Theory Cards

Theory as a Voting Issue: The Crime of Punishment, Roger E.
Solt
1
Theory as a Voting Issue: The Crime of Punishment, Roger E. Solt 2002
In Sigel 1, there are four major arguments presented in favor of punishment. The first argument was fairness. Certain theories and
practices were said to be unfair to opposing debaters. And it is not enough just to reject
these practices; they may so skew the round that only voting against the team which
employed them can redress competitive equity. The second argument was education. Sigel invoked the view that the
judge should serve as an educator. Part of his or her role as an educator is to discourage bad arguments. Unfair theories and
tactics may also serve to undercut the educational quality of the debate experience. The third
argument was deterrence. Losing debates, Sigel argued, is a powerful inducement for people to change their ways. Debaters are, for
the most part, rational animals, and they will respond to strong competitive incentives. Sigels
fourth rationale for punishment was argument responsibility. Punishment with the ballot makes debaters highly
responsible for their arguments. And debate, he claimed, should teach debaters to argue
responsibly.
2
My second main argument is that, empirically, punishment arguments produce bad, anti-educational
debate. Punishment arguments are almost always made badly. They are simply tag lines,
especially at the impact level. (This is a voting issue for reasons of fairness and education.) There are two dominant incentives
for labeling an objection to a given theory or practice a voting issue. The first is the cheap shot motive. The independent voter may get lost
in the shuffle, and you may come out with an easy win. I doubt that anyone really thinks that this process of learning to out tech your opponent
is an important part of debates educational mission. Second, by labeling an argument a voting issue, debaters hope of secure a favorable time
tradeoff. If an argument is a voting issue, it has to be taken more seriously, even if it is not intrinsically of much substantive importance. Again,
in this instance, the punishment argument serves as an element in the tactics of time tradeoff. This is part of the debate game, but it is not a very
important part of what debate should teach. As extended, punishment arguments again tend to be a series of tag lines. This is generally true in
the negative block, and it is almost always true (because of intense time pressures) in the 1AR and 2NR. If the 2AR chooses to go for a
punishment argument, s/he may be more articulate and explanatory. But this generally means that a lot of new arguments are being made, or at
least being given flesh from the bare skeleton of assertion, and this raises fairness concerns of its own. Of course, some theory debates are better
than others. And I can imagine a world in which theory is debated more clearly and coherently than it generally is in the world of contemporary
debate. But the experience of a quarter century of theory debates does not encourage me to think that we will enter that Promised Land any time
soon. And better theory debates would have to occur in a more thorough and time-consuming fashion than those which occur today. And this
would exaggerate the problem of diverting time from more substantive intellectual concerns.
3
My third argument is that the punishment of voting on theory is almost always disproportionate. To
me this seems almost true by definition. Someone advances a bad argument. They lose
that argument. It is not a decisive argument in terms of the substantive logic of the debate,
be that a policy logic, a discursive logic, or a critical logic. But instead of just losing that
argument, with whatever logical, limited impact that may have in the round, the team
which advanced the bad argument suddenly is supposed to lose the whole debate. In
other words, every other issue in the round, all of the policy arguments, all of the critical
arguments, all of the discursive arguments become moot. They no longer matter and they
need not be resolved because one theory argument has been lost.
4
Beyond my intuitive sense that this is disproportionate, I have two other arguments for why voting on theory is excessive. First, the theories
debaters most want to punish are not really that egregious. Punishment claims are most
commonly raised against the following practices: conditional counterplans, partially plan
inclusive counterplans, permutations against kritiks, extra-topical plan planks, non-
specification of agent by the affirmative, and a range of affirmative and negative fiat issues.
I personally favor some of these positions, and I oppose others. But I recognize that there are
pretty good arguments in favor of both sides with regard to all of these issues. In other words,
they are all, relatively speaking, close calls. Or, to put it still another way, there are thoughtful members of the competitive debate activity for
whom each of these practices makes sense and others for which they do not. On none of these issues is there a
theoretical consensus. And all have been widely employed without destroying debate.
