Ethical Modesty Part 3 by Bob Overing and Adam Bistagne
Ethical Modesty as Judge Default
We have argued previously (part 1 and part 2) that ethical modesty (EM) is preferable to ethical confidence (EC) on both philosophical and debate-theoretical grounds (it’s more fair and educational). This article defends the claim that judges should adopt EM as a feature of their paradigms. We are not advocating that judges should impose EM on the round regardless of argument. Rather, we think it is consistent with being a tab judge to include EM as a paradigmatic default. Still, two major objections are 1) EC is the norm, and judges should follow the norm, and 2) EM could be incorrect. We argue that if our previous arguments for the merits of modesty are correct, then its benefits outweigh these two costs.
Against the Norm
For judges, the primary ideological barrier to adopting EM is likely some notion of tabula rasa. Judges may be wary of the method because it could seem interventionist if not argued in the round, but in most debates, neither EC nor EM is explicitly defended, so either way the interventionist objection applies. This kind of “interpretive intervention” used to make sense of the debate is inevitable. However, there is a sense in which EC is less interventionist because it aligns with the communal norm. If the two debaters assume the confident paradigm, then shouldn’t the tab judge go along with their assumptions?
First, judges should state their stance on EC/EM in their online paradigms. This solves the problem because the judge’s decision no longer needs to align with the communal norm. The assumption is that the paradigm is the new norm for this particular debate. The debaters should adapt to the paradigm defaults or argue against them when necessary. If judges are worried that debaters won’t read their paradigm, they could even alert the debaters to their default before the debate.
But sometimes EC isn’t the assumed norm anyway. We have seen many more traditional-style debaters presumably unaware of the circuit norm of EC assuming the judge would operate under modesty. Similarly, many policy judges and debaters assume modesty instead of the winner-take-all model. Judges are reluctant to say the aff can’t weigh their impacts simply because the neg was marginally ahead on some framing issue. When they come to LD, they likely bring their framework beliefs with them.
Finally, sometimes norms need changing. The activity will have a hard time evolving if judges are afraid to buck the trend. LD has undergone many argumentative shifts in the last ten years, and part of what helps the activity grow is change in how judges respond to certain arguments. At a point, the benefit to the judging practice outweighs the slight unpredictability of the new paradigm.
What If We’re Wrong?
Another concern with adopting EM as a paradigmatic default is the chance that it might be wrong. There are two kinds of judges with this worry: 1) judges who are unfamiliar with the EC/EM debate and 2) judges who are familiar but unconvinced that EM is correct.
For the first group, defaulting to either would be inappropriate on philosophical grounds, since they are insufficiently confident in either side. They should instead decide based on debate theory reasons (fairness and education – see our previous post), on which EM comes out ahead. For the second more knowledgeable group, debate theory reasons might still outweigh. They might think that confidence is the better approach philosophically, but in debate, it makes more sense to adopt modesty.
One objection is that we should only consider philosophical reasons or that we should strictly prefer philosophical reasons to theoretical ones. This seems at odds with the need to remain tab. The defender of EC is asking judges to pick the method they personally think is more philosophically valid, yet our principle of tabula rasa tells judges to abstract from any philosophical predispositions.
A judge deciding based on philosophical reasons that weren’t given in the debate is much more worrisome than theoretical reasons. First, debaters have no means of predicting a judge’s philosophical bent, whereas it’s assumed the judge will judge in a fair and educational way. Second, the motivation for adopting a tabula rasa paradigm is rooted in fairness, not any particular philosophical perspective. Fairness is valued by any tab judge, but the reasons behind EC/EM might not be. Third, common practice allows judges to appeal to debate theoretical reasons, not philosophical ones. Consider a case where the 2AR made new arguments and the judge disregards them. She might explain, “Allowing these new 2AR arguments would be unfair to the negative, so I didn’t count them in your favor.” That seems reasonable. Now what if she said, “Allowing these new 2AR arguments would violate our universal moral duty to treat the negative as an end, not a means, so I didn’t count them in your favor.” Most would be unsatisfied with such an arbitrary explanation.
