Truth Testing

This subject is closer to theory than anything else, so I decided to post it here. Are there that many good arguments to defend a truth-testing framework theoretically? In most theory articles, competing-worlds is the preferred paradigm because it gets rid of skeptical argumentation. What are some good ways to defend a truth-testing framework?

Old wrote:This subject is closer to theory than anything else, so I decided to post it here. Are there that many good arguments to defend a truth-testing framework theoretically? In most theory articles, competing-worlds is the preferred paradigm because it gets rid of skeptical argumentation. What are some good ways to defend a truth-testing framework?

I'm not really sure. I guess because some resolutions are statements of fact and not prescriptive statements, but that's only applicable on a case by case basis. I used to like it because i liked those shitty a priori args/skepticism, but then I discovered that CPs/DAs/Ks worked in LD.

Truth testing is tough to defend. The new LD event description clearly eliminates the truth testing framework (it says something to the tune of, "there are no categorical burdens. no debater is expected to uphold categorical truth of either side).

It seems like truth testing is dead/is dying in most regions (with the exception of maybe Texas).

if truth testing eliminates skepticism, then why isn't the argument for truth testing simply that skepticism is legitimate?

also, if "what the ballot says" ever historically dictated actual debate practice, then we would no be nowhere near where we are now as an activity. so i don't see how that's a knockdown argument in the least.

Re: PRai

Yeah, I agree with you, I guess. I think it reflects a growing approach to the topic that rejects the truth testing system.

We haven't really hit this, but I think there are other reasons to support the comparing world views model. I mean, cheap shot strategies like a prioris become irrelevant if they do not contribute some impact that could weigh against the aff/neg advocacy. In the end, I think this model leaves far fewer loopholes and promotes a smarter, more straightforward form of debate that emphasized a more applicable real world sense of strategy.

Ehh, maybe this is because I debate in Texas, but I don't really like the comparative worlds paradigm. Though this argument may seem generic, I still think its relevant: If we become impact comparison debate then we lack any comparative and unique advantages (har har) over policy, creating less of an incentive for novices to chose our form of debate. Look at the pros and cons, given that both debates would now theoretically deal with the same type of debate (parametricized advocacies, direct impact comparison etc.):

Pros of CX:
-Longer speeches
-1 topic per year ie more depth in analysis
-Team debate (Novices who haven't conquered a fear of speaking more likely to chose policy because of this)
-More nuanced overall (Policy has been around longer, resolutions designed more with this in mind)

Pros of comparative LD:
-1 on 1 (I like this personally)

...yet I can't think of anything else that we can claim is uniquely ours. Policy has impact comparison down, and has it teched out. We would just be shoehorning in an unfit method of evaluation. Sure, there's a lot of reasons why comparative worlds is good. It establishes good distribution of ground, creates the offense/defense paradigm we all know and love. I get that. But if thats the way you want to debate, why not debate policy? It sounds cliche, but some of us love the truth-testing analytical style method of evaluation, and want debate to be mostly framework. There's already the option of CX available for those who want to compare impacts, why not take advantage of that and not take away LD for those of us who want to test some truth?

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

Alex Bennett wrote:Ehh, maybe this is because I debate in Texas, but I don't really like the comparative worlds paradigm. Though this argument may seem generic, I still think its relevant: If we become impact comparison debate then we lack any comparative and unique advantages (har har) over policy, creating less of an incentive for novices to chose our form of debate. Look at the pros and cons, given that both debates would now theoretically deal with the same type of debate (parametricized advocacies, direct impact comparison etc.):

Pros of CX:
-Longer speeches
-1 topic per year ie more depth in analysis
-Team debate (Novices who haven't conquered a fear of speaking more likely to chose policy because of this)
-More nuanced overall (Policy has been around longer, resolutions designed more with this in mind)

Pros of comparative LD:
-1 on 1 (I like this personally)

...yet I can't think of anything else that we can claim is uniquely ours. Policy has impact comparison down, and has it teched out. We would just be shoehorning in an unfit method of evaluation. Sure, there's a lot of reasons why comparative worlds is good. It establishes good distribution of ground, creates the offense/defense paradigm we all know and love. I get that. But if thats the way you want to debate, why not debate policy? It sounds cliche, but some of us love the truth-testing analytical style method of evaluation, and want debate to be mostly framework. There's already the option of CX available for those who want to compare impacts, why not take advantage of that and not take away LD for those of us who want to test some truth?

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

My question is why are these specific attributes of policy debate so horrible that we must avoid them at all cost?

You say we adopt offense/defense, impact calc, etc. I'd say these are generally good things. Impact calc is "crystalization" except for it actually has warrants, and establishes a logical ordering of the debate. This is why i hate discussions about LD Debate theory because it always deteriorates into one side claiming "that's too policy like" and I have yet to hear a reason why these particular aspects of policy are bad for debate. Additionally, the issue that I take with "truth-testing" is that it really doesn't do what it says unless you get into a highly technical definitional debate. All truth-testing means is that i have to establish xyz impacts that are relevant under the framework established within the round. It's not really testing the truth of the resolution (well i guess sometimes it is, ie sept/oct when we had to establish a theory of morality that supported our position, but even that relied on impacts in some sense).

Here's a list of benefits of comparative LD:

1. makes framework debates much more meaningful - standards become a crucial part of the debate since they function as meta-weighing
2. encourages better research - debaters now have to research more specific aspects of the topic to extrapolate on their impacts
3. eliminates a prioris/skepticism (which can be fun sometimes, but honestly, what benefit do they serve?)
4. establishes clearer burdens/better debate - negs cant win on mitigation alone. Eliminates the "i just have to prove the resolution not true but not necessarily false) bullshit"

I'll add to this later

poneill wrote:
1. makes framework debates much more meaningful - standards become a crucial part of the debate since they function as meta-weighing

I have to disagree with this point. When you debate comparative worlds/policy style it really comes down to a vague net benefits standard. It makes me recall this spike from the nuclear weapons topic: "it makes no sense to exclude topical impacts with a standard more limited than maximizing rights protection, since neither debater can predict what impacts will stand at the end of the round; for example, it might make sense to say that the standard of life comes first, since other rights can’t be enjoyed unless one is living, but when considering millions of individuals’ agency in comparison to one death, it makes no sense to exclude impacts to autonomy. Instead, both debaters can weigh impacts in rebuttals. If rights are better protected with military force you affirm." In this sense, framework debates disappear and are replaced with weighing via maximizing rights protection or net benefits.

poneill wrote:

Alex Bennett wrote:Ehh, maybe this is because I debate in Texas, but I don't really like the comparative worlds paradigm. Though this argument may seem generic, I still think its relevant: If we become impact comparison debate then we lack any comparative and unique advantages (har har) over policy, creating less of an incentive for novices to chose our form of debate. Look at the pros and cons, given that both debates would now theoretically deal with the same type of debate (parametricized advocacies, direct impact comparison etc.):

Pros of CX:
-Longer speeches
-1 topic per year ie more depth in analysis
-Team debate (Novices who haven't conquered a fear of speaking more likely to chose policy because of this)
-More nuanced overall (Policy has been around longer, resolutions designed more with this in mind)

Pros of comparative LD:
-1 on 1 (I like this personally)

...yet I can't think of anything else that we can claim is uniquely ours. Policy has impact comparison down, and has it teched out. We would just be shoehorning in an unfit method of evaluation. Sure, there's a lot of reasons why comparative worlds is good. It establishes good distribution of ground, creates the offense/defense paradigm we all know and love. I get that. But if thats the way you want to debate, why not debate policy? It sounds cliche, but some of us love the truth-testing analytical style method of evaluation, and want debate to be mostly framework. There's already the option of CX available for those who want to compare impacts, why not take advantage of that and not take away LD for those of us who want to test some truth?

