Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Jan/Feb 2k13
AFC Bad.......................................................................................................................................13
A2 Topical Clash..................................................................................................................................14
A2 Strat Skew......................................................................................................................................14
A2 Time Skew......................................................................................................................................14
ACC...............................................................................................................................................16
ACC Frontlines....................................................................................................................................17
A2 Topical Education..........................................................................................................................17
No New Preclusion.......................................................................................................................29
Truth Testing Good......................................................................................................................31
T-No Squo.....................................................................................................................................33
GENERIC THEORY SHELLS 1
A2 CX Checks Bad......................................................................................................................48
Multiple Distinct Impacts Bad....................................................................................................50
Deont One Violation...............................................................................................................51
Taint Bad......................................................................................................................................53
Indentity Bad................................................................................................................................54
Presumption Triggers Bad..........................................................................................................56
Severance Bad..............................................................................................................................57
NC Preempt.........................................................................................................................................57
NR Theory...........................................................................................................................................57
A2 Severance Bad........................................................................................................................58
A2 Strat Skew......................................................................................................................................58
A2 Ground...........................................................................................................................................58
A2 Time Skew......................................................................................................................................58
Truisms Bad..................................................................................................................................64
Link and Impact Turns Key........................................................................................................65
Frontlines.............................................................................................................................................66
A2 You can do it too............................................................................................................................66
A2 Artificial Sufficiency......................................................................................................................66
Contractarianism Bad.................................................................................................................67
Ks must only be pre-fiat or post-fiat.........................................................................................68
Kritiks Bad...................................................................................................................................69
Fairness > Kritiks................................................................................................................................69
Counter-interp.............................................................................................................................89
A2 Reciprocity.....................................................................................................................................89
A2 Clash...............................................................................................................................................90
REGULAR SHELLS
PHIL SPEC
A-Interpretation: Debaters should not be able to justify a specific rule as the standard by
appealing to multiple moral theories and independent justifications without committing to one in
particular. Rather, debaters should be required to defend a unified moral theory and only justify it
in one way.
B-Violation: S/he claims that we should [respect X rule] and justifies it [under deontology and
utilitarianism?] but fails to commit to a more general moral theory.
C-Standards:
1. Ground: The rule structure allows him/her to kick out of any indicts I make against
a moral theory because it can always be justified under another moral theory. This
accommodates whatever I run so that I have zero ground to attack the framework
without contradicting myself, which prevents me from forming a stable advocacy.
Attempting to reduce moral calculations to one rule excludes any arguments I make
that relate to other rules justified under other moral theories, which means I lose all
ground to attack the actual theories they advocate. Ground is key to fairness because
its the basis on which we make arguments.
2. Strat skew: They have multiple different ways the leverage their case against mine,
meaning I need to substantively answer every single FW justification, but they only
need to respond to the single theory that I advocate, skewing my strategy and forcing
me to overcover on the FW. Strategy is key to forming a coherent ballot story.
3. Resolvability: There is no way to prioritize rules or weigh between violations without
a meta-standard to make those determinations; only a unified theory like deontology or
utility can reconcile conflicts. Resolvability is the biggest impact on theory because
its necessary for a decision to be made.
4. Clash: They will just for the argument that I cover least, which means we cant
actually have a debate about which theory is better. Clash is key to education because
the comparison of arguments is the only unique educational impact to debate.
D-Voter: Fairness is a voter because unfair arguments arbitrarily skew your evaluation of the
round and it precedes substance because it frames its evaluation. Education is a voter because
its the reason schools fund debate as they have an a priori commitment to teaching students.
Drop the debater a) to set a precedent for the best norms of debate b) to deter future abuse and c)
to rectify time lost running theory. Use competing interps because a) what is reasonably fair is
arbitrary and b) reasonability encourages debaters to get away with increasingly unfair strategies
through defense on theory. And, dont vote on the RVI a) both debaters have the burden of being
fair, and no one deserves to win for just meeting that burden and b) to prevent the deterrence of
legitimate theory.
insufficient scope to peoples freedom to decide which risks to run or which benefits to reap. Nonconsensual adult organ transplants, for example, are morally intolerable when people face different likelihoods of
needing organs based on their voluntary behavior and no one is allowed to opt out of the transfer scheme. Those who rebel at this utilitarian recasting of the distinction between using people as means and regarding
them as ends, and who accept the preceding criticisms of Costa, Locke, and others, will be pushed to its polar opposite.
1 Rakowksi, Eric. Taking and Saving Lives. Columbia Law Review, Vol. 93, No.5. June, 1993. JSTOR. Pgs. 10821083.
AFC BAD
A-Interpretation: Debaters must be allowed to substantively contest opposing frameworks.
