LD and the Search for Truth
While at Nationals in Student Congress my senior year, I became embroiled in an increasingly intense argument about one of the bills during a break in the sessions. Since we were in the lobby of a hotel, my opponent and I began to attract attention, not only from other congresspeople but from guests and, ultimately, the hotel manager. Thankfully, he was exceptionally gracious and only wanted to give his input into our conversation (on my side, by the way).
We quickly reached the all too common point of impasse at which it becomes clear neither party will persuade the other. My protestations notwithstanding, I would do well to just believe her, I was informed. The reason? “I’m an LDer,” she explained. “I know about matters of philosophy.”
Little did my opponent know that I, too, had debated for four years. I, too, had the power of the idiosyncratic, unnecessarily stylized debate vernacular, a command of terms like “value,” “criterion, and “warrant,” and, perhaps most impressively, the remarkable ability to flow in two colors of ink. I, too, had composed sentences such as “my opponent concedes that at the point that she drops my claim that her internal link turn to my contention 2 has no warrant, it’s game over because I get full weight of the Dworkin implications which swamps any opposing possible impact scenario.”
Debate can be dangerous. While I believe that few debaters expressly think their debate-person status alone somehow endows them with a mysteriously superior analytical ability, its intellectual hazards are real. “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing….”
For the record, I think debate is a wonderful activity. I think that it makes us more modest about what we can say, more inclined to say it clearly, and less likely to discount the possibility of refutation with its attendant need for introspection and change. In short, debate makes us smarter.
But it is not perfect. Debate provides a system for making sense of arguments, which can be baneful when the system doesn’t correspond to anything. That is, if we are making up a way of evaluating arguments and then willing ourselves into believing that anyone who does things differently must in some way be “wrong,” we are making what I think is a profoundly serious mistake.
Thus, it is very important that we are confident that what we teach about how to debate has a compelling rationale behind it. The way we consider arguments must not only be clear, but non-arbitrary as well. The words “value” and “criterion” are at the heart of the way Lincoln-Douglas debate is taught and conducted. My purpose is to consider how we use these particular terms and offer suggestions in how we might think more precisely about them.
Valueless Valuing
Although diversity has a habit of creeping into any homogenous system, most LD cases are still built around a value, a criterion, and a set of contentions. A classic statement of their relationship is that the contentions give impacts to the value through the criterion. This may not be hopelessly vague, but it doesn’t exactly illuminating either.
In LD, the value (or “value premise,” if one wishes to be ornate) is typically some sort of generally desirable condition encapsulated in one or maybe two words. Philosophically, the noun “value” is used occasionally by scholars, sometimes to represent something the existence of which is in all cases preferred to its non-existence. In debate, the value often appears as an end state toward which we spend the round groping. “I achieve my value! (and/or my opponent’s value),” I often hear debaters say. If I were to represent the archetypal LD round metaphorically, I might call it “The Race for the Value.” Put differently, the value appears like a large pie we spend the round trying to decide how to divide. We hope our cases and observations will show we “get more” of the value than our opponent.
One thing we know about values is there are lots of them. Liberty, Education, Self-Actualization (?), Knowledge, Safety, Equality, etc. The most common might be variants of Justice and Morality. I have never heard Love, Nice Things, or “Our Judge’s Ballot” used as a value premise, but I should very much like to, because these would make just as much sense as the others would (only with more amusement). For instance, has anyone ever heard a philosophical paper on “why morality is better than justice” or the reverse? Can we even conceive of real philosophers talking about these things? No good can come of this.
One might object that my justice/morality example is an exceptional case–maybe there is something worthwhile to “value debate” sometimes. For instance, there really are authors who write on the problem of “justice” versus “safety.” In LD, this translates into one debater saying that we really need safety before we can have justice, and the other saying why yes but clearly that means justice is “higher”–or something. No good can come of this either.
My friend Adam Chilton has a test he calls “saying it slowly out loud.” Much of what is said in debate rounds, even among fairly sophisticated debaters, seems pretty much unintelligible if one only takes the arguments and repeats them–slowly out loud. If this is true, why are our arguments becoming absurdities?
The problem is built into the way we think about debate. We use both a value and a criterion, but this is unnecessary clutter at best and an instrument of deception at worst. I will discuss a criterion in greater detail in a moment, but for now consider that a criterion is supposedly in some relevant way related to the value. A typical statement of the relationship might be: when X criterion is adopted, then Y ought to be valued. Hugo Adam Bedau says “justice requires the equal treatment of equals.” Perhaps equality is the criterion of justice. Perhaps happiness is good and utility is a criterion of its attainment. I am speaking in language I will shortly reject, but this will hopefully assist in elucidating the present argument.
The bottom line is that the value and the criterion must be thought to share a necessary connection, whatever that connection may be. If a debater says in cross-examination that her criterion is unrelated to her value, I suspect most of us would agree there is a problem. My claim is that this means we should quit the practice of having both a value and a criterion.
