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.

A Summer Debate Calendar by Stephen Babb

Summer might be vacation time for mere mortals, but it's something else entirely for high school debaters.Sure, a little time off might we well-deserved, and it's certainly preferable to burning out half-way through your junior or senior year. But there's plenty of room in the average daily planner to make this off-season count for something.

Here are a few item to pencil in to your to-do lists.

Reading

If you thought the first task was debate camp, you might be making the same mistake most debaters make (more on that later). Whether you plan on spending most of your break traveling the globe or relaxing closer to home, catching up on relevant reading is one of the easiest and productive tasks to take with you.

That doesn't mean researching all of the potential topics for next season (although that's an admirable endeavor). It means digging deeper into the philosophy, political theory and current-event knowledge that make even the smartest debaters still smarter. Maybe it's not the most exciting summer past-time, but it's well worth the improved lexicon and nuanced understanding you'll infuse into your debating.

Camp

Camp isn't an option for every debater, but it's a worthwhile investment whenever possible. Beyond the obvious skill development, each week you can spend at camp is another opportunity to build connections in a like-minded network of great people. Debate camp is sort of like learning a new language through immersion–the intense exposure to key concepts and aptitudes yields long-lasting benefits.

Practice

Almost every debater who's been to summer camp leaves wishing that they had the opportunity to do more practice rounds and get more feedback. In reality, that's almost always a possibility even when you're not at camp, even if it takes a little extra effort and initiative. Reach out to debaters in your community and remember that community can be a virtual entity as well. Without the burden of school assignments as prevalent as it will be in September, take advantage of that extra time to improve technique and stay sharp.

Team

This will mean something different to everyone, and that's OK. Some are already a part of big teams, or at least particularly devoted teams. Others work with smaller or teams or teams with mixed levels of commitment. Still others don't even have that to work with.

The summer can be a perfect opportunity to increase team cooperation, even if that means jump-starting something that has felt somewhat dormant. When else will you have the chance to really build a team, from the ground up or otherwise?

Debaters who find a way to reach out and work with others are almost always in a much better position to succeed, to say nothing of the value associated with teamwork itself.

Write

It's not enough to be an avid reader when so much of your job involves communication. That's a two-way street that requires you to speak, write arguments and articulate those arguments coherently.

There's almost always something of lasting value you could be writing, whether that's a framework story you plan to use on occasion or a set of responses to the newest trend. If you can improve your written argument, you can improve the arguments you make in-round.

A Time for Plans by Stephen Babb

Even those who find themselves skeptical of plan usage in LD should reconsider their positions when a topic like March/April's "targeted killing" comes along.First, there's no unique advantage to broadening the scope of a particular debate on this topic. Anything that can be learned in the abstract about targeted killing can just as easily be learned through concrete examination of a proposed targeted killing.

Conversely, failure to address the specific dimensions of the targeted killings has the potential to create absurd and tangential discussions. Sure, there may be some value to imagining targeted killing as a tool to be used by anyone for virtually any reason, but there's more value to assessing its realistic, short-term applications. There's nothing revolutionary about this kind of prioritization—we encourage students to think through their college plans before taking up questions about their retirement.

If there are indeed broad philosophical or theoretical concerns with the use of targeted killing, then that scrutiny should apply equally to any specific policy (e.g. targeting a particular terrorist, Iranian nuclear scientists, etc.). To the extent broader concerns are irrelevant to these specific policies, all the more reason to save them for another day. Therein lies the double-bind for those insisting on a "whole-res" approach: the topic literature at risk is either so significant that it remains germane to a plan debate or it is insignificant enough to justify transcending the scope of the plan.

Aside from the benefits to students, a plan-based debate just makes sense in this case.

Targeted killing may be widely used within the parameters of certain national security threats, but it is still practiced on a case-by-case basis. It may be a systemic operation, but recourse to targeted killing in any given instance is still subject to separate cost-benefit analyses. Rather than resting upon the vacuous assertion that targeted killing is merely a " tool in the toolbox," a plan gives the 1AC both strategic ground and commensurate responsibility. When the 1N runs a disadvantage, the 1AR can't shift ground and say, "Well, targeted killing wouldn't be used in that instance."

A plan requires the 1AR to defend something. Assuming that something is of reasonable broad scope, then there should still be excellent negative ground.

Note that this probably means defending more than a lone targeted killing. It should defend a policy that reflects a category of scenarios in which targeted killing is justified. In this case, the 1N can describe disadvantages, and it can reject the identifiable logic of the policy. This is also consistent with empirical implementation—targeted killings aren't entirely one-off events. They're justified as components of a policy, not as isolated and exceptional circumstances.

The idea that a plan circumvents the foundational tenets of LD is also troublesome. There's absolutely no reason a plan debate can't incorporate important philosophical premises: the legitimacy of anticipatory self-defense, the use of realist foreign policy, the dominance of Western interests, etc.