B-Violation: He runs AFC in the AC, which theoretically prevents me from contesting his
framework.
C-Standards:
1. Ground: The aff would always win since they can just pick a framework under which the
topic lit flows aff. [This is even true for util, since there are always better arguments on
one side of the resolution.] Also, even if they prove that their standard is fair, they will
always be more prepared on it, since they chose it in the first, putting me a significant
disadvantage. Ground is key to fairness because it dictates what arguments can be made
in round.
2. Philosophical education: There is zero philosophical education because there is no
incentive to develop any framework. If AFC was the norm, people would just assert the
standard since it would be uncontestable. Standards debate is key to education because it
forces debaters to discuss complex ethical ideas, encouraging higher level critical
thinking. Also, philosophical education only exists in LD debate since other formats
presume utility so his interp uniquely destroys an avenue to learn about moral theories.
Finally, phil education precludes a) fairness because we need to have philosophical
education to understand what it means to be fair and b) education because philosophy
teaches us what is valuable, so even if we can make good decisions with other education,
we wont make ethically valuable ones. And, philosophy is important because it allows
us to question our prejudices and avoid nihilism. Russell3:
The value of philosophy is, in fact, to be sought largely in its very uncertainty. The man who has no tincture of philosophy
goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense , from the
habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason. To
such a man the world tends to become definite, finite, obvious; common objects rouse no questions, and
unfamiliar possibilities are contemptuously rejected. As soon as we begin to philosophize, on the contrary, we
find, as we saw in our opening chapters, that even the most everyday things lead to problems to which only very incomplete answers can be given. Philosophy,
though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities
which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while
diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those
who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect. Apart from its utility
philosophy has a value -- perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it
the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this
3. Strat Skew: AFC allows the aff to dictate what the neg strategy will be for the round.
This overcompensates the aff for timeskew, turning their time/strat skew standards.
Further, this allows the aff to frontline and prep everything on the contention debate,
skewing the negs ability to win the round because the aff will always be significantly
more prepped on the contention level. Strat is key to fairness because both debaters need
to form a sufficient strategy to win the round.
D-Voter: Education is a voter because its the reason schools fund debate, as the have a
commitment to teaching students, and it precedes substance because theory frames the evaluation
of all substantive arguments.
And, this is an offensive reason to vote because
And, even if it isnt an offensive reason to, offensive counter interps are reasons to vote
because
Read RVI.
A2 Topical Clash
1. Standards debate is a side constraint to topical clash because development in the
standards debate allows us to have a nuanced contention debates
2. Even if topical clash outweighs phil education in a vacuum, the impact of AFC is the
destruction of standards debate, while topical clash is still possible in a world where we
dont have afc, so my link into phil education outweighs
3. The ground standard contains the internal link to topical clash because if the quality of
arguments is skewed towards one debater its significantly harder to engage them on the
contention level debate, so there is lower level clash.
A2 Strat Skew
1. They can also run a preclusive standard or load up the ac with spikes so they can still
exclude neg positions.
2. This overcompensates; you can compensate by giving them theoretical presumption and
an RVI.
1.
2.
3.
4.
A2 Time Skew
Time skews arent important since they can be overcome by more strategic use of time or
efficiency drills.
TURN: The aff has the structural advantage of speaking last, thus being able to decide
which arguments are most important.
TURN: The aff gets infinite pre-round prep time. This outweighs the time skew since it
allows the aff to employ well-practiced strategies to preclude and nullify neg speech time.
TURN: The aff speaks first, allowing the aff to lay the original terms of the debate.
GENERIC THEORY SHELLS 13
Because, however, duty and obligation are in general concepts that express the objective practical
necessity of certain actions and because two mutually opposing rules cannot be
necessary at the same time, then, if it is a duty to act according to one of them, it
is not only not a duty but contrary to duty to act according to the other. It follows, therefore, that a
conflict of duties and obligations is inconceivable (obligationes non colliduntur). It may, however, very well happen that
other.
two grounds of obligation (rationes obligandi), one or the other of which is inadequate to bind as a duty [Verpflichtung] (rationes obligandi non obligantes), are conjoined in a subject and in the rule
3.
4.
5.
Text is key to fairness because it's the internal link to all ground in the round, since the
text of the topic determines the possible fair divisions of ground.
2. Ground: Comparing worlds underdefines what the negative is: the negation could be it
is not the case that we should act as though the resolution is true, it could be we could not
act as though the resolution is true, or we should act as thought the resolution is not true.