Debate is about arguments, lest we forget. That means that each necessary component of a case should, at some level, be arguable. If we should have both values and criteria (please please don’t say ‘criterions’), we may infer that debate may occur at the level of the value and at the level of the criterion. But a few examples will show this fails the “say it slowly out loud” test. Consider if one debater uses “Aggregate Happiness” as value and “Utilitarianism” as a criterion. This seems reasonable to me. Consider that her opponent employs “Justice” through a criterion of “Kantian Ethics.” A fine choice, I think. Now consider that these debaters have arguments about both the value and the criterion. Conventionally, when we say only that something is debated we are expressing that we are agnostic as to the outcome. Either side may win. So, in this case let us assume that debater A proves the judge should use “Aggregate Happiness” as the value, but debater B shows “Kantian Ethics” should be adopted as the criterion. Now, after the round, the judge must say to herself, “I need to evaluate with the value of Aggregate Happiness and use Kantian Ethics to do this.” Pity this poor judge. (It’s unpleasant situations like this that make good food at the judges’ lounge so vital).
Simply put, the value and criterion are a package. As a sidenote here, it’s worth observing that a great many of the most serious blunders in pop-culture philosophy are made by people who think that morality is a buffet where one can pick and choose according to taste. Anyone who talks in the language of “my” morality vs. “your” morality is at risk of becoming a victim of this type of thinking. Antonio Gramsci wrote of how the moral sense of the masses couldn’t be trusted because it was based on an incoherent amalgamation of moral thoughts which had sedimented in the public consciousness. (This is called “commonsense,” for those who are wondering).
If the value and criterion are related, it is not plausible to think they can be mixed and matched randomly in the round. What this means is it makes no sense to have two debates, since there can be only one outcome. The value and the criterion should be conflated into one thing. The question becomes: what kind of a thing should it be? I will spend the balance of this paper addressing this problem. To proceed, I will return to a consideration of the “criterion” in LD.
Criterion Hobgoblin
Hobgoblin is a neat word. If you have never said it aloud, try now: “Hobgoblin.”
My definition of hobgoblin is pseudo-sophisticated nonsense. Emerson calls “a foolish consistency…the hobgoblin of feeble minds.” Attempting to make something contrived appear consistent, coherent, thoughtful–striving for a veneer of intellectualism–is too common in LD. In our zeal for consistency in how we use the criterion, we have adopted conventions that lack reasons.
Paradoxically, the criterion is commonplace but elusive. Because everyone has a criterion and talks about the criteria in the round, few debaters will admit to having only an inchoate notion of what the criterion is. However, when I question debaters about this before rounds, I seldom receive lucid answers. This is not so say that debaters have difficulty answering. To the contrary, they are all too eager to enlighten me. I am told a criterion relates a value to a case, or to the resolution; that it explains or defines the value; that it is itself another good thing, along with the value.
Typically confident debaters will say that the criterion is a “weighing mechanism.” When I tell them it is not particularly clear to me what that means, they assume I must not know anything about debate (how could one otherwise transgress the community’s boundaries, affirmed by the presence of mutually accepted code words?). They then proceed to explain it to me like they were telling a five year old where electricity comes from.
To those parties interested in the “weighing mechanism” model of the criterion, I would first suggest that this statement has no intuitive content. If one needs to be an LDer to know what “weighing mechanism” means, this might indicate these words don’t really describe, but instead operate as a way of conveying to others that one knows, as they know, what is meant. I doubt if anyone outside the world of debate would be assisted much by the explanation that something is a “weighing mechanism.” Curious, I actually left this paper to ask my family what came to mind. “If I were to say something is a weighing mechanism, what would you think of?” Answers included, “a mechanical device that weighs” (mom) “an albatross around the neck” (dad) and “something confusing” (Shuana age 14).
It could just be my family, but I think these answers highlight the fact that “weighing mechanism” is only a metaphor. I take it that a criterion is a “weighing mechanism” in that it allows previously incommensurable lines of argumentation to be resolved. The Kantian may forbid lying and the Utilitarian sanction it if it increases happiness, but it is impossible to evaluate further without a way of somehow comparing the two. So we say a criterion “weighs” them.
But this metaphor is misplaced. A criterion does not enable us to “weigh” competing kinds of impacts against each other, but rather to select among them. For instance, if in the above criterial debate I opt for Kant, this does not inform me how to weigh a Utilitarian impact’s worth against a Kantian impact’s worth. Criteria do not say, “accord x% weight to impact A and y % weight to impact B;” they tell us what is an impact and what is not. The debate about the criterion dictates which way of evaluating impacts the judge accepts and utilizes in the round.
A friend told me he never knew what a criterion was until he read Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Although now dated, Kuhn’s work was enormously influential in instigating a serious discussion in the philosophy of science, and his insight remains germane to LD. Kuhn said scientific progression occurs within “paradigms,” which define research in scientific communities. The paradigm shows what questions are relevant, and how answers might be pursued. It presents both solutions and puzzles. The interesting thing about paradigms is that one cannot be in two different paradigms at one time. Everything changes when the paradigm changes. Critical answers are no longer relevant. Useless information suddenly presents fascinating puzzles. Paradigms are incommensurable.