Added Motivation — Example Cases
Here are four common cases where ethical confidence seems inappropriate. All are derived from debates on the 2015 January/February topic. To us, a)-c) seem uncontroversial, but d) may pose a problem.
a) Poor Framework Debate: The aff runs a societal welfare-based framework; the neg runs an autonomy-based framework. Neither is winning the framework debate decisively. Say they both have one poorly-explained framework argument, but the two don’t obviously interact, they are not compared to one another, and they are not extended in full. Further, the aff makes turns to the neg’s autonomy contention while the neg concedes the aff’s contention about poverty.
Many judges have been sitting in the back listening to rounds like Poor Framework Debate develop. It could be because debaters assume EM or simply because they’re poor framework debaters. Either way, it seems arbitrary to parse through an underdeveloped framework debate to make a decision when EM makes it very clear that the aff is ahead.
b) Anarchy NC Plus CP: The aff presents a compelling global warming advantage in favor of the living wage. The neg reads an NC based in philosophical anarchism and an unconditional CP that abolishes the minimum wage while contesting the aff framework but not the warming advantage. The 1AR argues that the anarchy case is largely non-unique because the CP is no more anarchic than the aff. The 2NR claims the CP is marginally more consistent with the NC because it removes a law while the aff enacts a law. This argument allows the neg to spend most of the 2NR on framework since there’s little risk of losing the contention debate on the anarchy NC. In sum, there is a strong consequentialist reason to affirm and an extremely weak anarchy/autonomy-based reason to negate, but there is slightly more evidence in favor of the anarchy theory.
These positions are very obviously at odds, but ethical confidence allows the strategy. And it’s not just means-based NCs. Consider a similar example with a neg util case:
c) Tiny Tiny Util DA: The aff presents a compelling Kantian case for affirming – living wage aims at rectifying coercive status quo bargaining asymmetries between employers and employees. The neg reads an act-utilitarian framework, contends that the aff will cause a slight employment effect, answers the aff framework and concedes the aff contention. The 1AR reads meta-analyses concluding there is no employment effect. The 2NR argues that the aff’s studies only mitigate the risk of the employment effect, but on utilitarianism, even one job lost is reason to negate absent any benefits from affirming framed in utilitarian terms. In sum, there is a strong Kantian reason to affirm and an extremely weak utilitarian reason to negate, but there is slightly more evidence in favor of utilitarianism.
We think these cases are times when judges can easily justify EM if neither EC nor EM is argued in the debate.
And Ks can also create very silly situations if we assume confidence.
d) Cap K without an Alt: The neg goes for the cap K but kicks the alternative in the 2NR, arguing that on the capitalism bad framework, even if the living wage is slightly inconsistent, there is reason to negate. The aff claims that minimum wage and other capitalist systems exist in the status quo, so the link to the aff is almost entirely non-unique; without a kritik alternative, the two worlds look very similar with regard to how capitalist they are. The 2AR wins the aff case but loses a close framework debate. In sum, there is a strong reason to affirm on the aff case and a minuscule anti-capitalist reason to negate, but there is slightly more evidence for the cap bad framework.
This last one is a common scenario in K debates. Both positions are very clearly capitalist, but even a minor preference for the anti-capitalist role of the ballot means that any risk the aff is slightly more capitalist is enough to negate on EC. Winning one small link is enough to vote neg. Why? We have to reject capitalism in every instance! On this view, the aff case no longer matters. Reducing the alternative solvency to zero no longer matters. Impact turning capitalism no longer matters. The aff’s only hope is link turns and significant alt solvency takeouts, and that’s the regrettable result of confidence.