To be clear, these aren't just reasons it would be permissible for 1ACs to run plans—they're reasons they actually should.

It isn't an accident this topic was written and selected at this particular juncture in history. Our debates should reflect that.

Where I'd Like to See CX Go by Stephen Babb

Perhaps more than any other speech, cross-examination represents LD debate's unique opportunity to have a truly discursive experience. With rapid speech frequently eroding the communicative dimensions of the 1NR or 1AR, CX gives debaters a chance to slow down the conversation and seriously engage one other's positions.Unfortunately, the fact that CX isn't comprised of recorded arguments as such often leads debater and judge alike to assign the speech diminished importance. Debaters rarely seem to care about the results of the exchange and their judges follow suit.

Here are five recommendations for making this speech time worthwhile—not even the most efficient debaters can afford to do otherwise.

1. Pick Up the Pace.

The backwards attitudes sometimes adopted during CX are well-illustrated by the degree to which some debaters enter the speech so listlessly. At the very moment a dominant debater ratchets up the intensity and asserts something just short of bravado, others are content to meander through the speech with neither urgency nor direction.

This is a huge mistake. Beyond the perceptual costs, this tendency is almost always accompanied by a blatant misuse of time. The temptation to dwell on a shortlist of issues or belabor a point in the extreme sidetracks debaters who are otherwise technically proficient. While the best cross-examination may remain conversational and pleasant, it shouldn't become lackadaisical. Every position presents countless opportunities for scrutiny, and an aggressive debater will get to as many as possible.

2. Don't Forget the Judge.

You may find the admonition to "face your judge" insulting at this point in your debate career, a novice marching order on par with having "sub-points" in your contentions. But, try not to think of these as bureaucratic stage directions—the point is to acknowledge your judge and hold his or her attention. It's just too easy for judges to lose focus and let their minds wonder back to real life, hunger pangs or chronic sleep deprivation.

It's similarly important to use cross-examination as on opportunity to highlight important issues a judge may have missed amidst a hastily-read position or breakneck line-by-line. Beyond bringing attention to your best evidence and strategic advantages, you should bring even more attention to the inadequacy of your opponents' arguments. When those arguments make little sense or rely upon incomplete evidence and analysis, be prepared to take your judge through a tour of the shortcomings.

3. Don't Forget Your Opponent.

While it may be advantageous to think of your own position as an independent, depersonalized source of objective reason, you should make every attempt to put your opponents directly on the spot rather than treating their positions as gospel. Some approach cross-examination with an unquestioning passivity, treating an opponent's arguments with a regard they should rarely be afforded.

This trend is also exemplified by the antiseptic review of the flow in which cross-examiners sometimes prefer to engage. The disappointing scene can resemble a shopper tediously reciting a grocery list, but boring-factor notwithstanding, this is hardly the way to put pressure on an opponents. They should know what their cases say, and they're probably more than happy to spend your time discussing them—the more difficult answers require questions that either (a) step outside the text of a position or (b) juxtapose that text with important objections.

 4. Be Cautious With Flex-Prep.

Flex-Prep can become dangerous in at least two ways. First, if you spend any significant chunk of your allotted three minutes on preparation rather than cross-examination, you run the real risk of alienating judges who prefer three solid minutes of interaction. Many judges suspect that if the event were designed to allow additional prep-time, the speech times would reflect as much. CX has a designated purpose, and we should probably honor that purpose, just as we would frown up the backend of a 1AC being devoted to quiet preparation.

Second, even when debaters attempt to combine questions and preparation with the best of intentions, the preparation always has a way of encroaching on the actual time allocated for questions. Opponents—in turn—may also use that time to prepare and escape from a vulnerable position of accountability unscathed.

5. Don't Get Bullied.

Some debaters are seemingly over after CX, namely the debates in which a debater of higher "esteem" completely dictates the conversation. Whether asking or answering questions, it's important to dictate the terms of cross-examination. When a question pushes you in a direction of weakness, problematize the relevance or accuracy of your opponents' implicit assertions. At the very least, demonstrate that you have a better understanding of the issues at hand and wait to sort the arguments out in your next speech. There is an unmistakable pressure to respond right away and sometimes say something you may later regret. Give yourself time, and rely on some polite showboating in the process—nothing makes an opponent questions instincts like a promise to read exceptional evidence on a question in the next speech.

There's a difference between being evasive and being reasonable. Evasion is a sign of debater in trouble, but insisting that we focus on the right questions is a sign of control. And, at its most fundamental level, cross-examination is all about control and one's decision to seize it or abdicate it altogether.