This, I think, is what happens in debate about the criterion. The Kantian (Kuhn discusses Kant as a paradigm) and the Utilitarian see different questions and offer different answers. What matters to one does not matter to the other. It is unhelpful to propose that one “weigh” them against each other. Imagine trying to combine the insights of Ptolemy’s astronomy, which did solve many problems, with the Copernican system. Either the Earth revolves around the sun or it doesn’t. We can choose; we can’t “weigh.”
So what, then, is a criterion? I think a criterion is much like a Kuhnian paradigm, but we need not use a term that carries so much intellectual baggage, itself. I suggest that a criterion is a moral theory. A theory, according to Kenneth Waltz (famous for explaining to political scientists how they did not understand what a theory was), is a “picture, mentally formed, of a bounded realm or domain of activity.” This is abstract, perhaps, but approachable. Theories are judged by how well they explain and predict. A theory cannot be discovered, but only invented. It is invented by taking certain assumptions and creating a model from which hypotheses may be generated. In essence, a theory gives us a way of solving problems. It is better or worse according to its ability to solve them.
This is not difficult. All good debaters know what a theory is because they use theories to make arguments. This is the case because theories give reasons. Kantianism and Utilitarianism are theories; they claim to explain a certain set of moral problems. All debaters are acquainted with Rawls’ A Theory of Justice. It is a theory because it solves a set of problems pertaining to liberty, wealth distribution, etc. You can tell a theory because, like paradigms discussed above, it creates a need for more work. Rawls generated pounds of literature because scholars discovered his theory had explanatory power over questions they thought were interesting. The resolution is such a question. A criterion tells us what to do to find the answer.
What debate is. And what it could be.
Right now I fear that debate about the criterion is either non-existent or bad. In debates where the discussion is non-existent, there are two possibilities. First, both debaters articulate a moral theory and show it gives reasons why the resolution is true, or untrue. The debate is almost a wash by necessity because both debaters are right within their respective theories, but the judge must intervene to choose among them, or else walk the perilous ground of “weighing” between them. This takes the debate out of debate. Second, the debaters may agree (by chance or design) on a criterion, at which point it is possible to weigh competing impacts. Thus the debate can be meaningfully resolved, but moral philosophy no longer has anything to do with the answer. This takes the LD out of LD.
Typically, though, the problems of a lack of criterial debate are not as severe as the problems of bad criterial debate. Frankly, there are a lot of really stupid criterial arguments. The problem has to do with not understanding what a criterion is. Criteria–moral theories–are not generally fundamentalist ideologies. Criteria do not, generally speaking, incite a bunch of terrible things that would impel any morally sensitive person to reject them. For instance, utilitarianism does not cause Nazism and/or Hitlerism. If anyone has me as a judge at a time when this argument is made, a perfectly acceptable reply may entail only, “shut up.”
Scholarly debate about moral theories is not a debate about how opposing criteria are really veiled attempts to justify ethnic cleansing. Selection of a moral theory or criterion instead has much to do with its explanatory power (as is the case with any theory). This means the primary interest is not in saying that certain theories are “good” or “bad,” but in finding the best theory to answer the question that one considers. Christine Korsgaard’s way of looking at it bears repeating:
The philosophical tradition–and in my view the contemporary philosophical scene–present us with a true embarrassment of riches. We are or should be perplexed at being confronted with so many seemingly contrary and plausible views. Our perplexity begins to dissipate when we come to see that the proponents of different views are raising and therefore answering somewhat different questions. We will only know what to think, however, when we can find once again the common human plight or worry that motivates them to ask these different questions.
It would make no sense to use the Rawls’ theory to attempt to determine how fast your brief case will be falling when it hits the ground if you drop it from your summer camp dorm room. That isn’t because Rawlsian theory is somehow ‘bad,’ but rather because it simply doesn’t help answer the question. Einstein’s physics are more sophisticated than Newton’s, but it is Newton’s theory that would be used in this example, since it best deals with the relevant set of physical questions. A theory is a model. It is not identical with reality, but a representation thereof. To paraphrase Samuel Huntington, if something includes everything it explains nothing.
In LD, debate about the criterion is too much about the criterion and not enough about the resolution. Different resolutions pose different kinds of queries, and different theories may be better or worse relative to how effectively they approach a specific resolutional question (if not in absolute terms). I believe there is a wealth of unexplored argumentation around the resolution. Over what “domain” does the resolution extend? How ought we view the resolution? As a question of practical reason, posed to an agent? As a question of truth, a descriptive statement with empirical referents? As an emotive statement of desire? A moral philosopher tries to show that her theory solves puzzles other theories do not. The debate has to do with theoretical limitations and inconsistencies, and whether a theory’s particular limitations make it a poor choice for the question (resolution) being considered.