This is not to say that these practices are not fair game for argument. They are. But none
is so abusive within the context and conventions of debate as we know it that it needs to be
an automatic voting issue. Losing the argument ought to be punishment enough. Nor do we need
punishment to deal with theories which the consensus of the activity rejects. The difficulty of winning on counterwarrants or alternative
justifications or plan/plan has easily been enough to discourage these practices.
5
My fourth major argument against punishment is that it is intolerant. All judges have biases which they are only
partially successful at screening out. And perhaps oddly, judges often seem less able to set aside their theory biases than
their biases on substantive issues. As I noted above, judges can generally justify voting either way on a given theory argument in most rounds.
At least if both sides are putting up a decent fight, this is the case. If a position is conceded, most judges will behave accordingly, though even
here there are exceptions. And sometimes there will be such a clear preponderance of argument that judges are unable to find their way back to
their own theory predispositions. But with two reasonably skilled teams, it is generally possible to resolve a given theory issue either way, so
most judges, most of the time, end up endorsing the theory position which they prefer. This may be an unfortunate fact about judges, and it
certainly applies to some judges more than to others, but it is a real tendency. It is hardly controversial to say that judges have biases. But the
problem with punishment, in light of this fact, is that voting on theory empowers those
biases. Instead of creating a strategic slant, the bias becomes all-decisive. What we should
recognize, I think, is that different people can and do legitimately hold different concepts of
what debate should be about. If one side appeals to our theory preferences and the other side does not, it is not unreasonable to
expect that the side whose views we embrace will win the debate over a particular issue more often. But it is intolerant to rule the
other side completely out of order, to decide the whole debate based on this one issue, just
because they have gotten on the wrong side of one of our theoretical predispositions.
6
A fifth problem with punishment is its arbitrariness. Punishment aims at abusive practices. But abuse clearly
falls on a continuum. And the line at which sufficient abuse exists to justify a ballot is
inevitably arbitrary. Is a ten second time distortion enough to vote on? A ten-minute time
distortion? Or where in between? This situation is further complicated by the fact that
one never knows just how the team invoking punishment would have allocated its time
absent the problematic practice. Claims that they had wonderful arguments which time
constraints prevented them from running should be viewed with a good deal of skepticism.
Sometimes arbitrary lines must be drawn. But especially when debates equivalent of the death penalty is involved, that arbitrariness should
occasion concern.
7
My final argument is that punishment snowballs. Once the punishment paradigm is embraced, a
likely consequence is what Ross Smith has called voting issue proliferation. Anything can be
labeled as a voting issue. And, indeed, the use of theory as a voting issue has helped to
create a class of debate cheap shot artists who systematically employ punishment strategies. Losing on
cheap shots is infuriating for debaters and coaches, and it is frustrating for many judges to
vote on them. They certainly dont make debate a more educational activity. And the
teams and debaters who rely on them the most are probably the biggest losers in
educational terms.
8
First, the attempt to achieve favorable time tradeoffs is a ubiquitous practice in current
debate. It is behind the practice of making multiple answers to a given argument. It
strongly influences the number of positions the negative team will advance in the 1NC. It is
behind the decision to start all of the major negative positions in the 1NC. It dictates how
many positions will be extended through the block. It generally controls the decision about
whether or not the affirmative should straight turn one or more disadvantages. Even the
employment of punishment arguments is generally based on the desire to secure a
favorable time exchange. It seems silly to single out a few particular instances of this
universal practices and say that they are voting issues, when the whole of debate is saturated with strategic time
considerations.
9
Second, forcing teams to make strategic choices does have educational value. Debaters are
forced to judge which are their best arguments and be selective about what they will
extend.
10
Third, punishment arguments constitute a self-inflicted coverage injury. It takes time,
sometimes considerable time, to argue that a certain approach has distorted your time
allocation. If debaters didnt defend punishment, they would have more time to answer
other arguments.