Thoughts on Necessary But Insufficient Burdens in LD by Ryan Lawrence

The term “necessary but insufficient” has become vilified in the LD community as of late. While for the past couple of years there has been a growing swell of resistance to “NIBs” and theory arguments have always been levied against them, this year seems to have marked the conclusion of the NIBs debate. It seems as if this has become a settled issue, among the first in LD, and the NIB is dead. Since we have so few settled issues in the LD community I am hesitant to rock the boat; it is quite important that we settle theoretical issues in order to promote better, more substantive debates. However, I feel that the discussion surround NIBs has been mostly relegated to brief in-round theory debates and much has gone unsaid about them. The necessary but insufficient burden is far too vague of a concept to be monolithically categorized as “unfair” and has a relevant role in modern day LD debate.

To begin, we seem to be having difficulty pinning down exactly what constitutes a necessary but insufficient burden. I have witnessed debaters indict arguments on pretty much all levels of the debate as constituting a NIB: theory, framework, standards, and “substance.” The fact that we have been using one label for all necessary but insufficient arguments and in-round theory interpretation to indict them has short-circuited the ability to have a genuine discussion about the issue.

Theory functions as a necessary but insufficient argument presuming that it is not a reverse voting issue. It is no surprise then that the arguments made in favor of RVIs are often indistinguishable from those made against other necessary, but insufficient arguments (time/strategy skew arguments primarily). However, there are compelling justifications that legitimize the unidirectional nature of theory that would not equally apply to other NIBs (here think about most of the answers to RVIs that you have heard in rounds).  To avoid rehashing the RVI debate, I will simply note that I believe that theory ought to be unidirectional and serves as an example of a legitimate NIB.

On the subject of theory qua NIB, I have witnessed some debaters (one of mine included) argue that running theory against NIBs is contradictory because theory is a NIB too. While this seems to be an intuitive argument on face, it suffers from a number of problems. Most importantly, it conflates different types of necessary but insufficient arguments and presumes that the same advantages and disadvantages apply to each. Theory is fundamentally different from other aspects of the debate so its status as necessary but insufficient has different ramifications for the round than other NIBs do. While it may share some disadvantages with all other NIBs it is not necessarily equally bad, if bad at all. However, if the interpretation on theory is generic to all NIBs then it technically violates as well. For this reason, debaters running theory against NIBs should be more precise and specify what type of necessary but insufficient arguments are permissible and which are impermissible.

Arguments that function as necessary but insufficient on the “substantive” layer of the debate are the next type, and next in line in terms of their presumed legitimacy. A substantive NIB is one that must be met in order to         successfully achieve the conditions that the standard sets forth. A helpful example here would be a self-defense standard on the January/February 2012 topic. A debater may argue that to prove a justified case of self-defense, the typical legal criteria (proportionality, imminence, etc.) must be met. This constitutes a “substantive NIB” because it does not present an alternative burden structure that the affirmative must meet in addition to their own standard, but instead qualifies or re-defines the existing standard in the round. I will identify three reasons why this is an acceptable form of argumentation. These three arguments are not meant to be exhaustive, but merely representative of the myriad of reasons why these types of arguments should be okay.  First, to throw out substantive NIBs would involve throwing out a number of arguments that we intuitively know are valid. Solvency is a NIB because you do not get to win just because you prove solvency, but you don’t get to access your offense without it. Empirics may function as a NIB, as you may require them to legitimately prove an argument but do not win the round for presenting empirics. The list goes on.  Virtually any argument can be linguistically meddled with in order to make it sound like a NIB. A model of debate that throws out substantive NIBs has no way to filter out the “good” from the “bad” and as such is too simple a theory to be valuable for debates. Second, these arguments do not create a significant skew against the debater answering them. The time it takes for the debate to be developed on either side is roughly equal (both argue for and against the existence of the burden and for and against whether it has been met.) In the circumstance in which the debater establishing the burden is doing very little work in proving it, judges should consider it to be poorly justified and it should be easy to beat. In his recent article on NIBs on the January/February topic, Stephen Babb appealed to this same sort of judicial skepticism and I agree with his assessment. Third, these arguments provide nuance and content to debates that would otherwise be missing. If the affirmative presents as their standard an emaciated, inadequate theory of self-defense, negatives should not be forced to let them get away with it in the name of reciprocity. To do so a step in the direction of “lowest common denominator” debating where we make things as simple and unsophisticated as possible in the name of fairness.

Arguments that set up necessary but insufficient burdens on the framework level are the true culprits, but are not inherently problematic as arguments, only problematic as far as their function is concerned. Both debaters ought to either a) accept their opponent’s sufficient framework, or b) present a sufficient framework of their own. The fairness issues involved are clearly more relevant here since one debater would not be able to access the ballot under the standard at all, but are not the decisive matter. To me at least, framework NIBs fail because of their illogical nature, not because of their alleged lack of reciprocity. Just about all arguments appeal to a sufficient standard of some form, whether that standard is stated by the debater explicitly or not. This most often takes the form of a normative theory of everything – consequentialism, deontology, contractualism, etc. – that seek to be a sufficient proof of our ethical obligations. In the event that these do not apply, some other concept should be appealed to by the NIB if it is warranted at all. Debaters should be able to bypass the NIB entirely and link offense back to that higher standard and weigh versus the violation of the NIB. In other words, the NIB is not actually the burden/standard at all!