I think this method of looking to the criterion creates a very different kind of debate than what we now experience. If, for instance, the resolution concerns foreign policy, we might look to different theories of international relations–and we would be astonished at the diversity of ideas. Kenneth Waltz, John Mearsheimer, Alex Wendt, Stephen Walt, Robert Gilpin, and David Lake (just to name a few) have all done very relevant theoretical work attempting to gain explanatory power over questions about international relations. It is quite a shame that LDers waste a lot of time learning the history of the enlightenment when they could be learning how real scholars solve the very problems they banter about in rounds. Instead, competitors get deceived into believing philosophy must really be about reading a bunch of convoluted, antiquated, loquacious works written in unapproachable language that often don’t ever elucidate moral theories at all. This is to take nothing away from Rousseau, Locke, or Hobbes (I exclude Burke from this list). Their work was pioneering, but philosophy has much more to offer. Many current theorists write in clear, lucid prose that doesn’t require advanced knowledge to understand.
Finally, a word about choosing criteria. In some quarters, debaters are encouraged to use their individual “creativity” in choosing criteria. Hopefully, it becomes pretty obvious that looking at a criterion as a moral theory makes this nigh unto impossible. If any debater really can generate a theoretical model that solves the resolutional question under discussion, that would be extraordinary and I would never want to discourage it. However, I have never personally seen this happen. What I see is debaters combining a couple of words, giving it a definition, and telling me to use it as a weighing mechanism. Outside the myopic prism of the debate round, I would not be any more comfortable using a criterion created by an LD debater than I would taking medication prescribed to me by a student from the local high school’s health class. At the very least, we should understand the rich diversity of extant moral theories before trying to create our own. That is what Hobbes and Rousseau and every subsequent moral philosopher has done. LDers, however powerful, are not smarter than they.
Yoda was right.
Somewhere in the dark part of the dark ages, the Bishop of Reem is said to have ordered the nobles and knights of his region to stop fighting and killing each other. One lord, honestly perplexed, protested, “What else are good nobles to do?”
We should always be careful to remember that things could be different, even when they seem monolithic and stable. In debate, there are no hard and fast rules. There is only a resolution, and an instruction for the judge to vote for whoever does the better debating. Debate could be different.
Like many things, debate has a light side and a dark side (and I don’t mean LD and policy). Debate is good inasmuch as it instills a sense of awe at how much there is to learn and how many tools there are to learn with. Debate is bad when it offers contrived ways of escaping the serious consideration of problems. I have met debaters who think the way they compete really isn’t intellectually honest, but they feel they compelled to continue that way to win ballots. (What else are good debaters to do?) I offer Yoda’s insight:
Luke: Is the dark side stronger?
Yoda: No, no, no. Quicker. Easier. More seductive.
Luke: But how will I know the good from the bad?
Yoda: YOU WILL KNOW!
It takes a great deal more work to read the literature containing moral theories than it does to read a few cards on a certain resolution, arrange them in a case, and make up a criterion. It is also much more rewarding. In addition to having meaningful, compelling ways of approaching LD topics, debaters who make this effort begin to learn about what knowledge is and how it is created. Ultimately, the “light side” of debate is stronger, though neither quicker nor easier. If nothing else, debate should teach us that ideas matter. In Kant’s terms, “Let us put an end, if not to injustice itself, at least to the sophisms used to veil it.” The difference between sophistry and reason is not hard to see–you will know.
Popularity: 1%
test
19 Responses to “LD and the Search for Truth”
Leave a Reply
Most Popular Posts
- Crystallize: Deep Thoughts
- Engaging in Some Summer Reading?
- Public Forum Briefs: Nationals Edition #1
- Help Reconstruct History
- Lanier Achieves Middle School Threepeat
- React to...Slavoj Zizek
- Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow
- LD and the Search for Truth
- A Debater's Life: Accompanying Soundtrack
- Openness in Lincoln-Douglas Debate
Posted from: 64.12.116.203
June 29th, 2005 16:24
that was really long and I didn’t read all of it closely, but the main thesis seems to be an indict of bad debate.
I think the common consensus among debaters is that the value is mostly useless. (so answering “I don’t care” when asked the inevitable novice V-C link question is totally fine) The criterion becomes a simple standard. It is a weighing mechanism (which is a relatively obvious term, as long as the person understands that they are weighing “options” and not masses) and not just a filter, because a criterion means “the round will be evaluated in terms of x” e.g. with body count you kill more people through intl war than I do through maybe some violent drug trafficking, so you lose.
It’s silly to think that we should always structure rebuttals by talking a little bit about moral theory, then about a “paradigm” and then the tangible arguments, which is what a Value/Criterion/Contention model asks us to do. Debaters are more strategic than that, they don’t need an archaic mold for their arguments.
Posted from: 69.109.105.240
June 29th, 2005 16:25
Great piece…I just want to second Ryan’s point about criterion’s being a starting point for irresolvable debates. Nowadays, positional debating has become very popular, but I’ve found that positional debating is nothing but a code-word for have an ultra-specific criterion, a bajillion reasons why that criterion is the best, and then a one line argument as to why all the opposing arguments don’t impact to the given criterion. I think that LD is harmed by these debates. Honestly, Framework debating is a lot of fun, but I really hate it when, for example, an extension of a Deontology standard destroys 3/4 of a good debate round. Not only does this make debate less stimulating (it’s all about ignoring your opponent’s arguments) but it also makes for a debate less about the truth, and more about the customs and “rules” of LD. When a debater can extend a criterion, and then force a judge to view the debate through a single specific lens, the judge no longer is an arbiter of who debated the truth of the resolution better, but rather, the judge decides who debated the standard better. Debate’s value as a truth-seeking mechanism is surely tenuous, but I believe that the pursuit of the truth is the only thing that keeps debate honest, the only thing that makes us step back, and say “wow, that argument makes NO sense.” So, maybe, we need to make debate less about the criterion…just a thought, but Policy does an ok job at weighing arguments, in terms of telling the judge which issues are important, and whether they come before other arguments on the flow. Does debate really need a criterion?
