the weaknesses of a debater’s case position or strategic choices? This question becomes particularly acute in out-rounds, where coaches are very likely to judge debaters who their students are likely to face very soon in a relatively important round.

On the one hand, debate is a competitive activity. It seems unreasonable to ask a coach to disadvantage his own students, particularly when the debater has a coach of his own who should presumptively have the primary responsibility for making him better. Moreover, it seems unfair that a particular team should be disadvantaged just because their coach was randomly selected to judge a challenging opponent. If the norm is to require coaches to give the best advice they possibly can, there is a danger that coaches will remove themselves from the judging pool (more than they already do) to avoid this disadvantage. This problem is particularly pressing where a coach judges a position for which her team has already prepared a strategy; saying “Your case is really susceptible to a counterplan saying X,” can be pretty darn close to saying “when we hit you next round we will be running a counterplan saying X.” Given that oral comments are generally considered optional anyway, isn’t it okay for a judge to leave out commentary that would compromise her team competitively?

On the other hand, students also have relatively little control over what judges they get. It seems unfair that by random chance a student should not get candid and thorough advice just because she is judged by the coach of an opponent. Moreover, it seems like withholding valid advice lets competition trump the underlying educational purpose of the activity. Why not simply refuse to give any oral or written commentary? Coaches often have difficulty finding opportunities to observe their students in actual rounds, and so we are dependent on other people giving good feedback to help our students improve. At camp we disregard the competitive ethic and spend endless hours trying to improve the quality of our competition. The community seems the better for it. But is it okay to selectively disregard this principle?

So, is it okay for judges to withhold a meaningful post-round critique to secure a competitive advantage?

Paradigms and Principles: Ballot Writing

This week I would like to discuss the following question:A. Should judges write comments and/or a reason for decision on the ballot?

Back in the day writing detailed comments and a reason for decision was part and parcel to judging. Today there are many tournaments where almost nobody writes much on the ballot (other than to indicate speaker points and a winner). I would speculate that this is primarily due to the fact that oral critiques are common, and I imagine that ballot writing is still more thorough in places where oral critiques are not common.

This reluctance to write on the ballot may be a good thing. Most judges are able to deliver oral comments in a shorter time than it would take to write them, which in turn may move tournaments along more quickly. Moreover, a fixation on ballots is often problematic. They rarely explain all that they could, and when kids are confused or have questions they have little recourse. The information on a ballot is also difficult to decipher in a number of ways. Judges’ handwriting is notoriously bad, and often a sense of the context of the round is lost shortly after it’s over. Two days later nobody knows what “Conceded third answer to the second contention takes out AC offense, DA is undercovered,” really means in substantive terms, even if we do get a rough sense of the judge’s reasoning. Finally, insofar as ballot writing trades off with oral critique (if for no other reason than that ballot writing is time consuming), many judges feel they are able to offer less substantive advice. Debaters are likely to get a lot more out of oral critiques where they can ask questions, and where judges can see confusion or frustration and tailor their comments appropriately.

On the other hand, ballot writing may be important. While most coaches encourage students to take notes during an oral critique, it is rare that those notes are actually utilized by either coaches or students. With ballots coaches have an opportunity to read what judges have to say unmediated by debaters’ explanations, which are not always accurate. Also, we all know that some judges offer advice that as coaches we wouldn’t want our debaters to follow, or at least to take with a grain of salt. Putting that advice on the ballot makes it easier for a coach to frame the information being transmitted to students. Moreover, RFDs have to be more concrete and systematic when they are written on a ballot. Thinking through an RFD can be surprisingly difficult, particularly for young judges. I definitely believe that having to write down hundreds of RFDs in my early days as a coach and judge made me better at both.

So, should judges write comments and a reason for decision on the ballot?

Robbie Steirn is Florida Blue Key Champion

Cypress Bay High School's Robbie Steirn is the champion of the twenty-eighth annual Florida Blue Key in Lincoln-Douglas Debate. He defeated Stoneman Douglas High School's Natalie Atyeo on a 2-1 decision in the final round to claim the title.