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

My question is why are these specific attributes of policy debate so horrible that we must avoid them at all cost?

You say we adopt offense/defense, impact calc, etc. I'd say these are generally good things. Impact calc is "crystalization" except for it actually has warrants, and establishes a logical ordering of the debate. This is why i hate discussions about LD Debate theory because it always deteriorates into one side claiming "that's too policy like" and I have yet to hear a reason why these particular aspects of policy are bad for debate. Additionally, the issue that I take with "truth-testing" is that it really doesn't do what it says unless you get into a highly technical definitional debate. All truth-testing means is that i have to establish xyz impacts that are relevant under the framework established within the round. It's not really testing the truth of the resolution (well i guess sometimes it is, ie sept/oct when we had to establish a theory of morality that supported our position, but even that relied on impacts in some sense).

Here's a list of benefits of comparative LD:

1. makes framework debates much more meaningful - standards become a crucial part of the debate since they function as meta-weighing
2. encourages better research - debaters now have to research more specific aspects of the topic to extrapolate on their impacts
3. eliminates a prioris/skepticism (which can be fun sometimes, but honestly, what benefit do they serve?)
4. establishes clearer burdens/better debate - negs cant win on mitigation alone. Eliminates the "i just have to prove the resolution not true but not necessarily false) bullshit"

I'll add to this later

I don't think we should avoid some of the things comparative worlds brings us, but I think it can be done without ditching truth-testing. Eric Palmer has an article on VBI called "Truth, Comparison, and Justification" or something like that where he proposes an alternative that would solve all the problems people say truth testing involves. My gathering of it is that there is a bigger stress on the negative to have a propositional burden.

Also my argument wasn't that this stuff is "bad", its that if comparative becomes the norm, then there is less of an incentive for people to join LD over CX, because CX is better at the impact comparison debate than LD. Additionally, some of us really like the truth-testing paradigm, and there already exists another form of debate that caters to impact comparison and parametrics, why not just join policy rather than make LD into a policy clone? As vapid most "this is LD not policy" arguments are, I think there's truth in saying that we need LD to be different, otherwise the activity will die.

I don't think we should avoid some of the things comparative worlds brings us, but I think it can be done without ditching truth-testing. Eric Palmer has an article on VBI called "Truth, Comparison, and Justification" or something like that where he proposes an alternative that would solve all the problems people say truth testing involves. My gathering of it is that there is a bigger stress on the negative to have a propositional burden.

Also my argument wasn't that this stuff is "bad", its that if comparative becomes the norm, then there is less of an incentive for people to join LD over CX, because CX is better at the impact comparison debate than LD. Additionally, some of us really like the truth-testing paradigm, and there already exists another form of debate that caters to impact comparison and parametrics, why not just join policy rather than make LD into a policy clone? As vapid most "this is LD not policy" arguments are, I think there's truth in saying that we need LD to be different, otherwise the activity will die.

There are a couple flaws with your arguments:

1. I'm saying that these things are a GOOD change for LD - ie it makes LD better to have these changes. I'd argue that a risk of people deferring to Policy is worth having better debate.

2. Specifically the impact calc i'm referring to, is something sorely missing from a pure-truth testing framework. This goes back to my point of how unless the debate is just extremely technical definition debate, truth-testing is just a screwy version of comparing worldviews.

More specifically, you bring up Palmer's article. There are a couple issues with that:

1. I've already solved his issue with the impact calc (ie LD doesn't presume Util) by arguing that the framework/standards debate is meta-weighing.

2. He gives no room for any sort of negative position that does not advocate the direct converse of the resolution (ie Ks can't have an alt that isn't reject, CPs don't function, etc)

3. Finally, I worry about the last paragraph in his article. It seems to suggest that some level of conscious intervention is a good thing. I'd say that the proper way to set up framework for evaluation is via a resolutional link (ie from Nov/Dec, because the resolution is a question of what a Democratic society ought do, the value is democracy). Then, either immediately after, or for the standard, the debater articulates what this word means (ie proposing some sort of democratic theory). Should their opponent contest the theory, they would weigh between the competing theories (strength of each individual warrant, empirical support, layers of warrants, etc) and evaluate impacts accordingly. Just because some LDers are bad at weighing doesn't warranting a paradigmatic shift to adapt to it.

poneill wrote:

I don't think we should avoid some of the things comparative worlds brings us, but I think it can be done without ditching truth-testing. Eric Palmer has an article on VBI called "Truth, Comparison, and Justification" or something like that where he proposes an alternative that would solve all the problems people say truth testing involves. My gathering of it is that there is a bigger stress on the negative to have a propositional burden.

Also my argument wasn't that this stuff is "bad", its that if comparative becomes the norm, then there is less of an incentive for people to join LD over CX, because CX is better at the impact comparison debate than LD. Additionally, some of us really like the truth-testing paradigm, and there already exists another form of debate that caters to impact comparison and parametrics, why not just join policy rather than make LD into a policy clone? As vapid most "this is LD not policy" arguments are, I think there's truth in saying that we need LD to be different, otherwise the activity will die.

There are a couple flaws with your arguments:

1. I'm saying that these things are a GOOD change for LD - ie it makes LD better to have these changes. I'd argue that a risk of people deferring to Policy is worth having better debate.

2. Specifically the impact calc i'm referring to, is something sorely missing from a pure-truth testing framework. This goes back to my point of how unless the debate is just extremely technical definition debate, truth-testing is just a screwy version of comparing worldviews.

More specifically, you bring up Palmer's article. There are a couple issues with that:

1. I've already solved his issue with the impact calc (ie LD doesn't presume Util) by arguing that the framework/standards debate is meta-weighing.

2. He gives no room for any sort of negative position that does not advocate the direct converse of the resolution (ie Ks can't have an alt that isn't reject, CPs don't function, etc)

3. Finally, I worry about the last paragraph in his article. It seems to suggest that some level of conscious intervention is a good thing. I'd say that the proper way to set up framework for evaluation is via a resolutional link (ie from Nov/Dec, because the resolution is a question of what a Democratic society ought do, the value is democracy). Then, either immediately after, or for the standard, the debater articulates what this word means (ie proposing some sort of democratic theory). Should their opponent contest the theory, they would weigh between the competing theories (strength of each individual warrant, empirical support, layers of warrants, etc) and evaluate impacts accordingly. Just because some LDers are bad at weighing doesn't warranting a paradigmatic shift to adapt to it.

I concede certain functions of the comparative model are more beneficial for LD, but I think we should be trying to think of methods to gain those advantages without the risk of people joining policy over LD. While I'm not 100% sure "best justification" is the best counter model, I'll try to answer back the 3 reasons why you reject it.

Prior though, I think we should agree on certain functions of the paradigm. Intrinsically, I think the issue is with burdens. Truth testers assume a categorical burden, while comparativists prefer a parametricized one. Extrinsically, and this is speaking from experience, truth-testers focus on framework level arguments while comparative worlders adjudicate rounds on the direct weighing of impacts more often than not.