Posted from: 70.19.104.60
June 29th, 2005 20:47
uhhh yeah it does. CX has a very strict structure for determining the outcome of the round. If the neg wins any stock issue, they win. LD doesn’t have harms, inherency, solvency, etc. in the same way CXers do.
Posted from: 12.216.99.157
June 29th, 2005 21:13
I totally agree with Ryan. In fact, the way I explain my value structure is that the resolution asks X question, and the value structure is the way to answer X (then the case says whether that answer is yes or no).
But, I have used “love” as a value. In fact, I regularly use eccentric values/criteria. just this year I’ve used “Political Inclusivity”, “Famine”, “Preserving a Moral Community”, “Maximizing Fulfillment of Claims” and “Reducing Oppression” (a couple of my less screwy ones), and “Love”. I had one case (and I even used it for 3 of my 10 neg rounds on that topic) where I accepted my opponents value no matter what it was. There’s no reason to malign unusual value structures. They can be justified and defended in an intellectually honest way.
Posted from: 12.216.99.157
June 29th, 2005 21:15
I totally agree with Ryan. In fact, the way I explain my value structure is that the resolution asks X question, and the value structure is the way to answer X (then the case says whether that answer is yes or no).
But, I have used “love” as a value. In fact, I regularly use eccentric values/criteria. just this year I’ve used “Political Inclusivity”, “Famine”, “Preserving a Moral Community”, “Maximizing Fulfillment of Claims” and “Reducing Oppression” (a couple of my less screwy ones), and “Love”. I had one case (and I even used it for 3 of my 10 neg rounds on that topic) where I accepted my opponents value no matter what it was. There’s no reason to malign unusual value structures. They can be justified and defended in an intellectually honest way.
Posted from: 12.9.251.251
June 29th, 2005 23:21
scott how do you value famine?
Posted from: 204.210.37.132
June 30th, 2005 02:13
ld resolutions are notorious for regurgitating several different political and philosophical questions over and over again. to wit:
1) is democracy fundamentally procedural or substantive?
2) do affluent countries have obligations outside their own borders?
3) can rights be limited for a social good?
4) how should the concept of agency function within the criminal justice system?
5) is bigger government better than smaller government?
6) how should judges interpret the law?
obviously there are topic-specific kinks, but if you can answer these questions, you’re well on the way to proving the resolution true. this is why i have a really big problem with the idea that spending lots of time on a really specific standard is bad; i think that sort of debate is more focused on the central questions posed by various resolutions and does a better job of answering them than scattershot “substantive” arguments. for example, this year’s september-october topic was another permutation of the classic conflict between the right and the good. winning a deontological standard would basically answer that question by proving that the right is prior to the good; there’s no reason to answer your opponent’s case if it’s tangential to the real question posed by the standard, no matter how many clever arguments he or she might put in it. now, jay might prefer a world where people have standards like “rights protection” and compare substantive arguments about who protects rights better. in fact, i even think there are some topics where both sides SHOULD have similar standards (for example, i think the VBI topic demands a culpability standard of some sort). nonetheless, i don’t think that’s true because of any predetermined need for the value and criterion to act a certain way, but rather because that setup would better answer the question in the resolution–which is something i think we all agree should be central.
Posted from: 205.188.117.11
June 30th, 2005 05:56
I agree with everyone regardign values, it seems just about all debaters only have a value because certain judges expect them. Most values are just restatements of the resolutional question (this yea: democracy, moral obligation, etc).
I also think just about everyone agrees that bad debate sucks and people should stop debating that way. I’m just not sure we need a rethinking of the way standards function to do it.
First, I think a lot of varsity debaters already use the criterion-as-theory model. What we need to keep in mind though is that most philosophical theories aren’t labeled “theories” by their authors. If you read a book in for Jan-Feb that said participation was the most important thing in a democracy and then made you criterion “maximizing political participation” you were using a theory.
But I think saying “don’t make up you own criterion” goes too far. Most literature on any given topic doesn’t point to a clearly articulated moral framework but does implicitly say what it is the authors are valuing. When this happens the result is often catastrophic debate. Because the author doesn’t point to some philosopher but instead just appeals to a vague sense of justice debaters begin mixing and matching philosophers. McKinnon mades some reference to justice in a passage so two contentions of fem ends up getting paired with a Rawlsian criterion.
Thus, in order to stay true to the literature I think its important to not be dependent on literature for finding your standards.