11
Fourth, time skews are often minimal. It is quite common for an issue which occupied literally
seconds of the debate to still be tagged as a voting issue. In cases like this, the overall
integrity of the round would certainly be maximized by simply rejecting the particular
argument rather than the team that made it.
12
Fifth, teams defending a problematic theory almost always invest some time in advancing
that position and in extending it. Time spent answering the time skew argument serves to
redress the injury.
13
Sixth, there are other means of redress rather than the ballot. If some other issue was
radically undercovered due to the alleged time skew, the judge could allow new answers on
that issue.
14
Finally, seventh, time skew arguments directed against the affirmative seem especially dubious.
The structure of the debate places particular time pressures on the affirmative. The luxury
of the negative block should give the negative ample time to answer pretty much whatever
the 2AC says. (New 1AR answers do pose a different and more legitimate concern from the standpoint of time allocation issues.)
15
Pro-punishment debaters frequently appeal to potential for abuse as sufficient grounds for voting
against the team which employs a particular practice. This logic is also questionable. First,
almost all theory constructs have potential for abuse. Plans can clearly be insufficiently specific, but negative
debaters can always call for an ever-greater degree of specificity. Plan inclusive counterplans can focus on such small distinctions that they
trivialize the debate. But rejecting all forms of inclusiveness, including either the same agent or the same action would gut the counterplan as a
negative strategy. Unconstrained conditionality can be abusive, but strict non-conditionality could be interpreted as disallowing permutations.
Most theories become unacceptable if pushed to either extreme, suggesting that it is the
practice, not the potential, which is key.
16
Second, potential for abuse may justify rejecting a particular practice but it does not justify
making the use of that practice a voting issue. The point of the potential for abuse position is that there has not really
been tangible damage done in this round. In that case, just rejecting the theory rather than voting against
the team seems sufficient. Third, analogies seem to support this conclusion. Drunk driving is illegal because it
can potentially lead to death. But we do not treat everyone stopped for drunk driving as a
murderer because of that.
17
Punishment, if is argued, is needed to deal with situations which are unequivocally abusive,
such as falsification of evidence, and racial or ethnic slurs. This seems to me to be something of a straw person
argument. Perhaps I have just been lucky, but I have not noticed a spate of racial slurs in the debates I have observed. Second, to say
that theory should not be a voting issue does not mean that punishment is inappropriate for
other practices in debates. Consensus has long supported voting against teams who falsify
evidence; this stance certainly does not require you to embrace punishment for theory. Third,
the fact that there are truly abusive practices in debate suggests that punishment policies
should be reserved for those practices. It may indeed trivialize behaviors which are truly
unethical to treat them in the same way as you would an intrinsicness argument or a kritik
permutation.
18
The deterrence argument in favor of punishment does, I think, have some merit. I have no doubt that punishment does, to some extent,
deter certain practices. Debaters do respond to competitive incentives. And debaters are
more likely to go for theory arguments if they can win the whole debate on them, rather
than just securing some strategic advantage. It is hard to seriously go for a theory argument, especially in the 1AR, and
still adequately cover the rest of the debate. Conceding all of this, however, there are still a number of
factors which mitigate the force of the punishment is essential for deterrence argument.
19
First, consistent rejection of a certain theory construct will deter its use even without the
employment of the theory being treated as an independent voting issue. By and large,
approaches such as counterwarrants, intrinsicness arguments, and plan/plan are avoided
not because of the fear of punishment but because they dont get teams anywhere. With or
without punishment, teams are discouraged from running arguments which rarely if ever
win.