One potential objection is that the role of the ballot and other claims like “reject X in every instance” are implicit defenses of EC, so it would be interventionist to impose EM. First, debaters should have to make arguments for EC, so just saying the words “my role of the ballot is…” is just as much a defense of EC as “my criterion is.” Second, if this is enough, debaters would say “and that comes first” after every argument, and a tab judge would be expected to oblige, which is implausible.
Conclusion
Modesty opens up the debate so that more of what’s said matters in the end. In too many debates, confidence allows the judge to sift through a framework debate and call it a day. That’s unjustified laziness. Ethical confidence has gotten too comfortable, and it’s time for a change.
The authors would like to thank Chris Kymn for his comments on an earlier draft.
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Bob co-directs Premier Debate, coaches his alma mater Loyola High School and debates on the NDT/CEDA circuit for the USC Trojan Debate Squad. His students earned 32 TOC bids in his first two years coaching. As a senior at Loyola, Bob earned 11 bids and was a TOC finalist.
Adam coaches his alma mater Loyola High School and debates British Parliamentary for Loyola Marymount University. He is a triple-major in Philosophy, Economics and Mathematics. His students have won 1st at Alta, Berkeley, CPS (twice), and USC.
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17 Comments
How would epistemic modesty interact with skep under a Truth testing paradigm? Because I feel like the risk of obligation outweigh’s skep still makes some sense but now would it become a risk of “falsity” so skep could still negate or no?
Hey! Thanks for the question. Ethical modesty would exclude skepticism even under a truth-testing paradigm. The resolution is asking an ought question, and ethical modesty tells us that the answer to an ought question is the probability that a theory is true multiplied by the moral value of doing the action. Since skepticism does not assign moral value to any action, the “ethical impact” of it would always be zero under EM. Therefore, skepticism would not be a reason to negate if we accepted EM.
I understand your confusion with whether or not skepticism could have a “risk of falsity” that could allow it to negate. You have to remember that EM is not just concerned about whether we have reasons for belief (truth in a epistemic sense) but also with whether that truth impacts what we ought to do (truth in the resolutional / practical sense). You are correct that we could have 99.99% probability that skepticism is “true” (in the epistemic sense), but we could still conclude that this does not impact whether or not the resolution is “true” (in the practical sense).
For more illuminating comments on this epistemic / practical divide, using the terminology of belief / acceptance, see Jacob Ross’s “Rejecting Ethical Deflationism”:
http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~jacobmro/ppr/deflation-ross.pdf
Hey, could you expand a big on the interaction between ROBs and epistemic modesty? Like I’m confused on scenarios where someone would concede the entirety of the aff and read a K, and then the aff puts defense on the K, would the aff still win under epistemic modesty even if they concede the ROB?
Hey! I think the best way of understanding the interaction between ROB’s and ethical modesty is to compare case C (Tiny Tiny Util DA) with case D (Cap K without an Alt). In case C, ethical modesty tells us that a small util DA does not justify a negative ballot even though util is the slightly more probable ethical because there is a strong Kantian reason to affirm. By analogy, in case D, ethical modesty tells us that a slight risk of the cap K does not justify a negative ballot even though the anti-cap ROB is slightly more probable because there is another strong reason to affirm independent of the cap good/bad debate.
In the scenario you give, since there is only one ROB, the Cap K’s, this situation would be analogous to there being only one framework read in a debate round. If there is only one framework, EM would tell us not to care about impacts to other frameworks that we don’t have any credence in. Similarly, in the situation you describe, EM would tell us not to care about other ROB’s that have not been justified. The point of EM is to make sure that winning a ROB does not mean that the only impacts to that ROB matter, similar to how winning a framework does not mean you get to exclude all moral reasons of other frameworks under EM.
I hope this illuminates the interaction!
-Adam
Yeah that makes a lot of sense now, one last thing, I know this was mentioned in I think the Part 2 article, but how would you use epistemic modesty as a theory shell? Just kind of confused on what would violate.
