WNDI LD Lecture Notes

Value: a worthy concept or ideal which is justified as an end in itself (meaning that people think it is valuable because people think it is valuable)

Examples of Values:

Justice: to each one’s due, fairness

Freedom/Liberty: Autonomy/Agency/Individualism: the ability to do as one wishes

Life/Security/Safety: being free of injury and in good health

Happiness: contentment and pleasure in life

Dignity: feeling of self-worth or importance

Quality of Life: sum of comforts, securities, and freedoms composing good lives

Morality/Duty: ethical commitment to universal codes of conduct or respect for others

Altruism/Love: charitable or humanitarian concern for others before oneself

Criteria: a weighing mechanism or mean toward gaining the value

Outline

Before writing a case, you need to compose an outline of everything you are going to do with it: do not start a case by working on an introduction (which is unimportant compared to the structure of a coherent and persuasive argument)

Step one: write out all of the values you can think of for one side of a resolution

Step two: think of various criteria that could be used in upholding each of your value options

Step three: outline your case

The most valuable case wins the debate. Thus, cases need to prove five things:

My value is the greatest in the debate
My criterion is the fairest for adjudicating the debate
My case meets my criterion
My case achieves my value
My value is exclusive: it cannot be achieved by my opponent’s case

Thus, it makes the most sense that you structure your case like this:

Observation One: Value
Observation Two: Criteria
Contention One: [My case meets my criteria]
Contention Two: [My case achieves my value]
Contention Three: [My opponent’s case cannot uphold my value]

Fill-in-the-blanks Case (N)

Introduction:

Observation One: Resolutional Analysis – Definitions

Observation Two: My value for this round will be ___________________

My value is defined as __________________________________________________________________________

My value is the highest in this debate because ________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Observation Three: My criterion for this round will be ___________________

My criterion is defined as ________________________________________________________________________

My criterion is a fair weighing mechanism for this debate because ________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

In this debate, I will contend that __________________________________________________________________

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Contention One:

Contention Two:

Contention Three:

Cut/tag/cite (C)

This is not a planned lecture, I do it on the computer screen to demonstrate and then I handout a random card.

Rebuttals, crystallization (C)

Remind them:

1. Clearly state the voting issue in one, succinct sentence

2. Support why it is a voting issue and why you are winning the issue

3. As you discuss the voting issue make points and then state how those points respond to opponent arguments. DON’T get defensive and start answering their arguments with “they said x, that’s not true because we showed y. . .” instead do this “We have shown y, explain it, and that proves the opponent x argument to be false because . . .”

Hold Prep Time Until End

Can Stop Flowing and Move to Another Page

1.My Value is best upheld in this round

-WEIGH WEIGH WEIGH

-use your criterion

2. I am winning X argument

-pick something that both sides are focusing on

-weigh

3. Comparison of worlds

Practice Writing Voting Issues (example debate/own cases)

1 NR = 6 minutes total

-Save the majority of your downtime to take before this speech. This rebuttal is huge and important and you don’t really need that time for your first speech since half of it was completed prior to the round even starting (your case).

-Spend 2-3 minutes clearing up any issues on the flow that are new or particularly unresolved. Be careful not to dwell on issues that you are most likely losing. Just answer them offensively and move on.

-The rest of your time should be devoted to voting issues. You can, in fact, spend the entire rebuttal on voting issues and group any important arguments under the taglines of your voters. I find that the latter tactic works better with “big picture” judges (judges who either tell you that they think this way, or do not appear to be flowing very much or at all).

2 AR = 3 minutes total

-Spend your entire time on voting issues. No questions asked, I would not suggest any other method.

The new, improved, and EASY way to give good voting issues:

-I advise flowing your voters on a separate sheet of paper, just so you don’t get confused juggling paper around during your speech.

-Keep it short: 3 (at most, 4) voters are all you really need in a round. By this point, you should be able to nicely divide all arguments in the round into 3 groups.

-Clearly state the voting issue in one, succinct sentence. This sentence will ideally be worded as “I am WINNING (x argument)” or some other form of offensive language. NEVER say why you are “not losing” the argument in the tagline. This will only leave the impression that you are trying to come from behind. Even if your opponent has just beat you into the ground, keep a smile on your face and pretend like it was your best round ever. You never know what the judge might be thinking.