Posted from: 205.188.117.11
June 30th, 2005 05:57
I agree with everyone regardign values, it seems just about all debaters only have a value because certain judges expect them. Most values are just restatements of the resolutional question (this yea: democracy, moral obligation, etc).
I also think just about everyone agrees that bad debate sucks and people should stop debating that way. I’m just not sure we need a rethinking of the way standards function to do it.
First, I think a lot of varsity debaters already use the criterion-as-theory model. What we need to keep in mind though is that most philosophical theories aren’t labeled “theories” by their authors. If you read a book in for Jan-Feb that said participation was the most important thing in a democracy and then made you criterion “maximizing political participation” you were using a theory.
But I think saying “don’t make up you own criterion” goes too far. Most literature on any given topic doesn’t point to a clearly articulated moral framework but does implicitly say what it is the authors are valuing. When this happens the result is often catastrophic debate. Because the author doesn’t point to some philosopher but instead just appeals to a vague sense of justice debaters begin mixing and matching philosophers. McKinnon mades some reference to justice in a passage so two contentions of fem ends up getting paired with a Rawlsian criterion.
Thus, in order to stay true to the literature I think its important to not be dependent on literature for finding your standards.
Posted from: 12.216.99.157
June 30th, 2005 11:17
Jacob - Sorry, actually it was my value criterion and it was Reducing Famine (I can’t remember the value).
Posted from: 149.169.170.128
June 30th, 2005 11:29
My thanks to those who have read and responded to this piece despite its onerous length. I’d like to offer a few thoughts in reply.
First, on whether I am just indicting bad debate: Basically I concede the point. The langauge of value/criterion/contetions has receded. LD is highly dynamic and to soem extent chagnes in the game imply my paper has been “overtaken by history.” Insofar as this is the case, my view is that it may still be useful to make explicit the reasons justifying this evolution. I actually wrote this last summer and so I should be clear that did not, for instance, have in mind any of this year’s TOC competitors. I agree these debaters are sophisticated and as a coach I think it’s outstanding that we have access to these videos.
My position can be summed up as follows: 1) claims about what is normative (or, what are impacts in the round) presuppose particular theoretical commitments. 2) We should always articulate what these commitments are. And 3) Debate at the level of the theory is sometimes desirable. I have no quarell with those who say this is old news.
Second, on the relationship with policy: My view is that what separates LD fas a qualitatively different activity is the default expectation that different moral theories may be presented. The default policy world, in which the “body count” standard prevails, is probably as close as possible to an atheoretic structure. Kritiks in policy seldom function as moral theories although they do impinge on what consitutes an impact.
Third, it’s good to know someone has used “love” as a value. There’s actually a fun literature defending this. And I’m sympathetic to the “all you need is love” mentality.
Fourth, asmitty rasies what I think is a serious objection: Does debate at the level of the theory preclude substantive argumentation? Certainly there may be resolutions where this is so, but all I think this tells us is that the resolutional conflict itself happens at the level of the theory. In general I am loath to accept the assertion that decideing on a standard or criterion gives up the game. In fact some philosophers hold the opposite: that moral theories seem to offer limited practical insight into applied ethics. To continue with the example of the Jan-Feb topic, some theorists who accept the Millian political liberalism espoused by Brian Barry go on to reject the inferences he draws about the churhc-state relationship. The theoretical level is important, but it seldom gives up the game. Maybe I need to be more clear about what I mean by “theory.” asmitty references “a deontological standard,” but I view “deontological” as a fairly broad category of moral theories. For example, even within Kantian theory (only one deontological option) we are confronted by choices as basic as whether the categorical imperative has helpful content. So, I confess my original claim is a little overstated, but I maintain both that theoretical agreement is not equivilant to agreement on specific ethical theories, and that there really is quite a bit of relevant theoretical diversity.
Finally, I mostly agree with Jack; I wouldn’t want LDers to stop theorizing altogether. I don’t believe, however, that “maximizing political participation” is a theory, although it may be a theoretically informed prescription. This was frequently used as a standard, and it is helpful because it specifies what constitutes an impact. It does not, however, provide a reason for why this should be so. What is it about persons or about political society that makes it true? Millian, Kantian, or Rawlsian liberalism might all endorse this conclusion, but the reasoning is different. Does this matter? I believe it does, because when we get into subsequent debates about what kinds of participation are best or whose contributions are most neede dor what distinguishes valuabel from destructive participation, we are entangled in questions that can bes sorted out by examining the theory that informed our initial claim.
Debaters certainly can agree to exclude one level of argumentation or the other., but as a general principle I think there are good reasons to believe that makind different kinds of arguments is best.
Posted from: 204.210.37.132
June 30th, 2005 12:45
while ryan is right that there is a lot of diversity within broad theoretical categories (”deontology” or “consequentialism”, to take the two most obvious examples), i think that a lot of resolutions boil down to first-order questions more basic than those like “does the categorical imperative hold substantive content” or “is act-utilitarianism or rule-utilitarianism more coherent”. i mean, maybe i’m just simplifying resolutions too much, but i think answering first-order questions like “is the right prior to the good” takes most of the burden off answering the other second- and third-order questions that people associate with the resolution.
by the way, i was using the term deontological to loosely describe a class of theories that posit that the right is prior to the good…i think that’s an accurate usage, maybe it’s not. i don’t know for sure.