This layer conflation is possibly the root cause of the confusion I identified at the outset. If we can linguistically meddle with our arguments or restructure cases in order to make arguments appear to function in ways in which they do not, then what is a NIB one day is not a NIB the next. In the event that arguments are structured or articulated poorly to the point that their function becomes confused, the sufficient response should be to identify and rectify the error in-round. It does not seem to me that it is necessary to run and win on theory if a debate has a substantive NIB that has been misinterpreted as a true NIB; just point out that it isn’t really the standard and appeal to the real standard. Note that this is better than “artificial sufficiency” in that it allows debaters to outweigh the original “burden” instead of just meeting it to win.

In conclusion, I believe that I have identified a more appropriate model of burdens in LD that sufficiently protect debaters’ strategic options while not gutting the content of rounds. The affirmative must present a sufficient standard (the burden) for the debate. The negative may either present a competing, but also equally sufficient, burden for the debate, and/or choose to debate under the affirmative burden. In the event that a burden is misarticulated as insufficient, the true sufficient burden that functions as its justification should be sought out and used instead (or rejected for not being warranted properly.) Let’s stop using the term “burden” as a placeholder for “thing you have to do in the debate” and maintain its precise usage as the winning condition for the substantive debate. Let’s stop using the term “NIB” to apply to everything that is potentially a barrier to an extension of AC offense mattering. And finally, let’s stop the culture of fear where debaters need to be worried if their substantive arguments are going to be arbitrarily deemed unfair or not.

Some Notes about Critiques in LD by Scott Phillips

Like many concepts that have filtered over to LD from policy, many concepts about critiques seem to have suffered from the game of telephone that got them there. I want to address three specifically that have been grinding my gears while judging and coaching this year.1.Kritik impacts and "fiat". Fiat refers to a debate practice where we imagine the affirmative's change is implemented and ignore the likelihood that it would be implemented. It is extremely unlikely that the current congress would approve spending trillions of dollars on asteroid mining, so in policy debate on this year's topic the affirmative gets to ignore the "would they" question in order to focus on the "should they". In a policy debate where an affirmative says we should explore space or mankind would go extinct, and the negative objects to the gender exclusive language the affirmative used (mankind) negative debaters ran into a problem- the impact of human extinction dwarfed the impact of using hurtful language. In order to get around this the negative came up with a variety of tricks that have been bundled together under the banner "pre-fiat". The term pre-fiat is used as a catch all to refer to impacts that occur to the people in the actual debate, not hypothetical people in a world where the affirmative plan was implemented. When the affirmative doesn't have a plan it should be self evident that the language of pre-fiat is useless even if the concept still is. If the affirmative has no plan then what is the negative trying to accomplish by making their impact a "real world" one- since there is no "fake world" impact to compare it to who cares? Pre-fiat is what I would call a "trick"- its an unevidenced theory argument about what the debate is about- "ignore the aff, not real". In order to respond the aff would have to make a theory argument about what the debate should be about. I think most would agree the last thing LD needs is more theory. Instead , a superior way to get at the same concept (some impacts are more important than others) would be to read evidence making a philosophical or logical case for WHY those impacts are more important instead of using theory to try and exclude the other teams impacts.

As an example, the best K debate I have seen in LD this year has been carried out by various disciples of Theis who read a critique of the social contract. In these debates the affirmatives were all very similar in arguing:

-the social contract is the basis of morality-domestic violence violates the social contract-therefore self defense is morally permissible

These cases did not advance an "impact" claim as it is traditionally understood- i.e. they did not say that using the social contract stops war, or even that viewing self defense as acceptable would deter domestic violence. When reading their critique the negative debaters read evidence about the role of academics vis a vis academic colonialism. This evidence basically framed the role of the ballot as being about resisting dominant schools of thought that have been influenced by/formed by racist assumptions about the world. Many people when discussing this K with me after I voted on it like 50 times would say something like "lol hobbs is a racist is a vi?". That is not what is being argued however- that characterization is more equivalent with the cheap shot theory description above- someone did something bad, real world, vi. What the neg was saying here was about how the systems of enlightenment thought the affirmative relied on themselves relied on several racist/imperialist assumptions about the world- and since these assumptions were false the conclusions enlightenment thinkers drew from them are most likely also false- BUT even if they are not false academics should err against using them/err towards resisting colonialism. Using evidence to create a role of the ballot argument in this way is not only less cheap shotty, but also much harder for the affirmative to answer.