-Support why this is a voting issue and why you are winning the issue. Use evidence from your case and other points brought out in the round.

-As you discuss the voting issue make points and then state how those points respond to opponent arguments. DON’T get defensive and start answering their arguments with “they said x, that’s not true because we showed y. . .” instead do this “We have shown y, explain it, and that proves the opponent x argument to be false because . . .”

One method for constructing voting issues:

1.My Value is best upheld in this round

-WEIGH WEIGH WEIGH (Why is your value better than your opponents? Does it encompass your opponents? Does it just make more sense?)

-Use your criterion as a mechanism to weigh the round. Example: Under the veil of ignorance, one would also choose to have their dignity protected, rather than just Justice, because justice might not be inclusive of all members of society (utility, for example).

2. I am winning X argument

-pick something that both sides are focusing on

-weigh why your arguments here are better.

3. Comparison of worlds

-Give a short narrative about what a world under your interpretation of the resolution might look like and compare that wonderful world with the disaster that your opponent wants to inflict. This brings nebulous discussions about values and philosophies back to the real world (and is an excellent tactic for lay judges).

1. Persuasiveness

The best way to convey a persuasive tone is to have your case memorized (or somewhat close to it). I understand that this means you may have to actually write your case a few days prior to the tournament, but it is well worth it. A note on memorization: there is some study that found reading what you want to memorize directly before going to sleep increases your memory’s retention. I have tried this before a variety of tests, and it does seem to work. Give it a shot.

2. Ums

Um…no one should, eh, ever, well, say “um.” To stop this habit, try speaking in front of your teammates. Every time you say “um” or another filler word, have them either a) Yell at you (you can decide exactly what it is they should yell, depending on the environment:) OR b) Use a buzzer of some sort (slamming your hand down on a desk also works quite well). This brings the behavior to your attention and while you may be forced to speak at a slower pace to keep aware of your use of filler language, it should eventually cure the problem. My high school English teacher made good use of this and while I can see the effects slowly wearing off as I get farther and farther from high school, it worked for me!

3. Swaying

While standing rigidly at attention would be a bit awkward, there’s no excuse for rocking side-to-side while speaking (or wandering around the room…this just looks confusing and somewhat affected). Short of physical restraints, the same negative reinforcement behavior used to stop someone from saying “um” works to keep people from swaying as well. Often, this behavior is unconscious and the offender just needs to be made aware that it’s happening.

4. Eye Contact v. No Eye Contact

Having someone stare directly at you for 45 minutes, as a judge, is a bit disconcerting. At the same time, someone who refuses to make eye contact may seem nervous or dishonest. Strive for a 70-30 (or thereabouts) ratio of eye contact versus no eye contact. For the 30% of the time that you are not looking convincingly into the eyes of your critic, find a spot slightly to one say of him/her and focus there (the ceiling and the floor are off limits!).

5. Speed

I feel like maybe this deserves its own thread (if it does, let me know and I’ll work on that). Speed is a touchy subject in high school debate now. While national circuit debaters keep getting progressively faster, many regional debaters still speak at a very moderate pace. I won’t make a value judgment on either technique here, but I think the most critical thing to remember about speed is your judge. If you know that your judge is a former/current policy debater or debated in LD on the national circuit, speed should be fine (see the warning in number 6). If your judge is a parent or another lay judge, make sure that you explain everything very clearly and at a normal conversational pace. If you aren’t sure, ask. I’ve only had that method backfire once (I asked, she said she was fine with speed, and her comments after the round proved the opposite). If it does backfire, at least you know for future rounds (and can strike that judge if the option is given:).

6. Enunciation

No matter how fast you think you can speak, or how qualified your judge is to deal with speed, if you slur your words or mumble or never pause while speaking, it will not win you any extra points. Improve your enunciation by practicing tongue twisters (or your case) with a pen held lightly in between your front teeth (bite down, but only enough so you can’t fully open your mouth). If you can speak fast and clearly even with this impediment, then you’re doing great!

*****Philosophers / Values*****

Liberalism/social contract (C)

Write THE BASICS on the board.