It does seem kind of tricky to get a violation to a theory shell for EM. You don’t want to just ask “does X link to your standard” because the relevant question is not what links to the standard but whether they will make the argument that X doesn’t matter for the judge’s evaluation. E.g. your disad may not link to the Kant framework, but will the opponent say that the judge should ONLY consider Kantian moral reasons?
There are certain words commonly used in frameworks that indicate EC: “only my framework meets this metaethic,” “all other standards fail because…” or “reject all X-type of reasoning.” This may be enough to get a violation. On the other hand, if your goal is to get your offense to matter at the end of the day, then you should probably ask in CX; they may just concede EM if their framework doesn’t take a clear stance.
How is EM different from Bostrom’s Parliamentary Model? Would they function similarly in a debate round?
I think the two would largely function similarly in a debate round.
You’re asking a more precise question than what we’ve addressed so far in these three posts. There are a few different flavors of EM, but most of the time in debate, I don’t think there will be a substantial difference in the outcome. If you want to look at some particular theorists’ treatment of the issue, I’d look at Lockhart, Ross, Sepielli, and more recently, MacAskill. There are some others but those philosophers are particularly interested in this question.
Regarding Bostrom’s model, I have some questions about the parliament metaphor. The illustration may cause more problems than it’s worth philosophically, but for debate purposes, maybe it would be useful to communicate how EM works to a judge.
I think every single example you make either is irrelevant or would not be evaluated under an EC model.
The big problem here with every example is that you want LD to become policy. It’s not policy because we (as a community) don’t necessarily care about solvency. All of your examples assume that some type of policy should be enacted or that whichever policy is best should win the debate. That is how policy debate functions, they don’t debate ethics and they figure whichever policy (broadly construed) should win the round. LD is about figuring out which ethical framework to follow then based on that framework who should win the debate. If there is a draw in the framework or the framework debate is muddy then yes we can (and probably should) default to questions of solvency or whichever policy options are better but absent that consideration then we are losing something that is unique to LD. The first job of the LD judge is to figure out which ethic is best, that’s the reason for epistemic certainty.
I can agree with arguments made in the debate that claim that if the framework debate is close then we should default to the bigger impact but absent that consideration the first job of a LD judge is to decide who has the better ethic. Reading your first article I actually think I would vote with judge 2 because I would not have made a clear decision on the framework but that makes the framework debate irrelevant. One can do that in multiple ways through meeting the framework, through proving solvency to the other framework or by proving that their offense still matters under an opposing framework. A bunch of dead people from global warming would probably violate means based frameworks as well.
Specifically:
On example A: The aff would win in either world so whether you choose EC or EM you end up in the same place. If the neg wins framework then the aff wins a turn under the framework and therefore wins. If the aff wins the framework then the aff wins on the dropped contention. It’s an irrelevant consideration.
On example B: You’re ignoring most of the debate. If you say that the majority of 2NR was spent on framework then the majority of the 2AR was probably also spent on framework. You’re assuming that absent something like 6 minutes of speaking time in the last two speeches (4 min on F/W in the 2N and 2 min in the 2A) the aff should win. That’s a bad assumption for judging and makes it impossible to decide who should win the round. Moreover, you can look at my first objection again. Yes the aff might be right under a consequentialist worldview but if that worldview is unethical then I shouldn’t look to it. If the neg is winning the framework debate that using the state is bad then they should win the round because they have shown the ethic that is better. The affirmative might be offering better policies but that doesn’t mean that the affirmative has the better ethic.
On example C: It’s basically the same problem as B. It depends more on how the framework debate shakes out. It seems like a very close framework debate in which case I would probably vote aff. If it’s a little bit more lopsided then I would vote neg.
On example D: This sounds like a big deal but probably isn’t because I have yet to hear a Cap K that actually has a real alt. (Reject the aff, reject the aff rhetoric etc. are not real alts) and so all the neg offense was based upon leveraging framework anyways. So again it depends on the clarity of the framework debate. In this instance it seems pretty clear that the neg was winning framework so I would negate. I had a round somewhat similar to this at Berkeley and negated on the link level because it was fairly clear the affirmative linked.