This could be its own post but I will address this quickly If you say normatively X is good, the other team cannot respond to that with a theory argument. So if you say "it would be good if debate resisted colonialism" you have not imposed anything on the other team. At its base, theory comes from imposing things- you impose a nib/T interpretation etc. This is why many theory arguments that object to normative statements are stupid- if the normative statement is bad you can refute it, not object that it is unfair. So saying debate SHOULD be about resisting colonialism is different from saying debate IS about that- the later is open to theory objections because you have tried to bypass the debate about desireability by imposing your version of the round.

2. The alternative- as the name suggests this part of a critique is something the negative traditionally offers as a different way of addressing the problem identified by the affirmative. If the affirmative says "we should send troops to Sudan to stop genocide" the neg might say we should intervene nonviolently. In this example the aff has advocated a specific policy action, and the neg responded with an alternative policy action. In most instances the neg will not be so direct, instead of reading a "cp esque" alternative they will propose something more abstract. The classic example of this is the global/local distinction- the negative would argue the affirmative focuses on global problems that we as debaters have no ability to address directly and that fixating on these global problems causes us to ignore real world issues all around us that we do have the power to address. Instead of discussing what the government should do about war we should discuss how we individually contribute to global violence and how we can reduce that committment- instead of thinking about humanitarian intervention in Africa reduce our consumption of luxury goods that contribute to the outbreak of conflict (oil, blood diamonds etc).

This all makes a certain amount of sense in policy- the affirmative is advocating a government action, and the critique is usually objecting in some way to looking at the government as an important (if not the most important) source of change.

In LD this train goes off the tracks because the aff is rarely defending anything so concrete, yet judges expect the negative to have some kind of alternative. Requiring the neg to have an alternative begs the question "alternative to what", if the affirmative is not defending anything other than abstract notions what are judges requiring the negative to provide an alternative for? To give an example our squad has run into problems with this year let's look at the critique of the word victim. The negative argues use of the term victim is bad because it reduces peoples identity to actions taken by another person denying their agency. So to boil this down

"Calling X a victim produces bad consequence Y"

Many judges after the round have said they thought the negative needed an "alternative" that "solved". This raises two questions- alternative to what? and solve what?

If the "no alternative" argument is "you need a different word to call them" this should only be a winning argument if:

"Impact of not having a word > impact of calling them a victim"

I.E. the question of the alternative has to be a weighing question- not a "burden" question. Having an alternative is only necessary for the negative if it helps them outweigh the affirmatives impact. When the affirmative doesn't have a pan or read policy advantages, the question becomes what exactly is the negative supposed to be outweighing? Very few affirmatives on this topic read an advantage and advance a solvency claim, so why is the negative expected to make a solvency claim?

3. I like philosophy but I don't like critiques.... wat? A decade ago when people discussed kritiks in policy the aff would respond by going "lol wrong forum go do LD". Now in modern LD with the silly focus on meta ethics somehow critical literature has become passe. "your card about colonialism being bad doesn't explain WHY colonialism is bad it just says death occurs not death is bad" etc. Many debates become a race to see who can point out the most skeptical objection to the other side by one upping them with which way "nothing is provable/normatively desirable" causes the judge to vote. This trend is really dumb in the abstract, but it is also a really dumb way to disprove/answer critiques. The reason is simple- the problem critiques have is that they are too skeptical- they deny too much of what people really believe about the world. Hence when a policy team debates a K they will deride postmodernism for being ivory tower "theory" that has no relation to doing stuff -"practice". These are the best answers to postmodern critiques somewhat because they are true but more so because that is the evidence people write to answer postmodernism.

When you read a meta ethics aff you can't really make these arguments because you don't do any concrete practice. This means you can easily be out radicaled by a pomo K. It would go something like this

Aff: "Self defense is always permissible because no self can never rationally will non existence of the self"

Neg: There is no self (holism, schlaag, foucault)

There are lots of great answers to K's of the subject, unfortunately given the position the aff staked out in the AC they can't make any of them (i.e. pragmatism).

How does this all come together? Many LD debaters and even more LD judges have commented/written in their philosophies over the course of the year that they dislike pomo style k's but enjoy "philosophy" or meta ethics. This is a totally arbitrary and self serving distinction. You are basically saying " I really enjoy hegemony debates but I don't like when the other team reads heg bad"- how can you say you enjoy 1 branch of philosophy but not the other branches critical of it? More importantly it locks LD debate into a dying branch of the university- metaethics- totally arbitrarily(just search metaethics and turtles all the way down). Metaethics is like broccoli- it is probably good for you and should be eaten from time to time. But no one wants to eat it every meal. It's a side item. But once you throw out the convention that its a side item and make it the main course you can't have a logical reason for excluding the other sides.

Judge Fatigue by Chris Theis

This weekend at Harvard between the round robin and the tournament I judged a total of 23 debates. I did not have a round off until the semi finals. By the end I was exhausted mentally and physically. I bring this up not to complain, though it was terrible, but rather to bring up a dynamic that I believe is under-appreciated by tournament directors and debaters alike.