I – Liberalism

– governments must legitimize authority

– most governments do this by relying on

1 – military or economic power / oppression

2 – religious power / divine right

3 – patriarchal power / birth right

– liberalism is a system of government that legitimizes its authority by claiming to have the people’s consent to rule

II – Machiavelli: beginning of European political thought

– Life

1 – Adviser for government overthrown by another Prince

2 – Was later caught conspiring to overthrow the new Prince

3 – After a period of imprisonment and torture, Machiavelli wrote

his masterpiece The Prince to try to suck up to his old nemesis

- The Prince is a nasty treatise on how to grab power, keep it, and avoid being ousted. A Prince should be cruel to his people because it is better to be feared than loved. The ends justify the means.

– The Discourses

1 – 20 years after The Prince, Machiavelli wrote a new argument that

distanced himself from his earlier treatise

2 – The Discourses is a moderate argument for the creation of a republic

with lots of suggestions on what helps one stand the test of time

3 – Republics survive because their peoples are embodiments of Civic

Virtue; they are responsible citizens who care for their community

III – The Iron Century and Thomas Hobbes

– The Iron Century: 1550-1650

1 – War rages all over Europe for a whole century

– Life of Thomas Hobbes

1 – Watching wars at home and abroad made him obsessed with survival

2 – Puritan man, but secretly atheistic

3 – Heavily influenced by scientific and mechanistic theories

4 – He published his book, Leviathan, in 1651

– Hobbes on people

1 – People are mechanistic: brains are wired to always work the same way

2 – Survival is the single priority of all people; they will do anything for it

3 – People are not above immorality; will kill to survive and be safe

4 – Hobbes concludes that all people are evil by nature

– The State of Nature

1 – State of Nature is Hobbes’ model for displaying the badness of people;

it is a thought experiment, not Hobbes’ view of history

2 – In the state of nature, people exist without governing authority

3 – Attempting to ensure survival, all people act violently toward each

other; their lives are “nasty, brutish, and short”

4 – All people have the Right of Nature; the Right of Nature is Hobbes’

term for the license people have to hurt each other

– The Social Contract

1 – Realizing that their lives depend on it, people make a pact called the

social contract

2 – The social contract is an agreement made among the citizens of a

society, not between citizens and the government

3 – Each person agrees to lay down Rights of Nature in exchange

for all others doing the same

– Leviathan

1 – Government is created to enforce the social contract

2 – Sovereign power must be absolute; if it is not, people may challenge

the sovereign authority, enabling them to create chaos

3 – The Sovereign may even imprison and execute his citizens; the

contract does not have authority over the Sovereign because then his power would not be absolute

– Citizen Rights

1 – Citizens only have the right to life, but this does not mean that the

Sovereign cannot kill them; only that the Sovereign is being a good Sovereign when protecting citizen’s lives

2 – Citizens have no right to property, speech, etc.

3 – Citizens of a territory conquered by another Sovereign are then obligated to their new ruler; they must abide by the contract that will keep them alive

4 – The Sovereign cannot be overthrown and contracts can’t be broken;

that would deprive him of absolute power

IV – The Glorious Revolution and John Locke

– The Glorious Revolution

1 – The Catholic James II took the throne in the late 17th Century angering many protestant British subjects

2 – British lords offered the throne to William of Orange who ascended in a bloodless revolution when James II stepped down

– The New World and Capitalism

1 – European discovery of America and the superiority of the British fleet made England the trade kingpin of the Atlantic

2 – Strong lords were forming what would become the middle class; they were most interested in trade and property expansion

– John Locke’s worldview

1 – People are born tabula rosa: they are blank slates

2 – Born without innate characteristics, people are able to build themselves into whatever they wish to become

3 – People are basically good, but society sometimes corrupts them

– Consent and the Purpose of the Contract

1 – Hobbes doesn’t allow each person to sign the contract, but Locke

says they are obligated to it anyway because of Tacit Consent: Tacit Consent says that one is obligated to the laws and institutions of a society if they receive benefits of living in it (i.e. protection)

2 – People enter the contract for more reasons than just survival; Locke says that people have three inalienable rights: life, liberty, property

3 – Property protection is a large focus of Locke’s work; disputes over property are seen as the key conflict worked out by law

4 – Property consists of:

-self

-labor

-raw material (fair amount)

-land you cultivate

-children until they understand law

-slaves and servants

-slave labor, “piece of sod slave cuts is same as you cut”

-commerce

5 – Can commit violence in name of property protection

– Locke’s political system

1 – Locke writes his theories in Two Treatises on Civil Government

2 – Locke is not advocating democracy: his system protects the life, liberty, and property of rich landowners, not peasants; that’s why he can advocate what he does and still own stock in the slave trade

3 – Legislative government is where the power should be because they represent landowner interests – compares to a parental structure…power of govt. can lessen once society adapts.