The round however is unimportant. The implications you draw from this argument are really large and false. You say that the aff cannot impact turn capitalism if the neg wins “framework” because the impact turns would become irrelevant. That’s not true, those impact turns would function as turns also to the role of the ballot because if capitalism is good then we should not reject capitalism. This is why a. role of the ballot args do not function as independent framework justifications and b. why people can use their frameworks to exclude these sorts of arguments. Twice at Emory I voted for a debater who used an intent based framework to beat back the Role of the Ballot by arguing that maybe their actions led to capitalism/racism but the intent did not exist. Role of the Ballot arguments are pseudo-frameworky but not actually framework in themselves as they rely on winning offense that the ROB matters vs. a regular framework which doesn’t.
Two quick things before I jump in:
1) I don’t think we have any motivated beliefs. It’s not really fair to our arguments to say that we just want LD to be policy. Adam and I both enjoy good framework debates, and we’re both studying philosophy! I don’t think we harbor any bias.
That said, I’m not sure that EM favors policy-style arguments. Util-based contentions are likely some of the most turnable contentions there are.
2) “we (as a community) don’t necessarily care about solvency.” This is kind of bizarre to me. Certainly, if the aff reads a consequentialist framework, the aff also needs to win a predictive solvency claim that their advocacy (or plan) causes the impacts.
Perhaps we should have addressed this fear because I suspect that a lot of people feel the same way – that EM hurts framework debate. I just don’t think it’s true because debaters can still debate frameworks, they just have to keep in mind that the resolution is an applied ethics question, not just ethics. EC often over-privileges framework debating at the expense of debating the topic. Think about how many students you’ve seen who are able to master one or two key frameworks and avoid debating the topic in any substantial way.
There’s a concern about the uniqueness of LD. You say that “The first job of the LD judge is to figure out which ethic is best.” Why? This hasn’t always been the case. It’s not in some founding document of LD debate. And it’s not always true – what about when there is no framework debate? Or when it comes down to theory? Or an alternative role of the ballot? Second, most of us would agree that there is no substantive “first job” of the LD judge. The last paragraph in the section “What If We’re Wrong?” explains why in the absence of any clearly defined job, the judge should prefer EM to EC to be most tabula rasa.
A) What if the turns don’t outweigh the neg contention? There’s a minor risk of a link turn but you end up thinking the neg is ahead on their contention. Still, the aff debated it. If the framework debate is indistinguishably close, the contention is all you have to go on. EC has it that those close calls on framework are way more important, which ignores this big other part of the debate.
B) “makes it impossible to decide” – well it’s not at all impossible to decide if we use EM.
Your reply assumes confidence because you assume that a debater marginally winning the anarchy framework over the aff framework means that the anarchy framework is 100% true and the aff framework is 0% true. Consequentialism isn’t *totally* wrong simply because the neg is ahead on framework. There may still be some truth to it.
C) I think you contradict yourself here. You say “a very close framework debate…I would probably vote aff,” but according to EC and your “first job” analysis, you have to determine who won the framework debate, no matter how close it is. You have to pick a winner before looking to the contention whatsoever.
D) Seems like bad debate to me that the neg can read a 99% non-unique disad and win even if they drop the whole aff case.
Sorry about the delayed response. I had written most of this up about a month ago and then I started student teaching, didn’t have time to finish, and haven’t had time to do anything not work related. I finally have some free time again so I wanted to continue hashing this out, or at least, making myself clearer.
You’re right that I should not have accused you of that bias. It just feels like util is the most likely framework from these discussions but that is not necessarily the case and it is probably my bias coming out more than yours.