1, Not a reason to reject best justification, since it still avoids the issue of cloning policy it would be net beneficial to use it over comparative worlds. Plus, using policy as an example, even though impact calc can be contested in round, oftentimes people default to util and avoid the debate altogether. While we can't simply presume comparative LD will do the same, it just seems that there isn't enough time in speeches already to discuss both framework arguments and the weighing of impacts in great detail. Additionally, as Palmer notes, the issue of skepticism isn't really resolved through comparative worlds. If I run skepticism, and the aff debater gets up and says "be that if it may, its still better to take X action as per risk of impact", that still presumes an impact calculus. To say something is "comparatively better" always presumes some kind of method of evaluation. My concern is this: how does the comparative framework thus deal with horizontal spreads and hyperskeptical arguments? You suggest impact calculus can be used as meta-weighing, fine, why not just focus 100% on the impact calculus and links from the resolution into the impact calculus given that it precludes all discussions of impact analysis if one impact doesn't matter at all. Most comparativists respond with "negs have greater propositional burden", this still doesn't resolve the issue. If the negative wins presumption, then they can win without an alternative. It seems thus far one would do well in a comparative debate just with framework level arguments, links to the resolution, and presumption. No need for a single salient impact.

2, You assume that positions that are not the direct converse are necessarily beneficial to have in debate. Moreover, what a "direct converse" is is not solidly defined. If the resolve was "Vigilantes are just" then I could theoretically prove it by proving vigilantes are unjust, or that revolutionaries, the inverse of a vigilante, are just. Consider this interpretation of the inverse as a parametricized negative advocacy, but rather than a plan, we have a "counter resolve" (or hopefully something named less hastily). The "competition" of the negatives counter statement would be debated and not just assumed. I think this can capture a lot of the advantages of the comparative worlds paradigm

3,Palmer's last paragraph is moreso descriptive than anything. He argues that no one can really be 100% tab since you have to have some method of accepting the legitimacy of an argument. For example, a tab judge would assume arguments made in round are the only method to evaluate the round, but that is a specific presumption that judge carries into the round that is not derived from the arguments of the debaters, thus that judge is not totally tabula rasa.

My primary, subjective concern is that comparative worlds debate will result in sloppy framework debate and a further shitification of standards debate. I think everyone would like greater discussion of ethical theories in round, but I think comparative worlds potentially sidetracks us from that.

Alex Bennett wrote:
Prior though, I think we should agree on certain functions of the paradigm. Intrinsically, I think the issue is with burdens. Truth testers assume a categorical burden, while comparativists prefer a parametricized one. Extrinsically, and this is speaking from experience, truth-testers focus on framework level arguments while comparative worlders adjudicate rounds on the direct weighing of impacts more often than not.

My primary, subjective concern is that comparative worlds debate will result in sloppy framework debate and a further shitification of standards debate. I think everyone would like greater discussion of ethical theories in round, but I think comparative worlds potentially sidetracks us from that.

These both deal with framework debate so i'll address them at once:

1. I'm going to assume you haven't seen the top Edina Debaters before because they show exactly how I invision framework debate working in LD. They have the same structure for framework every single time, and it's why they're so damn successful affirming (there was one non-edina debater who won an Aff round in outrounds at Apple Valley). It's a simple outline:

- Since the Resolution is about x, the value is y
- The criterion is z for 3 reasons

They then have three solid justifications as to why this is the primary impact in terms of the value and also why their criterion is first-order/a prerequisite to any other standard. The Exceptionalism Aff that has been their bread and Butter all topic has 3 carded justifications with analysis after each one at this level. If you don't want to engage in a straight up Util debate, this model works EXTREMELY well.

2. Your argument is non-sensical. How the hell can a debate about impacts discourage people from debating standards/impact calc?

3. Your comparisons are horrific cheap shots - you're forcing me to defend the worst of the comp worlds debate against the best better justification/truth testing debate.

4. Truth-testing debate that focuses on ethical frameworks just links into my point about how it's just shittastic comparative worldview with unwarranted burdens.

1, Not a reason to reject best justification, since it still avoids the issue of cloning policy it would be net beneficial to use it over comparative worlds. Plus, using policy as an example, even though impact calc can be contested in round, oftentimes people default to util and avoid the debate altogether. While we can't simply presume comparative LD will do the same, it just seems that there isn't enough time in speeches already to discuss both framework arguments and the weighing of impacts in great detail.

1. In policy-speak, you went for the disad but dropped the "no internal link to the impact"/"case outweighs" - I said not only will these things not collapse LD debate entirely, but even if it does, a decline in the number of participants doesn't matter if it makes the debates better.

2. Util is an ethical theory dawg - I read a card as my entire framework explaining why util is the framework the govt uses when evaluating different proposals. There's absolutely no reason why debating Util isn't "LD".

3. Not a reason to reject comparing worldviews - you're saying "comparative worldview bad cuz people might not debate framework". You never reject something based on "well this might happen"

Additionally, as Palmer notes, the issue of skepticism isn't really resolved through comparative worlds. If I run skepticism, and the aff debater gets up and says "be that if it may, its still better to take X action as per risk of impact", that still presumes an impact calculus. To say something is "comparatively better" always presumes some kind of method of evaluation.

1. Sure. but by that logic only judge intervention can prevent skpeticism

2. Skepticism in the traditional sense just doesn't make sense under this framework - Even a presumption argument presupposes there exists some sort of framework to evaluate offense/defense. Presumption states the side who advocates change (generally the aff) has a burden to show some proactive reason for their change under the agreed upon framework. If no such framework exists, the judge can't evaluate aff offense in relation to negative offense to determine if the aff has fulfilled such a burden.

I say "in the traditional sense" because one could read skepticism as a kritik of morality/normative conceptions of ought and present an alternative framework (i've seen some affs do this on the Jan/Feb topic) and that would work, but simply disproving morality's existence doesn't work.

My concern is this: how does the comparative framework thus deal with horizontal spreads and hyperskeptical arguments? You suggest impact calculus can be used as meta-weighing, fine, why not just focus 100% on the impact calculus and links from the resolution into the impact calculus given that it precludes all discussions of impact analysis if one impact doesn't matter at all. Most comparativists respond with "negs have greater propositional burden", this still doesn't resolve the issue. If the negative wins presumption, then they can win without an alternative. It seems thus far one would do well in a comparative debate just with framework level arguments, links to the resolution, and presumption. No need for a single salient impact.

I think i've dealt with the first part of this above.

Re: presumption:

1. This requires you to win either terminal defense against their offense (which is pretty damned hard) or make it so disads/case turns neutralize aff offense IN RELATION TO THE STATUS QUO. The neg is bound to the squo/converse of the rez in the comparative worldview paradigm should they not present an alt. The difference, then, is that comparative worldview forces the neg to defend something instead of just reading a shit ton of contradictory and terminally nonunique turns/disads and say they show why the rez is false.

2, You assume that positions that are not the direct converse are necessarily beneficial to have in debate. Moreover, what a "direct converse" is is not solidly defined. If the resolve was "Vigilantes are just" then I could theoretically prove it by proving vigilantes are unjust, or that revolutionaries, the inverse of a vigilante, are just. Consider this interpretation of the inverse as a parametricized negative advocacy, but rather than a plan, we have a "counter resolve" (or hopefully something named less hastily). The "competition" of the negatives counter statement would be debated and not just assumed. I think this can capture a lot of the advantages of the comparative worlds paradigm

1. Your example isn't competitive. Both revolutionaries and vigilantes can be just. There's no reason, unless you articulate a disad to LABELING vigilantes just, why perm wouldn't solve.

2. Parametricized neg advocacies give the neg an alternative position other than side-constraints and defending the opposite of the rez. For example, on Jan-Feb, defending the squo was/is hard because the AC was a 6 minute disad to their advocacy. Plus, Counterplans are huge in the literature. Using Jan/Feb again, Domestic Courts, TRCs, ATCA, etc. were a large part of the discussion in the topic literature and in the debate over the necessity for the ICC.