Judging rounds can be mentally taxing, especially in more competitive, high-powered debates, i.e. the most important ones.  Over the course of a tournament the judging takes its toll, particular taking into account that most judges do not maintain a healthy lifestyle over the course of the tournament.  As a result my ability to effectively evaluate arguments in quarters was nowhere near my ability to do so round one (luckily those late rounds were not very difficult to resolve). I was not alone. Three times in outrounds alone I heard other judges tell warn debaters of their fatigue before the round, or preface their RFD with that information. Also, we have all heard anecdotes about judges falling asleep during prep, or even worse, during speeches.   This is clearly problematic in certain respects.  When fatigued a judge is more likely to misunderstand, misinterpret, or simply miss, arguments. As the tournament drags on and the stakes go up, judging gets worse and bad decisions become more likely.

I think there are a couple of things worth discussing about this.

First, is there anything that tournaments can do to lessen the extent of the problem? Off the top of my head there are a couple of workable solutions:

a. Tournaments could mandate the number of rounds a single judge could be obligated for. For example, if a team needed to cover 6 rounds the tournament could require that two different judges take those rounds. Tournaments would not have to change the number of rounds required per debater just the maximum amount that could be judged by a single person. This would ensure that every judge had a least a few rounds of rest over the course of a tournament and that there would be more judges obligated to cover elimination debates, meaning all else being equal a single judge fewer of those debates.  The obvious issue here is that it would require teams and tournaments to supply more judges. Given that so many teams have trouble finding qualified judges already, this could be a serious problem. Also, the quality of those additional judges is almost certainly going to be worse than the judges they are replacing. Would you rather have a rested B or an exhausted A? I think there is a fair debate to be had on that point. This bug could be somewhat mitigated by trying to give the most highly preferred judges more rounds off earlier in the tournament to ensure they are rested and able to judge more critical debates.

b. Tournaments could more equitably distribute judging assignments. At every tournament there are judges who judge nearly every debate on hand, and on the other hand there are judges who go almost entirely unused because they are not as preferred. Indeed, some teams even take advantage of this fact by purposely bring judges who will not be preferred so that they can cover their obligation while not having to actually give up coaching time to judge.  If tournaments were more willing to use less preferred judges in more circumstances the judges that are normally worked to death would be able to get a least a few rounds off. Again, the problem with this solution is that there is a trade off with judge quality.  The quality problem can be dealt with by packing those judges into meaningless rounds. This is already done at most tournaments to varying degrees. However, at every tournament there are preferred judges judging debates that do not matter, like Sam Duby’s annual 0-4 double 30 showcase at Greenhill. Tournaments know that some of the judges in those meaningless rounds will have students who break so they will be obligated later on, why not replace them with the judge who will not fit anywhere else?

The second thing that should be discussed is if they are aware of the problem what debaters can do to deal with it. Judge fatigue is something that debaters seem to be absolutely oblivious to. Below are a couple of tips to make life easier for your exhausted judge and raise your chances of winning their ballot:

a. Watch the judge. Are they alert and engaged or do they look like all they want in the world is to crawl back to their hotel room and sleep?  Does is look they did not get much sleep or perhaps had a few too many drinks the night before? Take note. The first step in finding a solution is recognizing that there is a problem. If there is a problem do not stop watching the judge. Make sure they are following you. If they look confused, stop and explain. If they look lost, give them more sign posting or time to catch up.

b. Simplify. Instead of going for 6 off or making 12 responses to the standard, how about going for 1 off and making 3 more developed responses?  A tired is less able to sort through an overload of arguments particularly when there are complicated interactions occurring. If you provide a simpler, easier to understand story it is more likely that the judge will be able to construct a coherent ballot story for you. The more complicated the round becomes, the more random the decision of a fatigued judge becomes. Randomness is the enemy of the good debater.

c. Slow down. Fatigue decreases reaction time meaning a judge who is tired will flow and comprehend arguments more slowly than a fully rested judge. If you absolutely must maintain your breakneck pace, then at the very least, make sure that your arguments do not come in rapid-fire succession. A tired judge will not flow or understand blips delivered at full speed, so make arguments longer and increase the time you pause between arguments.

d. Tell a story. I know what you’re thinking. What is this? 1992? Nope this is still important. Debate is a game of persuasion; judges are simply persuaded by different things. While a dynamic speaker compels some judges, others enjoy a substantive or novel argument. However, no matter who they are judges need to be able to explain to themselves why it is they are voting before they make a decision. So over-explain, give status updates and crystallize. I know its not the cool thing to do but the tired judge is a lazy judge, so make sure the reason to vote for you is clearer, even if it is not better than your opponents reasons.

So, what do you think? Is this just the ravings of an exhausted judge? Or is this a real problem? If there is a problem what should tournaments and debaters do to deal with it?