This allows him to shift ground because he can oscillate between any of those three
interpretations. This gives me no stable ground to engage. [Could also be phrased as a
debatability argument.]
D-Voter: Fairness is a voter because unfair arguments arbitrarily skew your evaluation of the
round and it precedes substance because it frames its evaluation. Drop the debater a) to set a
precedent for the best norms of debate b) to deter future abuse and c) to rectify time lost running
theory. Use competing interps because a) what is reasonably fair is arbitrary and b)
reasonability encourages debaters to get away with increasingly unfair strategies through defense
on theory. And, dont vote on the RVI a) both debaters have the burden of being fair, and no one
deserves to win for just meeting that burden and b) to prevent the deterrence of legitimate theory.
6Frege, Gottlob. The Thought: A Logical Inquiry in Logicism and the Philosophy of Language: Selections from
Frege and Russell. Broadview Press. March 2003. Pg. 204.
the time of utterance is part of the expression of the thought. If someone wants to say the same today as he expressed yesterday using the word "today", he must replace this word with "yesterday".
Although the thought is the same its verbal expression must be different so that the sense, which would otherwise be affected by the differing times of utterance, is re-adjusted. The case is the same
here too. The same utterance containing the word "I" will express different thoughts in the mouths of different men, of which some may be true, others false.
Moral judgments are of the timeless nature. If someone asks, is it moral to murder my
mother, the correct answer is not the question, What time is it? Text is key to fairness
because its the internal link to all ground in the round because the topic determines all
possible fair divisions of ground.
2. Ground: If the debate is grounded in empirical facts, then one side will always be at a
structural advantage at that debate. Thats problematic because theres definitionally one
side that is correct on that debate and one side that is wrong on that debate. It is the fact
of the matter that their offense is true, which gives me no ground to engage it. Ground is
key to fairness because its the basis on which we make arguments.
D-Voter: Fairness is a voter because unfair arguments arbitrarily skew your evaluation of the
round and it precedes substance because it frames its evaluation. Drop the debater a) to set a
precedent for the best norms of debate b) to deter future abuse and c) to rectify time lost running
theory. Use competing interps because a) what is reasonably fair is arbitrary and b)
reasonability encourages debaters to get away with increasingly unfair strategies through defense
on theory. And, dont vote on the RVI a) both debaters have the burden of being fair, and no one
deserves to win for just meeting that burden and b) to prevent the deterrence of legitimate theory.
7 Frege, Gottlob. The Thought: A Logical Inquiry. Mind, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 259. (Jul., 1956), pp. 289-311.
GENERIC THEORY SHELLS 28
1.
2.
3.
4.
AT Strat/Time Skew
TURN: Either a) the neg doesnt want to trigger the contingency in which case I wasted
my time in the AC or b) the neg does want to engage in the contingency debate, in which
case the neg can trigger it and be ahead on the issue.
TURN: Contingencies give my opponent the strategic option of collapsing to the highest
layer of the debate. This gives them a positive time-tradeoff because I had to waste all the
time not only justifying the highest layer, but also justifying all the contingent scenarios
as well, which no longer have to be responded to.
TURN: Allowing people to ignore the logical implications of their arguments destroys
my strat because I have ZERO way of predicting how arguments will be utilized in
round. This outweighs since all strategy is ultimately premised on pursuing a logical
route to the ballot.
TURN: I need to be able to pre-empt the skep/presumption debate in the 1AC, otherwise
negs would always win it, since I would have to restart the debate in the 1AR
AT Clash
1) TURN: I increase clash on the implication of arguments. This outweighs their clash
argument since arguments dont matter without implications in a round or in the real
world.
2) TURN: I incentivize the neg to collapse to the highest layer to avoid the contingencies,
which would maximize clash by forcing us both on the same layer.
3) TURN: The contingencies are structured by appealing to the way my framework is
justified, so I increase clash by forcing him to respond to the nuances of my justification
and preventing him from running a generic framework dump.
4) TURN: I increase critical thinking skills through argument interaction on different layers
of the flow since arguments function differently depending on the implication of
responses. Critical thinking skills outweigh clash since analysis of logical argumentation
is the only unique educational benefit of debate.
5) TURN: Even-if scenarios are incredibly educational since in the real world one must
always be prepared for all possible outcomes.