20
Second, winning a theory argument generally gives you something important. If you win
conditionality is illegitimate, you have defeated the negatives counterplan, presumably an
important part of their strategy. (Or you can stick them with it, also an important strategic advantage.) The same if
you can win plan-inclusiveness is illegitimate or that the counterplan relies on an
unacceptable theory of negative fiat. If you win that the affirmative needs to be held to a
specific agent, you will probably be able to sustain your own agent counterplan, also an
important strategic gain. If extra-topicality is illegitimate, an important affirmative
answer to a disadvantage is likely to be eliminated, even if extra-topicality is not, in and of
itself, a voting issue. If you win that kritik permutations are illegitimate, you have defeated
what is often the most powerful argument against a kritik. In sum, there are still reasons
to argue theory and still advantages to be gained by doing so in a world without
punishment.
21
Third, it is possible to effectively extend a theory argument, even in the lAR, while adequately
covering the rest of the debate. This may not be easy, but no one ever said the lAR was
supposed to be an easy speech. The difficulty here is that the 1AR is forced to make some tough choices. Your
coverage of the issue subject to a theory objection cannot be allowed to distract
significantly from other issues in the debate. This means that if you go for theory, say
against a counterplan, you will not be able to extend many, if any, of the non-theoretical
arguments against the counterplan. If you can undermine a counterplan by winning that it
is disadvantageous or that it has a large solvency deficit, you should probably do that,
rather than going for theory. Any judge will give weight to the disadvantage or the solvency deficit, whereas not all judges will
go for the theory argument. (The debate over the substantive issues is also likely to be more clear-cut than over the theory issues.) But there are
times when you dont have any good substantive arguments against a counterplan, and at that point you may need to go for a theory objection.
And if you spend the full one to three minutes that you would have spent on the counterplan anyway exclusively on your theory argument, you
should have enough time to keep it viable.
22
Fourth, while I dont doubt that deterrence has some effectiveness, it is probably least effective, in debate at least, against career criminals.
Debaters who consistently rely on dubious theories are likely to get very good at defending
them. And if they rely heavily on such approaches to win, the chance that they will lose on
a punishment argument is less compelling. Their competitive incentive to employ the
abusive practice is so strong that it will override the threat of punishment.
23
Fifth, punishment can deter good arguments as well as bad arguments. Most of us have
strategies we support which other segments of the debate community finds offensive.
Punishment arguments are made against teams for both specifying and not specifying their
agents. They are made against teams both for running and for discouraging plan inclusive
counterplans. They are run against kritiks and they are run against politics disadvantages.
The pervasiveness of punishments potential suggests a possible debate Golden Rule:
punish not, that ye be not punished.
24
Again, I concede there is a certain amount of truth in this claim, but I dont think that the impact of this argument is great enough to justify the
practice of punishment. First, it is possible to exaggerate argument responsibility. Once upon a time,
some judges believed that teams needed to justify every plank in their plan. Thus, if one
part of the plan was net disadvantageous, the judge would vote negative even if the plan
taken as a whole was desirable. (There was also no counterplan to capture the plans advantageous parts.) Today, this
seems silly. Even sillier was an argument once made that teams have a responsibility to
extend every argument they make. This suggests to me that we should not artificially
weight certain arguments in order to make teams more responsible. Arguments should
carry no less and no more than the logical weight they possess in the round.
25
Second, most of these relatively risk free arguments dont take too much time to answer. An
intrinsicness argument can probably be dismissed in about fifteen seconds, and an
extratopical provision can be labeled as such just as quickly. (An obviously extra-topical spike doesnt
require as much definitional work as does a normal topicality argument.) A brief agent specification argument can be
developed in thirty seconds or less. And the argument that topicality is a reverse voting
issue is rarely made because consensus agrees that it is such a bad argument. If your
opponent chooses to seriously defend its theory construct, you will of course have to further
develop your objections. But at that point the theory position your opponent has advanced
is no longer cost free. They too have to invest time in defending it.
26
There are a few other things you can try to do to enhance the viability of your theory reverse voting issue argument. First, you might argue that
the other team is the side that claimed that theory is the most important issue in the round.