Posted from: 65.205.31.1
June 30th, 2005 13:01
Before one indicts “LD debate,” I think one ought to, at minimum, be familiar with the entirety of the event. Go to a dozen TOC qualifying tournaments. Go to round robins. Go to the TOC itself. Then, after a few years, come back and tell us all what’s wrong with the event.
Posted from: 69.109.105.240
June 30th, 2005 14:36
Alex, to be honest, a good deontology case (with a few minutes of standards) is fine. But when someone runs a specific criterion, having read it in only 20-30 seconds, and then excludes a lot of neg args based on a blip as to why that particular standard comes first, I think the quality of debate suffers.
Posted from: 207.172.150.102
June 30th, 2005 17:05
I think Jay’s post misses the point completely. If a debater has any ability at all, they should be able to answer “a blip that excludes a lot of neg args”. Argumentation at the standards level is what allows for case positions based on differing theories to clash. For instance, if the AC uses a utilitarian standard, while the NC uses a deontological standard, if both sides keep arguing without engaging at the standards level, there is no way for the judge to evaluate the round. Essentially, in that case, the AC concedes that it is necessary to sacrifice people in order to save more people, while the NC says that it is OK if more people might die in the end, because they’re not sacrificing anyone in the process. At the end of the round, this leaves the judge staring at their ballot, shaking their head, and having no idea how to weigh between the two. Good debaters will have a well-developed framework that will allow for clash and establish a clear winner for the round. In that case, it could be OK (and even strategic) for debater A to grant that sacrificing people is necessary for a specific end goal as long as they win the standards debate. That isn’t “dodging the issue”, it’s strategic argumentation that addresses the issue, albeit on a different level.
Posted from: 64.123.102.76
June 30th, 2005 17:24
So that you’re arguing that when someone runs deontology well, its good, but when its run poorly, its bad?
is anyone denying that?
Posted from: 24.161.191.162
June 30th, 2005 18:47
I think Ryan’s article makes some really compelling points. While most competitors have come to the realization that value debate is oftentimes useless, Ryan lays out some formal logic as to why this is true that I found exceptional in that it pointed out how becuase the value and criterion debate can only come down to one final lens through which to view the round for the judge, the debate over value and criterion should be condensed to one element.
I also think that Ryan’s point that we should consider different criterions in terms of the issue posed by the resolution can be developed into a strategic and largely unused arguement. If a debater can show that while both criteria are good, if one is more suited for dealing with the resolution at hand that seems to be a very good reason to prefer that one.
One area though where I disagree with Ryan is on the necessary role of philisophical concepts in a criterion. To run such a philosophy under the standard undoubtedly consumes a lot of time in the AC or NC which could potentially be strategic- or not. We should not attempt to say that having such deep clash on standards is necessary when the debater feels their best shot at the ballot lies with a simple standard and a more impacts focused case. IE on the environment vs development topics many people ran standards of protecting human life- I think we can all agree this is a valubale end and that it would be unstrategic for the debater to invest a philosophy in this standard other than some simple analytics as to why impacts to this standard outweigh impacts to other standards.
My point is simply (and I hope I am not misinterperting Ryan’s) is that in some rounds it is not strategic to have a standard justified on dense philosophy due to the time allocation issues involved and we should not dismiss such cases as being of a lesser caliber than others.
In regards to Torrez’s post asking Ryan to see the entirety of the activity before criticizing it- perhaps you would care to know that Ryan competed for years in high school and has been coaching for 4 years. I have met few people in my 4 years in the activity as dedicated and brilliant as Ryan and I think it would be cool if you could have discussed his points instead of just challenging his position in the activity.
Posted from: 69.138.191.44
July 1st, 2005 04:33
Look, Ryan may be a great guy and all, but the framework from which he’s arguing is either hopelessly local or time-warped here from two decades ago. Here, three quotes from the same section of the article will prove my point:
1. “Consider if one debater uses “Aggregate Happiness” as value and “Utilitarianism” as a criterion. This seems reasonable to me. Consider that her opponent employs “Justice” through a criterion of “Kantian Ethics.” A fine choice, I think.”
Gah. I submit that nobody who’s been seriously involved with national circuit debate within the past five to ten years could possibly think either of these frameworks are a “fine choice,” and I’m surprised that nobody else has really remarked at how silly this is. The sort of blip value-with-supporting-philosophy-as-criterion that forms the basis of Ryan’s article was popular from the mid-80s to the early-90s. It’s still popular in crappy local circuits (like mine). That’s about it.
Then, Ryan describes the supposed problem:
2. “So, in this case let us assume that debater A proves the judge should use “Aggregate Happiness” as the value, but debater B shows “Kantian Ethics” should be adopted as the criterion. Now, after the round, the judge must say to herself, “I need to evaluate with the value of Aggregate Happiness and use Kantian Ethics to do this.” Pity this poor judge. (It’s unpleasant situations like this that make good food at the judges’ lounge so vital).”