The Necessary but Insufficient Burdens of Self-Defense by Stephen Babb

The debate world's head is exploding at the proposition of Affirmative debaters having to demonstrate that repeated domestic abuse meets the multiple conditions for qualification as "self-defense." For deadly force to be justified as self-defense, the conventional logic is that certain requirements must be met, namely: the threat must be imminent, and deadly force (as opposed to less deadly alternatives) must be necessary for someone to prevent serious harm from being inflicted. Proportionality may also be considered a requirement insofar as it wouldn't be acceptable to use deadly force to stop a minor affront or injury.

In the most technical sense, a 1NC that requires the 1AC to demonstrate how repeated domestic abuse is consistent with these requirements is indeed holding the AC to multiple necessary but insufficient burdens. This should say more about our impoverished burdens theory than it does the "abusiveness" of the NC strategy.

After all, in many instances, the 1AC is advancing self-defense as a justification. The 1NC is no more responsible for the constituent requirements of such an argument than is logic. If the 1AC tacitly accepts a multitude of burdens by running a position with several moving parts, then so be it. Whether or not that's strategic is another question. On this topic, self-defense is a compelling position, so it's actually somewhat reasonable for its positional value to trade-off with an "un-strategic" adoption of multiple burdens. Either way, though, this was the 1AC's choice. With even a cursory examination of the literature discussing the multiple requirements of self-defense justifications, any AFF debater should be abundantly prepared to engage multiple arguments on multiple fronts.

There are several additional reasons why the 1NC should be entitled to exploit multiple burdens (i.e. imminence, necessity, proportionality).

First, the 1AC has chosen to adopt ground that is extremely difficult to refute on any foundational or ethical level. The vast majority of normative frameworks accept the inviolability of self-defense. If we don't allow 1NCs to challenge the application of these normative principles to actual events, then we're far more likely to see debates that are horrible for 1ACs strategically and fundamentally side-step topic literature. Would affirmative debaters really prefer that 1NCs make ludicrous philosophical pleas, arguing that self-defense is ethically baseless? Would they prefer for 1NCs to argue that self-defense is a construct of Westernized, "racist" logocentrism? Are these better debates for the 1AR? It seems much easier to just be ready to go on front-lines for for imminence, et al.

Second, we shouldn't be treating "burdens" as all-or-nothing premises. This has more to do with the viral skepticism infecting our community of judges, but debaters should be the first ones to take a stand. If a round ends and the judge believes the AFF ultimately did a better job than the NEG on the imminence debate, the judge should probably give that thread of the debate to the AFF. Of course, every judge will have his or her own thresholds (and that's fine), but there's really no world in which the AFF should be expected to meet (or "prove") a burden 100%, whatever that would even mean. In a world where the 1NC has highlighted multiple burdens, perhaps the appropriate solution is for debaters to seek (and for judges to grant) leeway in their thresholds for each burden. In other words, if the 1NC makes the debate about imminence exclusively, the 1AR should be expected to do a very good job on the imminence debate. If, however, the 1NC deploys three distinct burdens, then judges should hold the 1AR to lesser thresholds for each independent burden. This is probably somewhat inevitable in a world where the 1NC's arguments are fragmented and less developed than they would be in a world where they focused entirely on imminence.

Third, the problem with necessary but insufficient burdens really has less to do with some fictive approximation of reciprocity and more to do with its concrete effects on the 1AR's strategy. We should be concerned about 1NC tactics that render large portions of the 1AC irrelevant. That's the real threat to AFF ballots. It may come in the form of multiple burdens, framework games, skepticism or any other manner of shenanigans—we should be less concerned with the contours of the NEG strategy, and more concerned with its functional effect on the 1AR. In the instance of self-defense positions, there may be multiple burdens, but they're positional in nature. The 1AR should be able to extend arguments from case that speak to the issue, and if they can't, that probably indicates a major problem with the 1AC. I've seen 1ACs run evidence that speaks to imminence and necessity alike. If one piece of evidence can be successfully leveraged against a supposed whirlwind of impossible burdens, AFF debaters really don't have much to worry about.

If the opening "spikes" of the average 1AC are any indication, it's hard for AFF debaters to win rounds these days. As a judge, apparently I'm supposed to do everything at my disposal to help these victims of circumstance (default AFF, accept AFF interpretations, roll out a red carpet, etc.). I've always been willing to help Affirmative debaters, but only when they help themselves.

