The Standards Debate

1. The Standards Debate (

2. Brief overview of the standards • Value: “good stuff” that is derived from the resolution. Can relate to the actor, the evaluative term, or the issue area of the resolution. • Criterion: standard by which we determine who better meets the value. • Three purposes of the criterion: (1) Distinguish between relevant and irrelevant arguments; (2) weigh relevant arguments against each other; (3) establish a theory or theme. • The goal of this lecture is to help you guys think critically about the standard, construct better standards, and press your opponents on their standards.

3. TYPES OF RESOLUTIONS • Call to action: “The United States ought to extend to non-citizens accused of terrorism the same constitutional due process protections that it grants its citizens” • Declarative: “Targeted killing is a morally permissible foreign policy tool.” • Negative: “The use of eminent domain to promote private enterprise is unjust”

4. OTHER TOPICAL CONSIDERATIONS • Is there an agent of action? • Is the agent of action an individual, a government, or another entity? • Is the resolution essentially descriptive or prescriptive? Is it clear or unclear?

5. PURPOSE 1: FILTERING • Goal is to distinguish between important and unimportant arguments. • Example: if the criterion is “National Security”, only impacts that relate to national security are relevant. • What’s the problem with this model? (1) Justifies overly-narrow criteria; (2) Excludes relevant impacts. • But the alternative is having super-broad criteria that make it impossible to judge debates and filter between arguments? • Is this a bad thing? Would we rather have the judge filtering out arguments, or would we rather have more arguments “in play” at the end of the round? • One way around this problem: “threshold” or “baseline” criteria (national security, basic needs, etc.) that you need some of, but are not the only relevant criteria. • But is security a threshold criterion? This obviously begs the question of what the threshold is. You can know that you don’t have enough, but can you know when you are sufficiently secure?

6. PURPOSE 2: Weighing • Criteria need to allow the judge to weigh competing arguments. • Note: does not apply to “threshold” or brightline criteria, or binary criteria. • Important concept: the criterion does not actually do the weighing—it is merely the MECHANISM by which YOU weigh the arguments for the judge. • In this way there’s some similarity between the filtering function and weighing function.

7. Purpose 3: Theme/Theory • Gives coherence to your arguments. • Serves as a framing device/motif. • Ballparking: it’s about psychologically controlling the terms of the debate. • Think about the debt ceiling deal: Repubiicans extracted huge cuts because they changed the focus in Washington from “deficit reduction” to “spending cuts”—they used language like “living within our means” “getting our financial house in order” etc. • Hard to quantify the effect of this—but it’s definitely there.

8. Utilitarianism v. Deontology • Utilitarianism: ends jusitfy the means; greatest good for greatest number; moral principles tend to be more flexible and situational. • Deontology: ends don’t justify the means; absolute prohibitions on immoral actions; moral principles are derived from universal law, don’t change in different situations. • “Welfare” based criteria tend to be more utilitarian; “autonomy” and “rights” based criteria tend to be more deontological. • This distinction is WAY overblown. You don’t need to advance a moral theory, and not every debate should come down to utilitarianism v. deontology.

9. Arguments in favor of utilitarianism • Nazis at the door. • Deontology causes paralysis/irresolvable obligations. • Exigent circumstances justify different moral standards. • Autonomous individuals would rationally choose utilitariansm—Contractarianism. • Utilitarianism does not correspond to moral intuitions. • Utilitarianism is a tool of preference maximization, allows everyone to pursue own conceptions of the good within framework of a democratic society (Kymlicka). • Deontology depends on false distinction between negative and positive rights. • Governments have to be utilitarian, even if individuals should be deontological (Hasnass).

10. Arguments in favor of deontology • “No social good”—only individual people with their own lives; can’t force one person to sacrifice on behalf of a social good that does not exist (Nozick) • No agreement on what the social good is, even if we know that it exists. • Powerful people will define what “societal welfare” is, the people who get hurt are those who don’t have a voice. • Deontological obligations don’t conflict because they are side constraints/purely negative obligations. • Positive rights are bad because they impose duties on unwilling individuals. • Slippery slope—justifies doing things we consider immoral & reprehnsible. • Procedures/rights are necessary to vindicate human dignity/moral personality.

11. “Procedural” distinctions between criteria • One criterion is a PREREQUISITE for another. • Criterion is not NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT to meet the value. • Criteria is TOO BROAD or TOO NARROW. • BRIGHTLINE v. SLIDING SCALE criteria. • Vagueness—it’s important that it be clear WHEN you meet the criterion and know WHAT the criterion means in practice.

12. COMMON MISTAKES WHEN DEBATING THE CRITERION • “My opponent doesn’t meet her criterion” • The battle of the prerequisites! • Not being COMPARATIVE with regards to criteria • Conflating substantive objections (deontology is a substantively bad criterion) with procedural/mechanical objections (

13. EXERCISE: THE CRITERION IS NATIONAL SECURITY For (x) Reasons: • (1) • (2) • (3) • (4) • (5)

14. EXERCISE: THE CRITERION IS PREVENTING THE CONVICTION OF THE INNOCENT FOR (X) REASONS

15. EXERCISE: THE CRITERION IS COMPLIANCE WITH THE LAW OF WaR FOR (X) REASONS