Lincoln Douglas Debate Event Description
Event description – Lincoln Douglas debate is designed to center on a proposition of value. A proposition of value concerns itself with what ought to be instead of what is. A value is an ideal held by individuals, societies, governments, etc. Debaters are encouraged to develop argumentation based upon a values perspective. To that end, no plan (or counterplan) will be offered by the debaters. In Lincoln Douglas Debate, a plan is defined by the NFL as a formalized, comprehensive proposal for implementation. The debate should focus on reasoning to support a general principle instead of particular plans and counterplans. Debaters may offer generalized, practical examples or solutions to illustrate how the general principle could guide decisions.
This is the top of the description in the district manual. It tells you, briefly, what LD is about. Since the activity did evolve from Policy, it is not surprising that, to some extent, although implicitly, it describes the activity in terms that separate it from Policy.
The activity is described as revolving around a question of what we ought to do as a “proposition of value.” This is a way of saying that we are dealing with ethics and/or morality. In the traditional study of ethics, we are very much discussing what we ought to do, against a background of some overarching rationale for doing it. That is, you can’t determine right actions in a vacuum. You need to see them as they relate to a notion of rightness actually held by some people and/or achieving benefit for some people. The specific idea of value, “an ideal held by individuals, societies, governments, etc.” takes in a lot of territory, but it is inclusive of the broad ideas of morality and justice and any other big concept we might have of right and wrong action. So we will say that we are going to argue what we ought to do to achieve some specific ideals-based end. We are going to achieve justice or morality or whatever by doing these things. We are arguing that something is right or wrong, and using capital V Values as our guiding principles.
There is no assumption that we are or are not already doing that thing that we are being asked to consider—“what ought to be instead of what is.” We might be doing it, or we might not be doing it. “What ought to be instead of what is” does not necessarily allude to logically fallacious arguments that what we are doing is right because we’re doing it (although that is nonetheless true). Nor does it mean that resolutions should not be interpreted as being about whether a situation is extant because the word “is” is in the resolution (although this is also nonetheless true). This is more to separate it, albeit implicitly, from Policy. In Policy debate, the resolution is a proposition of change. This year, for instance, the resolution is “Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative energy incentives in the United States.” The burden of the affirmative is to demonstrate that we should do this thing. The affirmative can’t say no, let’s not do it. On the other hand, the burden of the negative can be a number of things, including that we should not do this thing, or that we’re better off with the status quo, that what ought to be is what is. (Or, at least logically the negative can take that position. I gather they usually do other things altogether.) Most importantly, in Policy, there is a stated, rules-based, presumption for the negative, that the status quo is ok. This phraseology in the event description of LD is the first to indicate that there is no identical presumption that the status quo is ok, much less a presumption for the negative (which we’ll get into later).
Given that we are looking to “develop argumentation based upon a values perspective,” i.e., argue what we ought to do based on broad principles of social right and wrong, “no plan (or counterplan) will be offered by the debaters.” We are arguing the underlying correctness of an action, not its “implementation.” Implementation, or plans and counterplans (some other way of implementation), is the bread and butter of Policy. Plans are what they’re carrying around in all those tubs. That’s why there’s these sentences here that make it pretty clear that LD is something else. How something would or could be done doesn’t matter. That it should, or shouldn’t, be done, is the issue at hand.
Which brings up two side points. First, there are often arguments in LD about how, because something can’t be implemented, we shouldn’t do it. These are not my favorite arguments for a variety of reasons, chief among them being that they are just not the strongest arguments that people can come up with. They presume too many preclusions for my taste, and they aren’t really addressing the core rightness or wrongness of an action; they’re tricky arguments, and because of the nature of LD (no plans/counterplans), fairly loosey goosey. These are the kinds of arguments that appeal to, well, mostly lazy debaters who don’t want to dig too deeply into the literature surrounding a topic. Secondly, a counterplan, if I’m not mistaken, is a different way to achieve the same goal. Which means that, in Policy, if someone wins with a counterplan, they’ve out affirmed the affirmative, so to speak. But in LD, isn’t it analogous that running a counterplan means that you are inherently accepting the affirmative position of what we should do, and simply saying that we should do it some other way? I’m no theorist, but if you ask me, if you accept your opponent’s position of what we should do or not do, I’m not left with much reason to vote for you, since you’ve already conceded the core argument. So while this language in the event description is relevant as much to LD’s Policy roots (and differences) as anything else, there’s other perfectly good reasons to consider it relevant.
From here the rules go on to state:
The hallmarks of Lincoln Douglas debate include:
1) Parallel Burdens
2) Value Structure
3) Argumentation
4) Cross Examination
5) Effective Delivery
We’ll look at parallel burdens next.
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