I'll add more later when i get a chance.

poneill wrote:

Alex Bennett wrote:
Prior though, I think we should agree on certain functions of the paradigm. Intrinsically, I think the issue is with burdens. Truth testers assume a categorical burden, while comparativists prefer a parametricized one. Extrinsically, and this is speaking from experience, truth-testers focus on framework level arguments while comparative worlders adjudicate rounds on the direct weighing of impacts more often than not.

My primary, subjective concern is that comparative worlds debate will result in sloppy framework debate and a further shitification of standards debate. I think everyone would like greater discussion of ethical theories in round, but I think comparative worlds potentially sidetracks us from that.

These both deal with framework debate so i'll address them at once:

1. I'm going to assume you haven't seen the top Edina Debaters before because they show exactly how I invision framework debate working in LD. They have the same structure for framework every single time, and it's why they're so damn successful affirming (there was one non-edina debater who won an Aff round in outrounds at Apple Valley). It's a simple outline:

- Since the Resolution is about x, the value is y
- The criterion is z for 3 reasons

They then have three solid justifications as to why this is the primary impact in terms of the value and also why their criterion is first-order/a prerequisite to any other standard. The Exceptionalism Aff that has been their bread and Butter all topic has 3 carded justifications with analysis after each one at this level. If you don't want to engage in a straight up Util debate, this model works EXTREMELY well.

2. Your argument is non-sensical. How the hell can a debate about impacts discourage people from debating standards/impact calc?

(It may not make sense from an analytic point of view (It would seem like meta-weighing via the standard is more strategic), but empirically, and again this is totally in my experience alone, by utilizing the comparative paradigm (which is more or less second order truth testing), framework debate is more often than not not as fleshed out as it could be, usually resorting to appeals to intuition. As you say in the number 1 point that framework debate can work with just 3 justifications, I think my fear is somewhat actualized by that example. I go to Westlake, which is pretty successful on the Texas circuit which is predominantly truth-testing based, so I may be speaking totally from a skewed perspective (which could just as easily be said about anyone), but nonetheless, framework justifications can take up 1-2 pages sometimes, even up to 2 and a half. Let me demonstrate from a case we ran during the felon disenfranchisement topic. Here are the framework level justifications:
-2 Reasons why the rez is amoral
-Analysis why we should defined democracy only in how its contextualized in modern discourse
-2 Reasons why democracies always have to be exclusionary in some respects
-Preempts to responses

All in all this took up 2 pages given that there was hefty technical analysis for each point. With people like Adam Nelson suggesting this analysis come in rebuttals, I feel like debate would more and more slowly devolve into appeals to intuition rather than insightful analysis and I think you example of Edina framework epitomizes the point.)

3. Your comparisons are horrific cheap shots - you're forcing me to defend the worst of the comp worlds debate against the best better justification/truth testing debate.

4. Truth-testing debate that focuses on ethical frameworks just links into my point about how it's just shittastic comparative worldview with unwarranted burdens.

(On #3, I was suggesting, and policy debate can be proof of this, that more often than not people will make the framework debates shitty. This doesn't seem like it'll be an issue two high school debaters can resolve over the internet without any comprehensive statistics. #4 just demonstrates that you haven't seen good truth-testing debates. In Texas (I don't how its like where you debate) the debates here based on the t-t paradigm are amazing and in depth. You assume that the burdens presented in the round are "unwarranted" and that no one can ever fully justify an ethical theory, yet I've been in enough rounds to say this is simply not the case)

1, Not a reason to reject best justification, since it still avoids the issue of cloning policy it would be net beneficial to use it over comparative worlds. Plus, using policy as an example, even though impact calc can be contested in round, oftentimes people default to util and avoid the debate altogether. While we can't simply presume comparative LD will do the same, it just seems that there isn't enough time in speeches already to discuss both framework arguments and the weighing of impacts in great detail.

1. In policy-speak, you went for the disad but dropped the "no internal link to the impact"/"case outweighs" - I said not only will these things not collapse LD debate entirely, but even if it does, a decline in the number of participants doesn't matter if it makes the debates better.

(I responded in the past post about how I can still horizontally spread shittons of a prioris in the cw paradigm, all I'd have to do is win presumption. I'm becoming more suspicious that the purported advantages of comparative worlds paradigm are actually solvable by comparative worlds. It would make this debate infinitely clearer if someone where to list all the things comparative worlds does that is better than truth-testing. Nevertheless, I don't recall you delinking from the argument that we risk people defering to CX if we adopt comparative worlds. It seems policy is a much more apt form of debate for impact comparison while LD is more suited for heavy framework analysis (Reason why we don't have 2 constructives, 5 rez per year, etc.))

2. Util is an ethical theory dawg - I read a card as my entire framework explaining why util is the framework the govt uses when evaluating different proposals. There's absolutely no reason why debating Util isn't "LD".

(Technically, Util ain't an ethical theory: it's merely applications of value ie we ought maximize whatever we value. And generally the "util" used in the comparativist sense (body count) never justifies the value in human life. I'm not saying util isn't debatable in LD (I ran minefield all of the kill one save many topic) I just think that comparativist util is generally lazy and not as developed)

3. Not a reason to reject comparing worldviews - you're saying "comparative worldview bad cuz people might not debate framework". You never reject something based on "well this might happen"

(Can there not be pragmatic concerns? Maybe this is because I hang out with policy debaters all day, but it seems like they never question the underlying assumptions of certain arguments and the threshold for what they consider a warrant is very low. I've debated against quite a few comparaitivists as well and the framework is just as sloppy. If I justify a framework, provides links into the resolution, why should I have a needless third step to weigh impacts? Framework is difficult enough to justify anyway)

Additionally, as Palmer notes, the issue of skepticism isn't really resolved through comparative worlds. If I run skepticism, and the aff debater gets up and says "be that if it may, its still better to take X action as per risk of impact", that still presumes an impact calculus. To say something is "comparatively better" always presumes some kind of method of evaluation.

1. Sure. but by that logic only judge intervention can prevent skpeticism

2. Skepticism in the traditional sense just doesn't make sense under this framework - Even a presumption argument presupposes there exists some sort of framework to evaluate offense/defense. Presumption states the side who advocates change (generally the aff) has a burden to show some proactive reason for their change under the agreed upon framework. If no such framework exists, the judge can't evaluate aff offense in relation to negative offense to determine if the aff has fulfilled such a burden.

I say "in the traditional sense" because one could read skepticism as a kritik of morality/normative conceptions of ought and present an alternative framework (i've seen some affs do this on the Jan/Feb topic) and that would work, but simply disproving morality's existence doesn't work.

(I'm still unclear as to why one can't run skepticism. Sorry if you already answered this but I'm still confused as to why one couldn't run skepticism and win every round. So you claim presumption arguments presuppose an offense/defense distinction (Which I don't think is 100% true given I've had presumption debates that did not entail this). But if I neutralize all aff O by saying they can't have an impact calculus, doesn't that mean whoever defends the status quo (which is always the negative in most cases) just wins as there is no proactive reason to support the aff plan.

Additionally, I don't see how comparativism stops horizontal spreads. They still seem to happen in policy with procedurals. Couldn't I just dump 10 theory shells and 10 T shells and extend only one of them in the 2NR? T is no risk, just like an a priori, and as a argument can be made very succinctly and easily, just like an a priori, and only one of them is needed to win a round, just like an a priori.)

My concern is this: how does the comparative framework thus deal with horizontal spreads and hyperskeptical arguments? You suggest impact calculus can be used as meta-weighing, fine, why not just focus 100% on the impact calculus and links from the resolution into the impact calculus given that it precludes all discussions of impact analysis if one impact doesn't matter at all. Most comparativists respond with "negs have greater propositional burden", this still doesn't resolve the issue. If the negative wins presumption, then they can win without an alternative. It seems thus far one would do well in a comparative debate just with framework level arguments, links to the resolution, and presumption. No need for a single salient impact.