4 – Legislatures not representing landowner interests can and morally

should be overthrown; citizens have an obligation to revolt against

corrupt governments (i.e. the Glorious Revolution)

5 – However, governments also have prerogative: the ability to do illegal things if they are in the interests of the society (i.e. Oliver North)

V – Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the General Will

– Enlightenment philosophy

1 – France underwent a period of scientific and rational celebration

2 – Rousseau was at the center of the Enlightenment and translated Lockean ideas into French

- Rousseau’s State of Nature

1 – laws of nature:

-self preservation

-law of empathy (cannot hurt others)

2 – only inequality in state of nature is physical

– Equality

1 – On the Origins of Inequality is Rousseau’s attempt to figure out why government has gone wrong

2 – He concludes that people are Noble Savages: they are good at heart, but are lead astray by a corrupt society

3 – Society habituates us into lazy habits that spur corruption (i.e. failure to care for community and politics, greed, etc.)

– Rousseau’s political theory

1 – In The Social Contract, Rousseau argues for a small communal system where all people are heard and cared for

2 – The individual will can be corrupt, greedy, and arbitrary; state systems should not be based around it

3 – The popular will is discriminating and dangerous to a minority; Rousseau does not trust democracy

4 – The general will is the true focus of political systems; it is what is

actually in the best interests of the community

– Enacting the General Will

1 – A legislature is responsible for figuring out what the general will is; they must decide based on their civic responsibility

2 – The Sovereign exists to enforce and enact the laws of the legislature

3 – Corrupt sovereigns are overthrown; the legislature is never overthrown since it is the enactment of the General Will

VI – Using Social Contracts

– Contracts are flawed

1 – Debaters need to know them well, because others will use the contracts, but there are ways to use the concepts implied by the contracts without

having to defend excess baggage like Locke’s stand on slavery (don’t use Locke on reparations topic)

VII – Alternative to Social Contract

– Reciprocity

1 – Reciprocity is the mutual respect for rights created by social contracts

2 – Use reciprocity when you want to argue that law and government create institutions demanding that individuals protect each other’s rights

– Government Legitimacy

1 – Liberal governments are legitimate because they gain consent from the people in using their authority

2 – Use government legitimacy when you need to argue that values must be upheld in order to keep the state’s authority legitimate

– Locke and Rousseau’s contracts are the best

1 – Locke’s contract fits best with most judges because he was highly influential to the founding fathers and his rhetoric about inalienable rights connects with many American citizens

2 – Rousseau’s contract works well when you are arguing for greater civic duty or community solidification

Deontology Lecture (R)

The Origin of Ethics

European thinking-things

Descartes convinced all of Europe of the existence of stable human

identity: this is the idea that people have personalities that are

closed, definable, and can be placed in categories

People are thought to have agency: this is the ability to make a moral

calculation given situations and decide on action causing a proper

outcome

Calculations

Ethics are systems of thinking that provide ways for human agents to

decide courses of action

Ethics will determine what rules to obey, what variables to calculate,

and other factors in coming to a moral decision

Immanuel Kant and Deontology

Life of Kant

Son of a German minister, Kant obsesses over universalistic laws

Had a long but boring life, although the king of Prussia did ban some

of his writings for a short while

His philosophy

Deontology

What are means and ends? Means are what you do to get something. For example my means to getting to camp was driving, and the end was getting to camp.

The philosophy of deontology

The ends justify the means

If the initial action you take is moral, even if the result is bad, the action is considered moral

Additional notes

Ends are not connected to moral culpability; you cannot know the effects of an action (because you cannot predict the future) and you are not in control of those effects (because you aren’t a god)

You are not responsible for the means of other actors

People cannot be treated as means alone, but must be treated as ends in

themselves “kingdom of ends” (i.e. you cannot kill anyone to get what

you want)

Kant says you can’t lie to Nazi soldiers because you are culpable for your means alone, not the means of the Nazi soldiers. If they enact an immoral mean on Jewish victims, they are morally culpable for it, but you are not in control of those ends and are absolved of moral culpability

To lie to Nazi soldiers would be wrong because it would use them as a means to your own ends. The categorical imperative test would say that it is wrong to use people universally.