GENERIC THEORY SHELLS 31
Information that took months to track down a few years ago can now spin off
the internet in just minutes. With such easy access and tremendous volumes, the ability to
choose effectively among a wide variety of options is ever more vital. In this world
students must increasingly be able to respond quickly, flexibly and critically. They must be able to wade
through and synthesise vast amounts of information, not just memorise chunks of it. They must learn to recognize what is relevant and what is irrelevant. They also need to
acquire the skills to be able to learn new technologies quickly as well as solve a continual stream of
problems with these new technologies. This is where chess as a tool to develop our childrens minds appears to be especially powerful. By its very nature
chess presents an ever-changing set of problems. Except for the very beginning
of the game where its possible to memorise the strongest lines each move
creates a new position. For each of these a player tries to find the best move by
calculating ahead, evaluating these future possibilities using a set of theoretical
principles. Importantly, more than one best move may exist, just as in the real world more than one best option may exist. Players must learn to
decide, even when the answer is ambiguous or difficult. These thinking skills are
becoming ever more valuable for primary and secondary school students constantly
confronted with new everyday problems. If these students go to university it will be especially imperative to understand how to apply broad
principles to assess new situations critically, rather than rely on absorbing a large number of answers. Far too commonly my own university students do not have these skills. As a result they become
swamped by information, vainly searching for the right answer to memorise rather than the various best options.
My interp has preferable to mere substantive clash because the possible combinations
of substantive arguments under a given framework are predictable and finite.
However, theres an unlimited number of ways a framework debate could play out
because theres no limit on the number of arguments that can exist a priori, since a)
you dont need evidence to make them and b) innovation means that new context
independent arguments are made all the timethats why philosophy is still a field of
study.
Critical engagement is key to education because it increases the quality of clash on
the substantive level and is key to strategic thinking because it forces debaters to
understand debate as a system and truly think about interactions between arguments.
[This also controls the internal link to advocacy skills because if you dont know how
8
McDonald,
Patrick.
The
Benefits
of
Chess
http://www.gardinerchess.com/publications/BenefitsOfChessInEdScreen2[1].pdf. 2005. Pg. 43
in
Education.
Debate IS one of these other contexts because you can think in a strategic manner
while still debating for the sake of debating. Simply put, debate is NOT merely an
activity where we research, put stuff up on the wiki, and engage each others arguments
in a way more meaningful than I outweigh on magnitude, LOLZ and Turn the link,
heres more evidence! So, my arguments are most unique to the functional purpose of
debate.
9 Levin, Peter (Dr. Peter Levin is an educational developer at the London School of Economics, specialising in providing one-toone study skills support for students. He is the author of Write Great Essays! and other books in the Student-Friendly Guides
series, published by the Open University Press). Strategic Thinking for More Able Pupils. Gifted and Talented Update, 2006.
http://www.teachingexpertise.com/articles/strategic-thinking-for-more-able-pupils-1534
behind.
Under the mantle of argument generation, debaters learn that if they can make an argument, they should, even if their objections are inconsistent, underdeveloped, or just plain untrue. Better still if they can falsely claim that the
argument has lexical priority over all others. After all, its your opponents job to answer the argument, right?
Whats worse, debaters have become afraid of these arguments. It is thought unstrategic to run a turnable NC even if the only turn ground is manifestly false or easily outweighed. Debaters hide arguments with the intention of
extending them as trumps to a blip spread rather than leveraging their case positions against a series of weak objections. Perhaps worst of all, debaters obfuscate their own positions (i.e. make their own arguments worse) so as to avoid
giving links into entirely unconvincing sets of arguments on a given topic.
That plausibly true arguments are preferable to patently false ones seems an obvious axiom of debate strategy, but apparently it is in need of some defense. So, a few of the reasons why it is strategically advantageous to run arguments
that are probably (or even unequivocally) true:
1. Answers to them will be false.
Debate ultimately comes down to an evaluation of the plausibility of arguments. When debaters elect to deploy simply untrue arguments, they are hoping to win by virtue of an opponents mistake or a judges mistaken evaluation.
This slight-of-hand tactic is unreliable at best.
Starting from a manifestly true position makes most refutation strategies unintimidating for the simple reason that they have to be fatally flawed at the end of the day. Your opponent can throw up roadblocks, but your chances of
winning the round depend only on your ability to execute the appropriate response strategy. You dont need to rely on someone elses mistake because you are on the right side of the issue.
2. Bad arguments invite bad responses.
Strategies that hope to overcome the manifest implausibility of arguments often create a race to the bottom in terms of argument quality. The fact that youve obscured the meaning of your position wont stop your opponent from
making dozens of responses; it will only make those responses equally unclear and make the judges evaluation of those arguments all the more unreliable. If your position is plausible and well-supported in the first place, dozens of
silly objections look like just that rather than a serious attempt at answering the argument. Whats more, you dont risk the judge dismissing your position out of hand because it was unclear or just plain ridiculous.