I do, however, think that LD does not a priori care about solvency. It depends on the framework. People can run intent based or means based frameworks where the solvency doesn’t matter. They can even run consequentialist frameworks where the solvency doesn’t matter (though these cases don’t usually win rounds anymore, they did when I was a debater). Certain types of arguments lend themselves to solvency like util/consequentialist frameworks and almost definitely plans. But, theoretically, under a traditional value/criterion model people could argue that the only thing that matters is who best upholds a criterion and thus the debate is not about solvency. That’s not true in policy debate. (I won’t defend not proving solvency under consequentialism as best practice or even as preferred practice but as a theoretically justified practice).
Which brings us to the crux of the question: you challenge me on the first job of a LD judge. Every resolution in LD is an applied ethics question. Therefore, the first job of a LD judge is to figure out which ethic to apply to the resolution. This is the defense of EC. Figuring out framework is the founding belief of LD unless LD was not conceived of as “ethics debate” or “values debate” and it was conceived in exactly such terms. LD used to be “figure out which value to apply to the resolution” then it was “figure out which criterion/standard to apply” and now it’s “figure out which framework” but the basic idea is still the same. Every other example you provide is either pre-fiat, as now defined, and thus pre-ethic or the ethic was decided by the debaters in round. For example, if both debaters accept consequentialism then the judge decides based on who best upholds consequentialism. It eliminates one job of the judge and changes the round (who best solves? which is better the CP or plan? etc.). There is no issue with this but the first job of the judge is still to determine which ethic or framework we evaluate the debate under and then go from there. It’s not a written rule but when a round ends (without any pre-fiat-esque args) where do you start? I start with figuring out who won the framework then proceed my evaluation from there. Based on my experiences discussing rounds over my time judging and competing, most judges do the same thing. I’m not actually changing the order of evaluation in either world, whether we accept EM or EC. All of your examples assume that we look to the framework first and then move from there to looking at the other layers of the debate. That is literally my claim, I just spent a paragraph warranting that claim.
In a world with pre-ethics layers such as theory or possibly Ks (though Ks usually just present different ethics) then judges look to the pre-ethical stuff first. Without those layers on the flow than judges look to framework. I guess another way to phrase the question is: should we evaluate framework like we (as judges) evaluate topicality or like we (as judges) evaluate solvency? One cannot be partially topical and still win a debate round (unless I’m missing the nuances of theory debate). If one is topical then the debate moves onto the next layer. If one is not topical one loses. The same is not true of solvency. One can partially solve advantages and still win. That said one can draw topicality and move the debate to the next layer or a judge can find it impossible to decide the T debate and then move to the next layer. You say I contradict myself on C but I don’t, I just argue that the framework is probably a draw or I can’t decide so I move to the next level.
On A: You’re right about the turns. That does complicate things, however, I would probably toss the framework away as an irrelevant consideration and vote aff as there is less defense on the contention. It sounds to me, based on your description, that the aff did the better debating so she should get the ballot. That’s why in the original post I said that the framework was irrelevant.
On B: You accuse me of arguing that an EC makes this round impossible to decide. That’s not what I wrote at all, what I wrote was that ignoring 6 minutes of the last two speeches makes this round impossible to decide. And even if it makes it easier to decide, I would still say it’s poor judging practice to intervene and not listen to what the debaters are saying.
On C: Look above for my answer.
On D: I should be specific about that round at Berkeley. The aff ran a cap bad util framework talking about how living wage is key to union growth. The neg out-lefted him by saying that all cap needs to be rejected and unions are still pseudo-cap or at least enough cap that he links to K.
Hi everyone — Just found out that this “moral uncertainty” stuff that I and others have worked on has gained some traction among LD debaters. FWIW, I was an utterly mediocre LD debater in Pennsylvania in the late 90s. Anyway, just wanted to say hi, and that I’m open to answering questions if anyone has them.
Dr. Sepielli – I’m delighted that you found our site! Since most LD debates center on questions of practical ethics, many have found your work very applicable.