Problems with deontology

Deontology is unrealistically limiting

Choices do not always allow us to act morally; we will often

be confronted with situations where there is no moral option, and deontology leaves us helpless in those situations

Utility is preferable because it can provide guidance for decision making in any situation; it is not limited by moral rules although it can still be influenced by them

Ends can be known

We can use probability; we are reasonably certain that turning over a Jewish friend to a group of Nazi soldiers is a bad idea

Deontology is sacrificial

It makes us so consumed with our own moral

culpability that we do not act against injustices

Deontology relies on ends

The categorical imperative can only prove that certain actions are bad by making you picture a universe in which the action’s maxim is universalized

We picture the end result of universalizing the maxim; Kant’s principle relies on showing us how bad the ends are to prove that certain means are wrong

General Ways to defeat deontology

Deontology isn’t really a means to any value other than morality

Not a weighing mechanism, you either are moral meeting deontology or you aren’t you can’t use it to decide who wins the round.

It doesn’t take into account modern situational ethics

The Categorical Imperative

Definition: Act as though the MAXIM of your action were, through your will, to become universal law.” – this is a test for a categorically imperative action. Using the universalizing test allows us to see what would happen if our maxim where the universal law; that stops moral agents from acting in exception to universal laws; for example, I might test the decision to lie by imagining what would happen if everyone lied when they wished or needed to, and that causes me to avoid lying because I can see that it would be bad to apply that maxim universally

Additional Notes

The categorical imperative is the option we have to act in accordance with universal law and our moral duty to it. The categorical imperative is based on duty alone. Kant says that duty or “the will” is the only thing good without qualification (there’s nothing that makes it good, it just is) and therefore the only way to determine morality.

Universal laws are legitimate because they are universal; if there is ever a situation in which they do not apply, then they are not actually laws; laws cannot have exceptions and still be laws

Problems with the categorical imperative

A famous Kant dilemma: You are living in Germany in 1939 and Nazi soldiers knock on your door. They ask if you are hiding any Jews in your home. You are, indeed, hiding some Jewish friends. Do you lie to the soldiers? Kant’s answer is “No.” If you lie to them, you are breaking universal law.

A person wishes to commit suicide, but because of universal law, cannot will that everyone should do the same – this sacrifices autonomy

A beggar needs to borrow money to eat, s/he knows they cannot pay it back.

Contradiction: cannot will to have others take loans they cannot repay, and yet

cannot allow oneself to starve to death as suicide cannot be allowed either.

Works:

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Critique of Pure Reason

Alan Gewirth

Basic Philosophy

Autonomous beings are moral agents

There are certain general rights that must be respected in all moral agents.

2 levels of autonomy:

the right to life and physical integrity

right not to be lied to, self-respect, and purpose (the ability to improve one’s own position)

There are certain general rights that must be respected in all moral agents (freedom and safety). Moral agents will recognize the rights of other moral agents.

Does not exactly say what is moral.

Deontological Decision-Making

The Intervening Actor:

Problem: Terrorists are holding your mother captive.

They will kill her unless you detonate an atomic bomb in New York.

Utilitarian Solution: Shoot Mom. Save a million lives.

Gewirth’s Solution: Do *nothing*

Deontological means matter; not ends.

You are not responsible for *intervening actors*; they choose to

bomb New York; you do not choose to kill your mother.

Why this isn’t crazy:

We cannot know the ends

Martin Luther King Jr. example

MLK wants to march through Birmingham

“Bull” Connor has threatened to spray marchers with fire

hoses and beat them to a pulp

MLK chooses to march anyway; is he responsible for the

ensuing violence?

Gewirth says no. Bull is the intervening actor and is solely

responsible for the violence. Gewirth has concocted this

whole argument for the purpose of defending MLK

His Main Works

-- Reason and Morality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).

-- Human rights: essays on justification and applications (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982)

-- The Community of Rights (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

Peter Singer

Theory of moral obligation

Moral Obligation to save a drowning baby

If you can help someone without a comparable harm being imposed upon yourself you are morally obligated to do so.

For example you have a moral obligation to save a drowning baby if you know how to swim.

Basically moral intuition.

STORY: Peter Singer has exstensive writings on how beatiality is moral, and he’s supported by PETA.