3. It is easier to do pre-tournament prep to deploy true positions.
The quality of your rebuttal strategies can be better when you deploy true arguments. Because yours is a position taken seriously by scholars, answers to objections and interactions between significant arguments will be discussed in
the topic literature. You can both prepare more thoroughly before the round and go deeper on these debates than your opponent is able to during the round.
The research process for plausible positions is much more straightforward. It is significantly easier to find good evidentiary support for serious advocacies than for crackpot theories or pro forma objections. And, you dont have to be
academically dishonest in suggesting that the authors you card would ultimately support some absurd position.
4. Perceptual Dominance
Its hard to look like a good debater when your underlying position is silly or non-existent (as when debaters make every argument they can think of without rhyme or reason). Untrue arguments are unlikely to cohere with your judges
sensibilities on the topic, which makes the whole project an uphill climb. At the end of the day the judge is going to be looking for reasons not to vote on the argument.
In contrast to the throw it against the wall and see what sticks opponent, a debater advocating a reasonable position on the topic looks much more credible and in control. Their mission is to make the round clear, because a clearheaded evaluation will almost always come out in their favor.
Obviously it is not always self-evident which arguments are true and which are false, and this is largely what gets fleshed out in good debate rounds. My argument should not be read to imply that good-faith disagreements about the
plausibility of arguments are illegitimate or that it is somehow unstrategic to buck the conventional wisdom. Making the truth of your arguments a primary consideration should not discourage you from intellectual experimentation or
creativity; all true ideas are the product of innovation at one point or another.
strategy should be primarily about focusing the debate on issues on which you are
likely to be substantively ahead rather than trying to avoid realistic evaluation of arguments
altogether. Thinking the debate game is so insular that argument quality can be a secondary consideration is, I think, a serious mistake. In the long run, no amount of
strategic thinking can overcome the fact that your arguments are untrue. Dont let sophisticated technique trump the fundamentals.
My point is simply that
Not running good arguments is akin to having a board full of pawns in chessits stupid to set
yourself up that way and thus inconsistent with strategic thinking. My argument is that a
sensible equilibrium between argument quality and critical engagement between debaters ought
to be reached in order to maximize ones chance of winning.
Even if the neg defends only one condition, contractarianism still violates since its still
necessary but insufficientI would still have to prove that the victim would consent to the
principle and that the principle would justify a prohibition, while all they need to show is that the
victim would never consent to the principle. Moreover, the neg cant meet the interp without
being inconsistent with the authors conclusion, which promotes academic dishonesty and
illogical argumentation. In academia, no ones allowed to intentionally misrepresent an author.
Evidence ethics ensures real world education that guides us our entire lives. [Further, its
unpredictable because he gets to choose which tenet of the moral theory to defend, whereas I go
into the round blind, at best prepped for the authors conclusion.]
C-Standards:
1. Reciprocity: The NC is at a 4:1 structural advantage because he wins if I violate a single
condition OR if he wins turns on the AC, while even if I win that I meet every single
condition, I still dont win. Since permissibility goes neg, I have to go for all defense.
2. Clash: The NC merely says that any option is permissible since victims cannot form
contracts with aggressors, so he doesnt advocate a world, allowing him to shift out of
neg disads. Multiple conditions allow him to go for the condition that I cover the least,
killing clash, which precludes other education links because we have to actually engage
on an issue in order to learn about it. and links to fairness because I need a fair chance to
engage in a debate in order to win.
10 Gauthier, David. Moral Artifice. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun.,
1988), pp. 385-418.
GENERIC THEORY SHELLS 57
and thus should be rejected, proving that it has those things wouldnt mean you win.
Theres no such thing as reciprocity debaters choose criterions and make arguments
with the intent of giving them the advantage in a debate round, its ridiculous to pretend
that just because some people are more blatant they are less reciprocal than others.
No brightline for how reciprocal someone has to be in order to meet their standard
without that key bright line theory is irresolvable since no one could ever prove
themselves to be not abusive.
A2 Clash
Turn I spread clash out vertically across flows, rather than horizontally on one. They
dont say why clash on one layer is better then across layers. In fact, mine is better since
I shouldnt be responsible because of their inability to clash with me the arguments are
there, they can respond to them they choose to not respond since theyre not good
enough to cover.
Turn theyre destroying clash by running this shell. They could of responded to my
strategy, but they just took the debate a level higher because they didnt want to make
A2 META-THEORY
GENERAL RESPONSES
1. inf regressive
Just argument for particular evaluation
Fairness frames substance not theory not subject to own