I think i've dealt with the first part of this above.

Re: presumption:

1. This requires you to win either terminal defense against their offense (which is pretty damned hard) or make it so disads/case turns neutralize aff offense IN RELATION TO THE STATUS QUO. The neg is bound to the squo/converse of the rez in the comparative worldview paradigm should they not present an alt. The difference, then, is that comparative worldview forces the neg to defend something instead of just reading a shit ton of contradictory and terminally nonunique turns/disads and say they show why the rez is false.

(Well, the end implication of skepticism is that nothing can be valuable or not valuable, meaning, since the aff has the burden to show that there is a proactive reason to value this plan over the status quo they can never meet it. Neg is still defending the squo by saying that nothing can ever be "valuable", thus we can never say we should pass a plan. I hope that isn't muddled)

2, You assume that positions that are not the direct converse are necessarily beneficial to have in debate. Moreover, what a "direct converse" is is not solidly defined. If the resolve was "Vigilantes are just" then I could theoretically prove it by proving vigilantes are unjust, or that revolutionaries, the inverse of a vigilante, are just. Consider this interpretation of the inverse as a parametricized negative advocacy, but rather than a plan, we have a "counter resolve" (or hopefully something named less hastily). The "competition" of the negatives counter statement would be debated and not just assumed. I think this can capture a lot of the advantages of the comparative worlds paradigm

1. Your example isn't competitive. Both revolutionaries and vigilantes can be just. There's no reason, unless you articulate a disad to LABELING vigilantes just, why perm wouldn't solve.

(Granted, it was a stupid example. But if you run pragmatism, say values must be in line with concrete action, and then justify why revolutionaries always act against vigilantes, then maybe you have a case. Then again, we could just rewrite resolutions to be more tailored to the new model)

2. Parametricized neg advocacies give the neg an alternative position other than side-constraints and defending the opposite of the rez. For example, on Jan-Feb, defending the squo was/is hard because the AC was a 6 minute disad to their advocacy. Plus, Counterplans are huge in the literature. Using Jan/Feb again, Domestic Courts, TRCs, ATCA, etc. were a large part of the discussion in the topic literature and in the debate over the necessity for the ICC.

(This doesn't explicitly tell me why its bad. Affs can have a huge variety of positions in a truth-testing paradigm to defend just one statement. I assume there will be plenty of negative positions. I mean, all they would have to do is prove to some extent that something is unjust, morally permissible, obligated whatever right? I was successful at running a PIC as proving the converse of the resolution true via some analysis.)

I'll add more later when i get a chance.

Additionally, and hopefully this doesn't make me to sound like a douchebag, but why still do LD when there is already an option that offers all you want plus more? Policy has got impact comparison debate nailed, and framework debate exists there as well. It just seems like you could just switch and do policy debate rather than do LD (What is, might I ask, you reason for not doing this?) since policy seems like something every comparativist would love. In my encounters with the proponents of comparative worlds, most of the time its the LDers who want to be able to list all the fancy card names and carry tubs like the totally rad policy debaters. They change their preferences in the middle of the game, and want to change the game to fit their preferences. This is not a personal attack on you, nor should it be on anyone, but it just seems that if some of us really like our shitty, inferior truth-testing paradigm and there exists an alternative that one can easily do that satisfies all these needs why not do it? Let us enjoy truth-testing while the comparativists can enjoy comparing impacts with policy. Everyone wins!

Also, just as an aside, thank you for engaging in this discussion. The future of LD is surely an interesting topic and one to definitely have an interesting conclusion.

[quote="Alex Bennett"]
(It may not make sense from an analytic point of view (It would seem like meta-weighing via the standard is more strategic), but empirically, and again this is totally in my experience alone, by utilizing the comparative paradigm (which is more or less second order truth testing), framework debate is more often than not not as fleshed out as it could be, usually resorting to appeals to intuition. As you say in the number 1 point that framework debate can work with just 3 justifications, I think my fear is somewhat actualized by that example. I go to Westlake, which is pretty successful on the Texas circuit which is predominantly truth-testing based, so I may be speaking totally from a skewed perspective (which could just as easily be said about anyone), but nonetheless, framework justifications can take up 1-2 pages sometimes, even up to 2 and a half. Let me demonstrate from a case we ran during the felon disenfranchisement topic. Here are the framework level justifications:
-2 Reasons why the rez is amoral
-Analysis why we should defined democracy only in how its contextualized in modern discourse
-2 Reasons why democracies always have to be exclusionary in some respects
-Preempts to responses

1. Depth is better than breadth, dawg - Edina's cases give you 3 solid warrants for their criterion, and in some cases (like the one i'm discussing) they all are backed by some pretty solid evidence with additional analysis. Now granted, sometimes they are just the standard "dehum bad" reasons Holguin and McNeil know by heart (i shit you not, they do) that take them 30 seconds at most. Yet for some reason, despite having read these same 3 args on prolly somewhere between 15-30 topics, Edina still wins more aff rounds than probably any other program on the National Circuit. You're outline is nice, but it's not always necessary. There's absolutely no reason why you need 2.5 pages to set up a sufficiently detailed framework. Hell, Lincoln summarized a 4 year war in 266 words. When I read my aff, my wpm is higher than that.

2. I think this might be the only context in which the stupid MacIntyre "ethics relies on an infinite chain of assumptions" card might be useful. everything is an appeal to intuition at some level. Maybe people in Texas are bad at Comparative Worldview debate, but good debaters here in Minnesota use framework as a method of setting forth weighing analysis in the AC and then fill the rest of the speech with links into said impact.

All in all this took up 2 pages given that there was hefty technical analysis for each point. With people like Adam Nelson suggesting this analysis come in rebuttals, I feel like debate would more and more slowly devolve into appeals to intuition rather than insightful analysis and I think you example of Edina framework epitomizes the point.)

1. Nelson is saying you preempts might be better in the 1ar, and i've dealt with the rest of this above.

(On #3, I was suggesting, and policy debate can be proof of this, that more often than not people will make the framework debates shitty. This doesn't seem like it'll be an issue two high school debaters can resolve over the internet without any comprehensive statistics. #4 just demonstrates that you haven't seen good truth-testing debates. In Texas (I don't how its like where you debate) the debates here based on the t-t paradigm are amazing and in depth. You assume that the burdens presented in the round are "unwarranted" and that no one can ever fully justify an ethical theory, yet I've been in enough rounds to say this is simply not the case)

I'll just deal with 4:

My point is that regardless of where you debate, t-t debate IS comparative worldview debate except with a hidden standard. In order to determine the truth of something, there has to be some relevant impact that determines it unless you're saying it's definitionally true which would fall under a different category.

I responded in the past post about how I can still horizontally spread shittons of a prioris in the cw paradigm, all I'd have to do is win presumption. I'm becoming more suspicious that the purported advantages of comparative worlds paradigm are actually solvable by comparative worlds. It would make this debate infinitely clearer if someone where to list all the things comparative worlds does that is better than truth-testing. Nevertheless, I don't recall you delinking from the argument that we risk people defering to CX if we adopt comparative worlds. It seems policy is a much more apt form of debate for impact comparison while LD is more suited for heavy framework analysis (Reason why we don't have 2 constructives, 5 rez per year, etc.))

1. I did give you a list, go check my first post in this thread. In fact, i'll quote it for you:

Here's a list of benefits of comparative LD:

1. makes framework debates much more meaningful - standards become a crucial part of the debate since they function as meta-weighing
2. encourages better research - debaters now have to research more specific aspects of the topic to extrapolate on their impacts
3. eliminates a prioris/skepticism (which can be fun sometimes, but honestly, what benefit do they serve?)
4. establishes clearer burdens/better debate - negs cant win on mitigation alone. Eliminates the "i just have to prove the resolution not true but not necessarily false) bullshit.