How to use singer: Singer is great in topics where you’re obligated to prove that a moral

obligation of some sort exists.

Answers to Singer

If one were to always make sacrifices then everyone would be poor off in society

Peter ignores things like kin selection

Peter Singer admits that this theory has no warrant

His Works:

Bioethics

Writings on an Ethical Life

Practical Ethics

Criterion and Utilitarianism Lecture (R)

Criterions:

Stress Importance

Stress Difficulty

Purpose/Function

Intermediary step between the value and the case

All arguments are filtered through it. Contentions -> criterion -> value.

What the judge uses to weigh the round

Criterion as a means to the value

Hypothetical example of how this would work

You value people getting presents your criterion would be UPS or bicycles

because those are the means.

LD examples

Human Rights -> Societal Welfare, Preservation of Life ->Human Life, Economic security -> QOL, Free and Fair Elections -> Fulfillment of Democratic Ideals, Safety ->QOL

Criteria as weighing mechanisms

Hypothetical example

Your value is deliciousness, huge scale that determined how delicious something was by using the criertion of chocolate and weighing what’s more cholocatey. you put chocolate cake on one side and sugar cookies on the other and it tells you what’s better achieves your value based on the criterion, of chocolateyness.

LD example

At the end of the round the judge decides what criterion to use, whether yours or your opponents based on the arguments you made in the round. Then they put the arguments that each person has won on either side of the scale and whoever gets more of the decided criterion wins. For example the judge decides that the criterion for the round is human life, your opponent wins the argument that they find a cure for cancer so that goes on one side of the scale, and you win the argument that you prevent nuclear war and thus human extinction, so that goes to the other side of the scale. Using human life as the criterion you would win because when you weigh millions of people against all people, all people wins out.

How to decide what criterion to use

Two strategies

Find evidence and make a list of arguments and see what criterion

ties them all, or a lot of them together.

Decide what you want your case to focus around and chose a value and

criterion and then find arguments that prove that you meet the criterion you’ve established

Criteria can be almost anything

You can use anything reasonable as a criterion (I HAND OUT LIST OF POPULAR CRITERIA)

Criteria must be fair

Each person must be potentially able to win the round using the criterion, bad criterions are for example on the economic development V. environmental protection environmental protection on the aff and economic development on the neg. Don’t use a criterion that your opponent is precluded from meeting by the criterion.

Criteria Strategy

Impact to it

Under your criterion analysis make it very clear why your criterion is best and then filter all your arguments through it. For example on the environmental protection case my criterion was human life and c1 was I prevent the biodiversity crisis, which saves human life, c2 I prevent global warming which saves human life, c3 I prevent resource wars that saves human life, c4 I prevent over consumption, which saves human life.

Since I had big impacts if I won one argument I won the round.

Very specific criterions and frame working

One strategy is to have a criterion that is very narrow that only you impact to. For example my friend Sam Kleiner had a case on international law, he spent 4 minutes on what that = a moral obligation then just a little time on why how his case was consistent with international law. He knew no one would talk about international law, and that therefore if he won his criterion he won.

Risks

You lose the criterion you lose the round

You get a judge who doesn’t know how to judge or judges

in a non traditional way you lose.

Advantages

You can ignore parts of your opponents case by saying that

they don’t impact back to your standard.

Issue Selection

If you’ve been spread out of the round this is a good strategy. You’ve already formatted your cases so that each contention proves your criterion so now you can just talk about your criterion and the contention that you’re winning the most. (remember to deal with turns your opponent makes though)

2AR with the the criterion

A way of doing voting issues now is to at the beginning of the 2ar explain

why you win the criterion, or just clarify which is being used in the round

(even if it’s your opponents). Then each voting issue can be ways you get the criterion.

Combining or Agreeing on criterions

If your criterions are similar or you realize that your opponents is better for you strategically you can agree in CX to theirs or a combination of the two of yours. Also, if you accidently drop your criterion you can still in the round by impacting to your opponents.

Ways to win the criterion debate

Just saying that your opponent don’t achieve their criterion is NOT SUFFICIENT,

and there really are only a few arguments that are appropriate for use here.

-Criterion is subjective/inherently ambiguous

- Unclear/vague

- Doesn’t link to value

-Not a weighing mechanism

-Not resolutionally applicable

- Racist/ethnocentric/offensive

- Not something that should be valued or bad in general

-Unfair of unequal

It can be good to add in at the end about even if they win the criterion why you

still meet it.