If theory is the most important thing, and we win the theory, then we should win. Second, you
might appeal to notions of equalizing risk. If they can win on this argument, they should be vulnerable to
losing on it. The analogy might be evidence falsification. If you advance an evidence
falsification change and lose it, it is generally considered to be a reverse voting issue. Third, you
may be able to use cross-ex to set up this argument. You might ask the other team if they are willing to stake the round on this issue. If they
agree, then your turns, if you can win them, do become voting issues. And if they wont agree to stake the round on the issue, then arguably the
abuse was not all that great.
The Disposition of Counterplans and Permutations: The case for
Logical, Limited Conditionality Roger Solt
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The Disposition of Counterplans and Permutations: The case for Logical, Limited Conditionality Roger Solt 2002
There are four main traditional arguments against CUC, two of which seem relatively principled and two of which are more pragmatic. The first
argument is that conditionality violates the principles and practices of good advocacy. This, I think, is
the strongest theoretical argument against conditionality, and it is also the most fundamental in that it appeals
most clearly to a specific paradigmatic understanding of the debate activity. That said, it should also be noted that "advocacy" is one of those
terms which is commonly invoked in debates but which is rarely analyzed. It is often assumed as self-evident that debate is, first and
foremost, an exercise in oral advocacy and that sound advocacy practice entails the (almost)
complete rejection of conditional arguments. I will suggest below that both of these assumptions are problematic. But
for now I just want to attempt to clearly state the advocacy objection to conditional counterplans.
28
The advocacy position, as I understand it, develops as follows. First, debate is inherently an exercise in advocacy. The
affirmative advocates its plan; the negative is obliged to present some kind of counter-advocacy. Clashing advocacies are
central to debate. Second, advocacy training is central to the educational mission of debate..
Lawyers and lobbyists, politicians and political activists all engage in advocacy, and it is a
primary purpose of debate to train people to successfully and ethically fulfill these roles in
society. Third, conditional argument is inconsistent with good advocacy. One argument for
this conclusion appeals to persuasion research, which it is claimed proves that conditional
arguments are unpersuasive. One can see intuitively why this might be the case; arguments taking the form of "My client didn't
do it, and besides he was crazy," seem more than a little suspect. There also seems to be an at least implicit sense
that consistent (that is, non-conditional) argument is ethically superior to inconsistent
argument. An ethical advocate takes a position and sticks with it throughout.. Shifting
from one position to another is a form of sleazy sophistry.
29
This ethical sense that conditionality is sleazy segues into the second major argument against conditionality: that it
encourages argumentative irresponsibility. Conditionality allows teams to advance policy
positions without (much) cost. If defeated, the position can be simply jettisoned, and the
only loss is the time it took to present it. One consequence of this is that teams may feel
freer to advance radical, risky, or even repugnant positions, knowing that they won't be
stuck with them. Anyone with an even marginally lengthy debate memory can come up with ready examples. Probably my favorite is
the "be mean to old people" counterplan (claiming a domestic Malthus net benefit). A more sinister example is a "renew the Holocaust"
counterplan (also claiming a domestic Malthus net benefit).

30
Shifting to the more pragmatic arguments against conditionality, one encounters first and foremost the claim that the time limits
within which academic debates occur render conditionality an undesirable option. Less than two
hours are allocated for every debate. Even two policy alternatives can't be exhaustively evaluated within
that time span, and every additional policy option tossed into the mix will further distract
from depth of discussion. "If we had world enough and time" it would be great to consider the full range of possible policies, but
we don't. It is therefore best to force each team to do its own "scan" of the available policy options, select one and debate it to the maximum depth
possible. A further ramification of the classic, unconstrained conditionality position is that
there are really no limits, except for speech times, on the number of conditional
counterplans which could be introduced into a given debate round. There is therefore
almost unlimited abuse potential associated with this theory.