2. My bad, i said "case outweighs"

1. I'm saying that these things are a GOOD change for LD - ie it makes LD better to have these changes. I'd argue that a risk of people deferring to Policy is worth having better debate.

3. Your a prioris don't make sense in cw - Cw says we compare world of rez with neg world and the judge signs the ballot for the person defending the better world. Aprioris denying the existence of soemthing don't make sense because in that case you've just functionally shifted their position to the neg world meaning the only possible way presumption would come about is via theory justifications that aren't related to the traditional burdens (ie theory standards) and i'm not sure in what world the neg is going to win that debate. Aprioris arguing the rez is defintionally true/false are just the internal link to a consistency impact with no terminal impact as to why the judge gives a damn about consistency.

Technically, Util ain't an ethical theory: it's merely applications of value ie we ought maximize whatever we value. And generally the "util" used in the comparativist sense (body count) never justifies the value in human life. I'm not saying util isn't debatable in LD (I ran minefield all of the kill one save many topic) I just think that comparativist util is generally lazy and not as developed)

You're just straight up wrong here:

The first line on wikipedia's page for util is "This article discusses utilitarian ethical theory".

It then defines util - "Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is"

Hmmm, so Util is a theory of how we determine the moral worth of an action. Seems like an ethical theory to me.

Dictionary.com says ethics is "a system of moral principles". An ethical theory would therefore be something that sets up a system of moral principles. Util certainly does that. Even the body count paradigm (in an ethical sense, of course) does that.

(Can there not be pragmatic concerns? Maybe this is because I hang out with policy debaters all day, but it seems like they never question the underlying assumptions of certain arguments and the threshold for what they consider a warrant is very low.

Policy is a different game because the nature of the claims are descriptive (ie references to the squo) rather than prescriptive (ie what ought be the case). Policy evidence uses a combo of empirical analysis and descriptive claims as a basis for their arguments. Policy debaters say "x is happening now, and that's bad because it leads to y which has terminal impact z". Both x claim and z claim are usually more descriptive since it's not really possible to establish "terrorism leads to extinction" via logic. We therefore trust that reliable sources with access to confidential/private info are correct when they make this claim. In fact, I'd say that these claims are generally more well warranted than most philosophical CARDS because the author is making 1 general claim throughout an entire book, and the debater chose to pick a small passage that really is a string of assertions because they're generally conclusions derived from the chapter/book as a whole. Also, philosophical claims are idealisitic and rarely based on falsifiable claims but rather based on assumptions made by the author.

I've debated against quite a few comparaitivists as well and the framework is just as sloppy. If I justify a framework, provides links into the resolution, why should I have a needless third step to weigh impacts? Framework is difficult enough to justify anyway)

Because if you don't have impacts to compare then the judge has no fucking clue what to do when your opponent does the same thing.

I'm still unclear as to why one can't run skepticism. Sorry if you already answered this but I'm still confused as to why one couldn't run skepticism and win every round. So you claim presumption arguments presuppose an offense/defense distinction (Which I don't think is 100% true given I've had presumption debates that did not entail this). But if I neutralize all aff O by saying they can't have an impact calculus, doesn't that mean whoever defends the status quo (which is always the negative in most cases) just wins as there is no proactive reason to support the aff plan.

No because skepticism doesn't say "all impact calc is unfounded" just some of them. Without an alt, the judge doesn't know if there is aff O because now you've eliminated all standards so the judge just has competing claims that impact to nothing.

Explain to me how presumption functions outside some sort of offense/defense distinction. It doesn't necessarily need to be in the cw sense but through whatever fw is established, some sort of mode for evaluating offense.

Additionally, I don't see how comparativism stops horizontal spreads. They still seem to happen in policy with procedurals. Couldn't I just dump 10 theory shells and 10 T shells and extend only one of them in the 2NR? T is no risk, just like an a priori, and as a argument can be made very succinctly and easily, just like an a priori, and only one of them is needed to win a round, just like an a priori.

Because if you read 20 procedural shells, A) the odds of you making any other arguments that have any substance is slim to none. If you go 20 seconds per shell (this is barely longer than a bad shell in policy, although Aspec shells could be as short as 8 words haha), that's 400 seconds, which translates into 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Not only does this mean extending case won't take more than 30-40 seconds, but it also means the level of warrants in those shells are going to be shitty. Grouping Theory and saying potential abuse is not a voter solves back this issue. There's almost no chance if they're trying to horizontally spread that they're articulating abuse, mainly because the odds of there actually being abuse in this case is slim to none.

Well, the end implication of skepticism is that nothing can be valuable or not valuable, meaning, since the aff has the burden to show that there is a proactive reason to value this plan over the status quo they can never meet it. Neg is still defending the squo by saying that nothing can ever be "valuable", thus we can never say we should pass a plan. I hope that isn't muddled)

In what world does skepticism deny value under every framework?

This doesn't explicitly tell me why its bad. Affs can have a huge variety of positions in a truth-testing paradigm to defend just one statement. I assume there will be plenty of negative positions. I mean, all they would have to do is prove to some extent that something is unjust, morally permissible, obligated whatever right? I was successful at running a PIC as proving the converse of the resolution true via some analysis.

I mean i've done the same thing before as well, but it's a lot harder to explain how most CPs function under a tt paradigm, and i'd say you kinda jack a lot of good neg ground with tt.

[quote]
Additionally, and hopefully this doesn't make me to sound like a douchebag, but why still do LD when there is already an option that offers all you want plus more? Policy has got impact comparison debate nailed, and framework debate exists there as well. It just seems like you could just switch and do policy debate rather than do LD (What is, might I ask, you reason for not doing this?) since policy seems like something every comparativist would love.

This prolly would make you sound like a douchebag if you weren't the 9th person to tell me this (yes i keep track). I've had a judge say my 1ar was "like textbook how to respond to CPs (i hit that dumb sex/gender K as a PIK), and i've also gotten a 25 because "this is not one man policy debate". I've considered this question for a while, and here's my answers:

1. because i like ethical/philosophical debates just not necessarily the cannon LD philosophical debates (although i do think that if Sept/Oct would have lasted longer, it would have turned out into a pretty good topic).

2. because I'd need to find a partner

3. because using policy strats in LD is fun (ie kritiking roleplaying, running CPs/K alts and then if they don't ask the status in cross-x and they spend a lot of time on it in the 1ar saying it's conditional and kicking it, etc)

4. because i've already done 3 years of LD, and while I'll prolly do policy in College, it'd be foolish to switch before my senior year.

In my encounters with the proponents of comparative worlds, most of the time its the LDers who want to be able to list all the fancy card names and carry tubs like the totally rad policy debaters. They change their preferences in the middle of the game, and want to change the game to fit their preferences. This is not a personal attack on you, nor should it be on anyone, but it just seems that if some of us really like our shitty, inferior truth-testing paradigm and there exists an alternative that one can easily do that satisfies all these needs why not do it? Let us enjoy truth-testing while the comparativists can enjoy comparing impacts with policy. Everyone wins!

I don't feel that a lot of the benefits of tt aren't possible in cw. That's just me though.

Also, just as an aside, thank you for engaging in this discussion. The future of LD is surely an interesting topic and one to definitely have an interesting conclusion.