The decision to abandon the 1AC to restart the debate in the 1AR is, in my opinion, advisable only in the most dire of circumstances. With the consistent and woeful failure of most 1NCs to actually engage and respond to the AC, I can't understand the insistence of 1ARs to abandon their six-minute cases and run disingenuous NIBs shells. If those cases had a shred of well-developed, offensive evidence... the 1AR might be in a better position to actually debate. As long as 1ACs are stacked with defensive preempts and esoteric frameworks, I guess I can't blame a debater from wanting to start over. A 1AC that doesn't really want to affirm is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When debaters sign up for this activity, I think they should be prepared to defend both sides of the topic. And, I don't think that obligation stops in the 1AR. If theory in the 1AR isn't grounded by an egregious violation, judges should be calling these routines out. Force AFF debaters to actually debate—it might just be good for them in the long term. The whining has been going on for years, and it's never demonstrated a consistent benefit to AFF wining percentages. This NIBs fad is only the latest in a line of grievances that lazy debaters have when informed they actually have to beat someone's argument. There's a time and a place for it to be sure, but the self-defense debate isn't it.

Ranking Educational Objectives by Stephen Babb

Even some of the best theory debates are plagued by shallow and unimaginative discussions of education. Buzzwords like "depth" and "scope" are tossed about in mindless recitation while the judge wonders why they should even be flowing the same debate they've watched dozens of time before. Our debates about debate can be painfully superficial, and no more so than when invoking the weighty value of "education."

The irony is deafening.

If there's anything sincere about these debates, we should at least be committed to having a robust discussion when time limits aren't constraining us. To that end, I'd like to advance a discussion of the "internal link" to education.

Traditionally, Lincoln-Douglas "value" debate was intended as a laboratory for persuasion and communication. As these discursive virtues have given way to rapid delivery and sharing cases via jump drive, it's sometimes hard to understand why we even have these debates in person anymore (perhaps our typing skills would benefit from an online competition?). And, imagine the cost-savings to debating from home.

Today, pedagogical goals on the national circuit are said to include quick analytical thinking, research skills, and deepened familiarity with topics.

I will certainly vouch for the importance of research skills. If today's debate rounds actually reflected an investment in research, I'd happily encourage debaters to read as much evidence as possible.

Unfortunately, that's not what happens. Fragments of evidence are read in rapid sequence with little to no analysis. Evidence itself is rarely engaged with any scrutiny or counter-evidence. The spectacle is pure mockery of evidence-based debate.

To be sure, debaters are becoming well-trained in rapid critical thinking, but whatever's gained by the increasingly intricate tactics is unquestionably trading off with sophisticated strategic planning. These kinds of skills might be valuable if debaters plan to be working under incredibly short time constraints their whole lives, but I suspect most could benefit from exercising more strategic judgment. I've watched countless debaters inject theory into a debate for short-term tactical games only to find themselves in a risky quagmire two speeches later.

Most of the average debater's thinking goes into what kind of irrelevant off-case position they can use to derail the debate. The few debaters who've committed themselves to reading thorough and responsive evidence against a 1AC have found consistent and superlative success. The schizophrenic side-shows typifying most 1NCs are as good for my brain as Happy Hour.

I'm also saddened by the loss of the topic. After the 1AC, I'd be shocked if half the rounds I've watched this year had anything to do with the topic. That's ridiculous.

In the few debates that don't spiral into theoretical self-gratification, 90% of the dialogue has either to do with tangential philosophical non-sense or absurd and un-researched armchair speculation.

A genuine re-commitment to sound pedagogical principles should begin with a few premises:

First, if clarity is so profoundly ignored that a judge must re-read a debater's entire position, then we are wasting money to attend tournaments. Have the events online and make them more accessible to disadvantaged communities. If we're going to pay ridiculous sums of money to fly half-way across he country and let opponents read our cases from their own computers, we might as well be burning piles of money every weekend too. Here's something most debaters already know but should probably also care about: People have to communicate in life. You can't "flash" them everything you're too lazy to say clearly.

Second, we need to start debating the topic. It's actually depressing to listen to people make spurious claims about topicality while they actively destroy any ability whatsoever to debate the topic. Unless the violation is very serious, just don't.

Third, when theoretical discussions of education do emerge, our arguments need to be genuine. You know that "depth" isn't so valuable that you should be able to run a plan about cavity-searches on the 2011 Jan-Feb topic. You know "breadth" isn't a reason you can ignore the text of the topic. And, you know that debating the meaning of the term "deliberate" is a lot less educational that debating whether or not victims of domestic violence should be able to kill their abusers.

If you know that what you're doing is quite possibly wrong, definitely annoying, and true in only the most imaginative sense, then don't do it. Debaters act surprised when judges vote against them for making ridiculous arguments. Judges should be discouraging nihilism at every turn. They're the last line of defense for incentivizing sound debate.

This isn't Boggle!

Debate is not just a game. It may be a game, but it's also a unique opportunity to do something very few people ever get a chance to do. We should be better stewards of that opportunity and make our arguments count for something. That begins with an honest discussion about what that "something" is... what we should be trying to learn from our debates, and what we should be trying to teach.

At the very least: The next time you find yourself telling your judge why you 'control the internal link to education,' first decide if you actually mean it.