31
The fourth and final argument against conditional counterplans is that they legitimate conditional affirmative
policy options, including alternative justifications (that is, multiple independent affirmative
plans), plan severance, and intrinsicness arguments. The argument for this conclusion is one of simple reciprocity;
if the negative can be conditional, the affirmative should also be allowed to be. As a strategic matter,
it is sometimes advisable for the affirmative to accept conditionality; affirmative conditionality (including the ability to minor repair away most
disadvantages) is almost certainly a more powerful tool than negative conditionality. But as a theoretical issue, the
argument proceeds as follows. Negative conditionality legitimates affirmative
conditionality. Affirmative conditionality is a terrible idea. (Reasons for this were discussed above.) Thus,
negative conditionality should also be rejected.
32
The advocacy argument against conditionality is the most fundamental and philosophical; I therefore want to consider it especially carefully. The
first premise of the argument, that debate is intrinsically an advocacy activity, is one which I am willing to accept, albeit
with qualifications. But a key question concerns exactly what are the advocacy burdens of the two sides. With regard to the affirmative, I am
perfectly content with the traditional answer: it is the affirmative's responsibility to advocate a topical plan with sufficient specificity that
productive debate can proceed, and the affirmative should defend the totality of its plan throughout the debate. The affirmative can
conceivably add to its plan, through the process of permutation, but it can never subtract
from it. (A possible exception would be the dismissal of plan elements which the negative has argued are extra-topical.) But what is
the negative's advocacy burden? The conservative answer is that the negative must defend
a competitive policy alternative and stick with it throughout the debate. But there is
another answer which seems at least broadly consistent with an advocacy-based view of
debate: the negative must advocate the rejection of the affirmative plan. In this formula, negative
debaters are still serving as (counter)advocates, and they still must clash with the
affirmative's advocacy. But conditional arguments can be employed as part of their overall
advocacy stance that the affirmative plan should be rejected.
33
The second premise of the advocacy argument, as I described it, is that it is a central educational mission of debate to teach sound advocacy
skills. Again, this is a premise I would accept, with the qualification that this is not debate's ONLY educational mission. What else is there? Some
of my colleagues would probably claim that debate is more centrally about teaching argumentation skills in
general than with teaching advocacy skills in particular. Others might stress education in such areas of current
academic interest as critical theory and postmodern philosophy. My central claim, however, is somewhat different. In my view, a central
element of debate's educational purpose should be teaching skills associated with the
effective analysis of public policy issues. My point is not that debate should focus on
training professional policy analysts. This is a role which some debaters do eventually come to occupy, but it is surely a
narrower job niche than law. Rather, I think that debate needs to teach policy analysis skills in the broader
sense in which they are relevant to all informed citizens in a functioning democracy. If we wish
to be informed citizens, we are all obliged to be effective analysts of public policy, and debate can help a good deal in that process. Is the teaching
of policy analysis skills incompatible with the teaching of public advocacy skills? No doubt there is a wide degree of overlap, but there are certain
differences in emphasis. Whereas the public advocate may be well advised to take a consistent position and stick to it (flip flops being politically
damaging), the informed citizen or the academic social critic is likely to think in a more tentative and hypothetical way about public policy
questions. Faced with a specific policy proposal (like an affirmative plan), s/he might well wish
to examine it from a variety of vantage points. S/he might want to engage in a process of
mixed scanning-first considering a range of alternatives, then focusing on a smaller
number in detail. S/he might want to proceed along the branches of decision tree, considering first, for example, do we want to increase
public health services for mental health care?, then considering, if so, what agent could do this most successfully. The citi zen and social critic
have room to sometimes play "devil's advocate"-for example, by looking to the polar policy extremes and playing them off against the middle.
All of these thought processes involve what would be considered "conditional" argument
within debate, but they are valuable thought processes, especially for people who don't already have their minds
made up, who are approaching public policy questions as thinkers and inquirers instead of as activists and advocates.