LIST OF POPULAR CRITERIA

Cultural autonomy

Deontology

Human Life

Human Rights

Security

Safety

Individualism

Community Standards

Communitarianism

Utilitarianism

Pragmatism

Veil of Ignorance

Justice

Soft Power

Free and Fair elections

Democratic Ideals

Democracy

Autonomy

Basic Needs

Security of Person

Societal Welfare

Environmental Protection

Liberty

Equality

Quality of Life

Happiness

Capitalism

Flexibility

Discourse

Market Place of Ideas

Stability

Dignity

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Teleology

Utilitarianism

What is Utilitarianism

Known as the greatest good for the greatest number of people which is based on

Mill’s definition.

It has a number of definitions though. “utilitarianism actually

refers only to “a calculation of the goodness or badness of an act” when used in philosophical works without a clear definition given.

A good basic all encompassing definition is “the rightness or wrongness of actions are determined by the goodness or badness of its consequences” (like teleology)

Kinds of Utilitarianism

There are a number of different kinds of Utilitarianism

Act

Act Utility is the goodness or badness of an act in a given situation

Nearly the same as teleology and consequentialism. If in the end more people are helped then hurt then the action is moral.

Rule

“Rule Utility is the goodness or badness of an act when constrained by a system of moral laws”

Look to the action itself and see if the action were applied as a rule whether the consequence would be good or bad. Very similary to Kants universal maxim.

AN EXAMPLE:

To illustrate, consider the following scenario: A surgeon has six patients: one needs a liver, one needs a pancreas, one needs a gall bladder, and two need kidneys. The sixth just came in to have his appendix removed. Should the surgeon kill the sixth man and pass his organs around to the others? This would obviously violate the rights of the sixth man, but utilitarianism seems to imply that, given a purely binary choice between (1) killing the man and distributing his organs or (2) not doing so and the other five dying, violating his rights is exactly what we ought to do.

A rule utilitarian, however, would look at the rule, rather than the act, that would be instituted by cutting up the sixth man. The rule in this case would be: "whenever a surgeon could kill one relatively healthy person in order to transplant his organs to more than one other person who needs them, he ought to do so." This rule, if instituted in society, would obviously lead to bad consequences. Relatively healthy people would stop going to the hospital, we'd end up performing many risky transplant operations, etc., etc. So a rule utilitarian would say we should implement the opposite rule: don't harvest healthy people's organs to give them to sick people. If the surgeon killed the sixth man, then he would be doing the wrong thing.

Universalistic Utility

Universalistic Utility is the goodness or badness of an act for a larger group or society.

Bascially a decision is moral if it benefits the global community more than I hurts it

Egoistic Utility

Egoistic Utility is the goodness or badness of an act for an individual or a single institution opposed to a larger social order

Basically we should all look to what’s the best possible

thing for ourselves because it’s what people naturally do.

Normative Utility

Normative Utility is the goodness or badness of an act given a system of value judgements or constraints

This system is very similar to Rule Utility, but different in that it might refer to more individualistic assessments of value rather than the universalistic moral rules found in deontology

Objective Utility

Objective Utility is the goodness or badness of an act outside of consideration of social, cultural, or contextual norms; it claims to be unbiased like science

Basically same as act but it takes external factors into account.

The Philosophers

Life of Jeremy Bentham

Bentham was an influential thinker in England during the

Industrial Revolution

Bentham was an odd ball; among other weird things, he founded

a college where his body is brought to every board meeting since

he died over a century ago

Bentham’s philosophy

Bentham was a hedonist; he believed in pursuing pleasure

Bentham’s conception of utility involves pursuing whatever

Maximizes pleasure versus pain.

There are a few sub criteria to see if an action produces pleasure

All categories are equally valuable

Intensity

Duration

Certainty

Propinquity (pro-pink-witty)

Nearness

Fecundity

The chances of there being a repeat of the

positive experience

Purity

The chance of something negative happening

Extent

How many people are affected

Life of J.S. Mill

By age 6 had written and composed a concerto

Can do calculus at 9

Wrote first book at 12

Went crazy at 15

Put in a sanitarium at 20

The son of James Mill, John Stuart was taught (and overworked) by Jeremy Bentham from an early age, leading to a nervous breakdown in his early adult life.