Yeah i agree i like paradigmatic discussions. It really makes you think about how arguments function/how best to articulate them.

poneill wrote:
1. Depth is better than breadth, dawg - Edina's cases give you 3 solid warrants for their criterion, and in some cases (like the one i'm discussing) they all are backed by some pretty solid evidence with additional analysis. Now granted, sometimes they are just the standard "dehum bad" reasons Holguin and McNeil know by heart (i shit you not, they do) that take them 30 seconds at most. Yet for some reason, despite having read these same 3 args on prolly somewhere between 15-30 topics, Edina still wins more aff rounds than probably any other program on the National Circuit. You're outline is nice, but it's not always necessary. There's absolutely no reason why you need 2.5 pages to set up a sufficiently detailed framework. Hell, Lincoln summarized a 4 year war in 266 words. When I read my aff, my wpm is higher than that.

I don't see how 3 small justifications for as big an issue as dehumanization is "deep". Westlake is known for winning many aff rounds as well (Devin and Andrew always flip aff and for the most part always win) and Devin won TFA state with a really teched out aff. I think the reason we set up deeper frameworks is for educational purposes; in the real world people appeal to intuition more often than not and are scared to question underlying assumptions. I've learned to never think of morality as "intuitive" from discussions in LD, and I think we are blinding ourselves if we don't question basic assumptions.

2. I think this might be the only context in which the stupid MacIntyre "ethics relies on an infinite chain of assumptions" card might be useful. everything is an appeal to intuition at some level. Maybe people in Texas are bad at Comparative Worldview debate, but good debaters here in Minnesota use framework as a method of setting forth weighing analysis in the AC and then fill the rest of the speech with links into said impact.

Goddammit I hate that MacIntyre card (It has 0 warrants, just some stupid ice cream example). I wouldn't say debaters in Texas are bad at comparing impacts, just a shift in focus I guess. And while most everything is to an extent an appeal to intuition, I think the more analysis the better. If framework debate precludes all impact comparison and is a form of meta-weighing, why not just spend a lot of time on framework anyway?

1. Nelson is saying you preempts might be better in the 1ar, and i've dealt with the rest of this above.

I'll just deal with 4:

My point is that regardless of where you debate, t-t debate IS comparative worldview debate except with a hidden standard. In order to determine the truth of something, there has to be some relevant impact that determines it unless you're saying it's definitionally true which would fall under a different category.

I think this gets us closer to the heart of the matter. First, I think you are wrong to think t-t is just a poor derivation of cw; cw is pretty much just second order t-t. Additionally, to think t-t has no impacts is absurd. The "impact" of a t-t case is codified through links to the resolutional action. If I specify what justice is, and then link the resolutional action into that analysis, and ta da, you have an aff victory. The main basis for all this cw parametrics and neg propositional burdens is that there is a negative bias in debate and a huge abuse of prestandards. I respond with 1.) Non unique (T shells, and procedurals and the like) and 2.) You can mitigate prestandards easily. There are many strats to deal with aprioris like condo logic (not that kind of condo), attacking the weighing mechanism, if there is no weighing mechanism run theory, if they have one turn the logic of the most important prestandard etc. A prioris are surprisingly turnable, I find the fuss over them to be overinflated.

1. I did give you a list, go check my first post in this thread. In fact, i'll quote it for you:

Here's a list of benefits of comparative LD:

1. makes framework debates much more meaningful - standards become a crucial part of the debate since they function as meta-weighing
2. encourages better research - debaters now have to research more specific aspects of the topic to extrapolate on their impacts
3. eliminates a prioris/skepticism (which can be fun sometimes, but honestly, what benefit do they serve?)
4. establishes clearer burdens/better debate - negs cant win on mitigation alone. Eliminates the "i just have to prove the resolution not true but not necessarily false) bullshit.

Ok, I'll go through all 4.
1.)Nonunique. Clearly you've never had a good t-t debate before. The framework debate is meaningful, and we do tie concrete action to ethical theories. For example, for vigilantes, we had some framework analysis about the restraining power of law and the ethics behind it, then like 5-7 links as to how vigilantes serve as a check against violation of this restraining power. Just because we don't have parametricized advocacies referring to specific scenarios doesn't mean we can't have "impacts", its just that the impacts are more vague and general in nature so that the coexist and function with the framework better
2.)Specific research is still used with t-t, the research does tend to focus more on dense philosophical texts which, in my opinion, are much more educational than reactionary responses from the media to specific circumstances.
3.)I don't see the harms in these arguments. They are really easy to beat. If people just developed strat against them (Multifunctional args, contingent standards are some aff strats one can put in case to preempt apriori dumps) then people would stop whining. Additionally, this is nonunique as procedurals have and will be run in mass in comparative frameworks (T shells, theory shells, shitty kritiks, tons of DA, multi condo CPs) and the theoretical justifications for these arguments in a comparative sense already exist (talk to any policy debate about negative skew)
4.)How clearer could a burden of truth be? With comparative worlds we have all these complications. For one, it always assumes the value to be a virtue and not a form. I can't run an aff about how justice destroys cultural difference and the resolutional action embodies this, because I have to defend it as a maxim. Additionally, cw complicates the definition of burdens in terms of the resolve. For a t-t, the resolve is the resolve, but for cw, you have to add shit for it to work like "We ought act as if "Resolve:..." was true" which leads to all sorts of complications as to who "we" is and always presumes some sort of ethical calculus (Can never run skepticism again . I don't see why negative winning on mitigation is bad, as its really easy to win against shitty negative procedurals (Most outrounds at TOCs here are usually an aff victory). Plus t-t already considers the burden of the negative to show the resolution false, most negative just demonstrate via negation theory why proving it not true entails falsity.

2. My bad, i said "case outweighs"

1. I'm saying that these things are a GOOD change for LD - ie it makes LD better to have these changes. I'd argue that a risk of people deferring to Policy is worth having better debate.

In policy terms, guess since all 4 impacts are neutralized we have risk of an impact that describes the destruction of the activity of LD and an opportunity cost.

3. Your a prioris don't make sense in cw - Cw says we compare world of rez with neg world and the judge signs the ballot for the person defending the better world. Aprioris denying the existence of soemthing don't make sense because in that case you've just functionally shifted their position to the neg world meaning the only possible way presumption would come about is via theory justifications that aren't related to the traditional burdens (ie theory standards) and i'm not sure in what world the neg is going to win that debate. Aprioris arguing the rez is defintionally true/false are just the internal link to a consistency impact with no terminal impact as to why the judge gives a damn about consistency.

How can the aff possibly say a maxim is good to be followed if it makes no damn sense. If I came to you and said we should act as if the statement "BLAHBEBLOBAHLAH" is true, since it would be better for the world, would you reject it on grounds "It made no damn sense"? Or would you try to engage a serious discussion of the implications of it being followed? If negative get staquo presumption and the aff burden is to provide net benefits of the resolve that would outweigh the opportunity cost, then if I refute the ability for the aff to do that, then there is 0 aff offense, and no risk of aff offense since the resolution can't ever happen. This means since there is even a risk of offense on the negative you are forced to negate every time. The negative just has to defend the change shouldn't happen, which is sufficiently justified through saying the basis of the change makes to damn sense.

You're just straight up wrong here:

The first line on wikipedia's page for util is "This article discusses utilitarian ethical theory".

It then defines util - "Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is"

Hmmm, so Util is a theory of how we determine the moral worth of an action. Seems like an ethical theory to me.

Dictionary.com says ethics is "a system of moral principles". An ethical theory would therefore be something that sets up a system of moral principles. Util certainly does that. Even the body count paradigm (in an ethical sense, of course) does that.