From what I can tell, a version of the “My Favorite Theory” account has been dominant in LD for quite some time, so much so that it is assumed as the default mode of decision-making under moral uncertainty. We’re trying to get students to see the traditional value/value-criterion model in another way, but given how LD has been taught for decades, that’s proving to be a daunting task.
The post above is based more in debate theory than philosophy; we drew on some basic illustrations from your work in an introductory post last summer that you can see here: http://premierdebatetoday.com/2014/08/31/ethical-modesty-part-1-by-bob-overing-and-adam-bistagne/
Bob (if I may — and please call me Andrew): Just a couple of remarks: 1) Salim in that other thread raises some great questions; for those who are interested, I try to address these in my dissertation and elsewhere; 2) I’ve forgotten what little I ever knew about LD debate, but I wonder whether MFT is really as “dominant” as you say. I Googled some LD resolutions just to remind myself what they look like; they all seem to include “oughts”.
But as you know, there are “objective” oughts, various sorts of “subjective” oughts, and what you might call the “practical” ought — i.e. whichever “ought” it is that guides our conduct in a given case. (I would say the practical “ought” is the objective one when we’re certain, and a subjective one when we’re not.)
If we take the ought in these resolutions to be either the practical ought, or a specifically subjective ought, then judges who vote for the debater whose value criterion is most probably correct will seem like she’s employing MFT as a rule for action under moral uncertainty.
But if we take the ought in these resolutions to be the objective one (or, I guess, a subjective one that’s sensitive to probabilities of non-moral but not moral propositions), then judges who vote for the debater whose value criterion is most probably correct needn’t be understood as employing MFT. For these judges are trying to answer a question (or rather, judging debaters’ skill at answering a question) to which MFT is not even an answer.
I can imagine a worthwhile form of debate that’s all about the objective ought, and a worthwhile form of debate that’s all about the subjective or practical ought. (I imagine that at the higher levels of LD debate, meta-debate becomes very common!)
Anyway, those are some (quick and sloppy) thoughts.
You’re right to say that meta-debate is very common, but this particular meta-debate is rather new, which explains our oversight in addressing the question of subjective vs. objective oughts.
It seems natural to me to say that a judge would mean a more subjective ought when saying “I agree with the affirmative in this debate that ‘Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living wage.'” In this case the judge makes a more contextualized ought statement based on the evidence and information presented in a particular debate. The subjective version of ought also lines up with how we like to think of the debate activity as a persuasive one where competitors are not proving an objective moral fact but rather convincing the judge as a decision-maker. This allows judges to say “employers ought to provide a living wage” in one debate and “employers ought not provide a living wage” in the next debate without being irrational.
Admittedly, I need to give this some more thought. At first glance, nonetheless, debate seems to be a context of moral uncertainty like none other – the judge is supposed to come in as a blank slate with no priors, there are two competing sides, every judge has various quirks and preferences, and due to limitations of skill and time, no argument is strong or thorough enough to completely persuade a judge.
I did know that about Ryan Davis! I hope he still manages to judge LD debates from time to time.
I spoke a bit about oughts in debate resolutions with Stephen Finlay today. He offered two new ideas I hadn’t considered. One is what he has called “news-sensitive context” where agents who face a practical problem have a window of time to gather information and deliberate before they decide how to act. If I’m understanding him right, ought used in these cases asks a specific question about what the agent ought to do given the information she can acquire in the time allotted. We might say that a debate round is such a context. The judge needs to make a decision based primarily on the information given in the time allotted for the debate. Of course, this is a more subjective use of ought.
The second thought was that debate could be a case where ought is used in an intermediate way – not fully subjective or objective. It’s not fully subjective because debate is a communicative activity where the judge, in a sense, renders a group decision about an ought statement. It’s not fully objective because the nature of the group and its deliberation has an effect on what we say we ought to do.
P.S. You may or may not know that the Ryan Davis mentioned in the other thread is now a (first-rate!) political philosopher!