Holy 1991, Batman! I guess if there’s a debate round in which the debaters argue *separately* for the value and the criterion, then yes, this stupidity might result. But NO COMPETENT CIRCUIT DEBATERS do this. Yes, really bad local debaters do it, so yes, really bad local debate sucks. But we all knew that already.
Do I really have to point out that good debaters treat the value and criterion as a single ’standards’ section, such that this absurdity never happens?
3. Finally, Ryan remarks that no debaters can define criterion. He laments, “I am told a criterion relates a value to a case, or to the resolution; that it explains or defines the value; that it is itself another good thing, along with the value.”
Again, all I can say is that Ryan must be going to some different debate tournaments than I go to. Let’s be honest here, has anyone else EVER heard their opponent say something this stupid at a TOC-qualifier tournament in something other than the down five bracket?
So, we have a “problem” defined by debaters who run inane values, nebulous philosophical assertions as criteria, and don’t really understand what either are. I agree that’s a problem; I disagree that’s what the average person reading victorybriefs thinks debate is.
Worse, Ryan’s “solution” to this overstated problem — that criteria be considered as mutually-exclusive worldviews such that all debate rounds come down to criterion clash only — isn’t a solution in today’s world of circuit debate, and would drastically narrow the range of options currently available to most good debaters. Yes, good frameworking and good criterion clash is important (to which most debaters are saying, ‘duh!’). But so is diversity of argumentation; so is questioning the solvency of one debater’s empirical impacts; so is offering counter-advocacy; etc., etc. I would personally hate it if debate rounds came down to questions of which sort-of Kuhnian “paradigm” the judge is to accept, because those types of questions are almost always impossibly subjective.
Posted from: 149.169.170.60
July 1st, 2005 12:38
I thought I would respond and clarify once again, if anyone remains interested.
The basic argument above is that where what I say is not obviously right, it’s wrong. As for obviousness, I’m not persuaded even reading Andrew Torrez’s remarks that this is so. He twice distinguishes TOC style debate from local debate. I suppose the average TOC debater is more sophisticated than the average local circuit debater–in fact I’ve admitted as much already. However I prefer to eschew this categorization. Again taking the risk of speaking the obvious, I would say there is precisely no reason to believe that difference in debate competance is in any way related to a difference in intellectual endowment. And so I presume we would also agree that we shouldn’t write off local debate. At that point, if the obvious part is only obvious to those in the TOC category, I think the conversation is still worth having. If I understand him correctly, Andrew thinks my obvious claims fall below the victorybriefs readership. He may know better than I the answer to that question, but so far some people seem to have agreed with me, some have disagreed, and some have been ambivilant. So at least it’s not clear to me this is so. And lastly, I have already noted that I am not taking as my target those for whom my advice is old news (how could I be?)–so I don’t mean to offend the debaters legitimately at a higher level than the paper.
Another quick point of clarification: my claim is that we should rid ourselves of the conceptual clutter of having a value and a criterion, and my argument about the possibility of separate debates is designed to illustrate this. Whether debaters actually are having separate debates is orthogonal to my point.
Andrew differs with my statement of “fine choices” of values and criteria, and with my proposed solution for conceptualizing the criterion (or, if you prefer, “standard”). I believe I say in that section that I am using language I will shortly reject, so I think we are together here. The examples I give are “fine choices” in two respects: they have a coherent relationship and they have contemporary currency among political theorists. Granted, any particular resolution would probably be better served by a more specified theoretical commitment, but my point is just to illustrate a coherent relationship so I can frame my criticism of the value/criteria structure.
The real substantive disagreement I see is about my preferred conceptualization of a criterion, and even here I am uncertain. I am explict that I don’t advocate calling criteria paradigms, but I think the idea is useful because they have features in common: mutual exclusivity; defining a community of research or intellectual investigation; presenting puzzles and offering a way of solving puzzles; determining what information is relevant and what is not.
What I do advocate is that we use moral theories in LD. What I believe is that relevant debates occur at the level of which theory to adopt, and how that theory answers the question posed by the resolution. Further, I think there is a lot of good debate to be had in choosing a theory. At least at places I frequent, there is little consideration of how we should think about morality, or how we should pick a theory when faced with alternatives, and so I try to offer a few comments on this above.
I appreciate Sam Kleiner’s reply above, and his example of last year’s jan-feb resolution might be helpful. It certainly may be true, depending on a lot of factors, that a more empirical approach is sometimes best. But even in cases of empirical resolutions like this, we should at least consider availing ourselves of insights from analytic philosophy. One could, for instance, investigate the relationship between the value of humans and the value of animals to see what should be given priority when considering development. That could entail an argument about how normative claims arise in the first place. Right now I think a lot of debate is based around competing interpretations of the resolution. Debaters seek novelty through breadth, but they could also turn to a different literature to examine the foundations of more general arguments. I too like to see a diversity of kinds of arguments, but I think the uniqueness of LD and the constraints of the forum make this strategy one appealing option. At least, I think such choices should be made consciously, and my purpose is to point out where choices are made and how they might be evaluated.