This was for me a picky semantic issue. Yes, one can consider util an ethical theory ONLY if it is coupled with a basis for value (ie what we ought maximize) otherwise its just a metric. And most of the time cw debate boils util down to bodycount

Policy is a different game because the nature of the claims are descriptive (ie references to the squo) rather than prescriptive (ie what ought be the case). Policy evidence uses a combo of empirical analysis and descriptive claims as a basis for their arguments. Policy debaters say "x is happening now, and that's bad because it leads to y which has terminal impact z". Both x claim and z claim are usually more descriptive since it's not really possible to establish "terrorism leads to extinction" via logic. We therefore trust that reliable sources with access to confidential/private info are correct when they make this claim. In fact, I'd say that these claims are generally more well warranted than most philosophical CARDS because the author is making 1 general claim throughout an entire book, and the debater chose to pick a small passage that really is a string of assertions because they're generally conclusions derived from the chapter/book as a whole. Also, philosophical claims are idealisitic and rarely based on falsifiable claims but rather based on assumptions made by the author.

Your criticisms of philosophy are funny, because the reliance on falsifiability and rejection of idealism are philosophically based. Assuming empirics works as a way to justify claims is a faulty assumption; I do not need to bring up the multitude of objections to the reliance on empiricism do I? I also am confused by you distinction between policy and cw, since it seems like policy debaters are still saying what we ought do, just using the staquo as a reason for why we ought take it. And there are still other reasons why we ought take policy action besides a bad squo (In policy they use the new-fangled things called advantages)

Because if you don't have impacts to compare then the judge has no fucking clue what to do when your opponent does the same thing.

Links to the resolutional action are impacts. If the res is "X action is just", I justify a theory of justice, then provide reasons why X action meets that, then X action is the impact (In a sense). My beef with comparativists is the use of parametrics, the lesser focus on framework, and the needless negative burdens which don't actually solve anything

No because skepticism doesn't say "all impact calc is unfounded" just some of them. Without an alt, the judge doesn't know if there is aff O because now you've eliminated all standards so the judge just has competing claims that impact to nothing.

Skepticism is specifically moral, ie "morality can't be true" not "nothing is true". The aff is the only one who has to defend a claim, negative has no proposition they have to defend going into a round. It seems more logical to negate absent reason for us to accept the resolution.

Explain to me how presumption functions outside some sort of offense/defense distinction. It doesn't necessarily need to be in the cw sense but through whatever fw is established, some sort of mode for evaluating offense.

Clarify offense/defense. To answer the question, presume neg since aff has burden of proof and neg has none?

Because if you read 20 procedural shells, A) the odds of you making any other arguments that have any substance is slim to none. If you go 20 seconds per shell (this is barely longer than a bad shell in policy, although Aspec shells could be as short as 8 words haha), that's 400 seconds, which translates into 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Not only does this mean extending case won't take more than 30-40 seconds, but it also means the level of warrants in those shells are going to be shitty. Grouping Theory and saying potential abuse is not a voter solves back this issue. There's almost no chance if they're trying to horizontally spread that they're articulating abuse, mainly because the odds of there actually being abuse in this case is slim to none.

I did not literally mean 20 procedurals (I haven't seen any aprioris reach this number ever), but there is still a risk of multiple procedurals as there is a risk of multiple prestandards. Policy debate is enough proof that comparative worldviews doesn't solve for shitty negative dumps, as multiple offs seems to be all the fad in policy.

In what world does skepticism deny value under every framework?

Somewhat confused by this question. Do you mean in the idiomatic sense when would skepticism ever deny all value, or specifically which world it would deny value? To the first, most skepticism does this, and to the second, both worlds.

I mean i've done the same thing before as well, but it's a lot harder to explain how most CPs function under a tt paradigm, and i'd say you kinda jack a lot of good neg ground with tt.

Not true, artificial competition allowed me to win multiple rounds, and resolutional rhetoric is especially susceptible to this.

This prolly would make you sound like a douchebag if you weren't the 9th person to tell me this (yes i keep track). I've had a judge say my 1ar was "like textbook how to respond to CPs (i hit that dumb sex/gender K as a PIK), and i've also gotten a 25 because "this is not one man policy debate". I've considered this question for a while, and here's my answers:

1. because i like ethical/philosophical debates just not necessarily the cannon LD philosophical debates (although i do think that if Sept/Oct would have lasted longer, it would have turned out into a pretty good topic).

2. because I'd need to find a partner

3. because using policy strats in LD is fun (ie kritiking roleplaying, running CPs/K alts and then if they don't ask the status in cross-x and they spend a lot of time on it in the 1ar saying it's conditional and kicking it, etc)

4. because i've already done 3 years of LD, and while I'll prolly do policy in College, it'd be foolish to switch before my senior year.

Fair enough on the reasons, but I would like to dwell on this a little more (just because a few of my friends are in similar positions). I agree Sept/Oct could've been great (Why I think we should only have 2 resolves per year) and I was gonna write a sick Levinas K but ran out of time. It seems like your #1 point suggests a fondness for framework debate that doesn't seem evident in our discussion. Why shift the focus away from framework if thats the locus of ethical discussions?

On the #2, I'm unfamiliar with the word "roleplaying" in its context with debate, care to clarify?

#4 is fair, but if you know people like t-t, and there is option for high schools to get their impact comparison fix through policy, why do you advocate larger reform of LD to fit the cw paradigm if it doesn't really concern you?

I don't feel that a lot of the benefits of tt aren't possible in cw. That's just me though.

Yeah i agree i like paradigmatic discussions. It really makes you think about how arguments function/how best to articulate them.

yeah, I love debating debate.


Sorry for the double post, our convo got too long

I'm writing a reply to your posts, but for clarification, roleplaying in policy refers to the idea that we pretend we are the people in Washington who get to make the decisions (ie for jan/feb, when the aff proposes we join x court, they're pretending they have the same power as obama/congress). Basically, K of roleplaying is a type of a K of Fiat. It's pretty fun stuff

poneill wrote:I'm writing a reply to your posts, but for clarification, roleplaying in policy refers to the idea that we pretend we are the people in Washington who get to make the decisions (ie for jan/feb, when the aff proposes we join x court, they're pretending they have the same power as obama/congress). Basically, K of roleplaying is a type of a K of Fiat. It's pretty fun stuff

sounds cool, for LD though it would be less clear as to what roles we play

Also, my responses will probably be more general now given that our posts are becoming epically long now

how does comparing worldviews avoid completely eliminating substantive philosophical debate? deontology is not a comparison of worldviews because even if an action produces the best possible world, if it violates a side constraint deontology says the action is still immoral. so comparing worldviews eliminates deontology which mean that any ethical framework requires a utilitarian foundation. skepticism is not a comparison of worldviews, nietzsche and args from epistemology are out. any philosophy of language argument will probably not compare worldviews (the everpresent wittgenstein argument does not), and neither will many arguments from philosophy of science (args about theories of formal confirmation, for example). I guess within philosophy of science one might make arguments about selecting between paradigms/research programs, but for the most part those arguments are either descriptive or don't make the black/white statements necessary for an LD debate. That leaves what, critiques (that too, only those with an alt solves the link type structure)? Most of which are not philosophy, they are just political claims (especially the ones that follows the structure that meets comparing worldviews). So I guess my question is, how does comparing worldviews does not force everyone into a policy debate that only differs from CX debate in the limitations LD has due to no second constructive, shorter speeches, and bi-monthly topic change?

Additionally, staquo presumption, or relating offense back to the staquo seems to have a few complications. We don't know what the staquo is in the resolve (Do we always assume its the present, physical world?), and if we make that assumption, then we potentially limit more abstract arguments. It seems like forcing the negative to defend the "status quo" is not only limited but complicates the issue of interpretation of the resolution further.

Somebody care to fill me in as to what a truth testing paradigm is? What it entails?