34
But if advocacy and analysis are both important, how does one proceed? The two involve, as I have suggested, differences in emphasis. And it
may well be that in the end different judges and debate theorists will simply emphasize one or the other based on their own interests and
temperamental dispositions. Still, I do have a suggestion for anyone interested in a middle ground. Hold the affirmative to strict
advocacy standards-one plan which they must defend from the beginning to the end. But
hold the negative to looser advocacy standards. Still require that they ADVOCATE the
rejection of the affirmative plan, but let them do so while incorporating at least limited
elements of conditional logic into their arguments. In sum, let them approach the debate as
analysts and inquirers, as devil's advocates rather than as the fully committed partisans of
a specific policy alternative. This is not an argument for complete critical license, nor is it a defense of negation theory. It is
legitimate, I think, to hold the negative to the same degree of policy specificity as the affirmative. I am simply arguing that the negative
should get more than one policy alternative.

35
Another way to think about this is in terms of two different models of advocacy. The traditional advocacy paradigm in
debate appealed to the model of the public advocate. The public advocate speaks to a general audience and
represents a certain specific interest (or interest group). The public advocate is concerned less with "truth" or
with logic than with successfully pleading a case. The public advocate employs relatively
simple modes of argument because s/he is addressing the general public. In contrast, we might choose
to embrace the model of the academic advocate. Academics also function consistently as advocates. They advocate the acceptance and rejection
of certain theories, and sometimes they advocate the acceptance or rejection of certain public policies. But they proceed in a somewhat different
way. First, they mainly address a specialized audience. Second, they can focus more on the logical and less on the psychologically persuasive
aspects of their arguments. Third, they are also more likely to employ hypothetical modes of reasoning,
including mixed scanning, the use of decision trees, reductio ad absurdum logic, and devil's
advocacy. In sum, they are more likely to embrace conditional modes of argument than are
public advocates.
36
There are several reasons to think that an academic advocacy model is superior for academic debate. The first is that by definition we are
academics; we are not actual public advocates or decision-makers. The position of the academic
advocate is therefore more natural, more intuitive, for most of us than is the position of the public advocate.
Second, the bulk of our practices in debate harmonize better with an academic advocacy than
a public advocacy model. Debate judges are a specialized audience. They can be expected to be more rational in their argument
evaluations and less subject to purely psychological influences. Debate argument tends to be fast and technical. It
would utterly bewilder a general public audience. Debaters frequently employ arguments
which have currency within the academy but nowhere else. Kritiks are an example of this,
but this is also true of many policy arguments too radical in their assumptions and
implications to appeal to the general public. Since we don't act like public advocates in
most of our other debate practices, it is far from clear why conditionality should be the sole
exception.
37
The third premise of the advocacy argument against conditionality is that conditionality is unpersuasive and (potentially) unethical. There is also
implicit in this argument a certain appeal to practice, an assumption that real world advocates do not argue
conditionally. This, it seems clear, is an oversimplification. In response to a proposal for federal
welfare benefits, an opponent of welfare might well say that s/he is opposed to welfare but
thinks that if welfare benefits are to be increased it should be done at the state level. This kind of
"conditionality" is common even in the world of actual policy making, and it does not seem to be intrinsically unpersuasive. Once again, it seems
to be an oversimplification to say that all conditional argument is unpersuasive in all settings and for all audiences. Conditional
arguments are, for the most part, logically sound. Even the argument that "my client didn't
do, and besides, he's crazy," presents two logically consistent claims. If your audience is a
jury, that may be a bad argument; if your audience is a logician, it could be a good one.
Hypothetical argument is a staple of academic, especially philosophical, discourse. If may be used
less frequently in the context of public debates, but it is undoubtedly used, sometimes persuasively, even there. In sum, I am suspicious of the
logic of completely dismissing an entire mode of argument because there is some research that in some settings and with some audiences it is
psychologically counterproductive. Academic debate embraces many practices-including rapid delivery, radical social criticism, and
speculatively linked chains of events-which would be unpersuasive for most audiences. In general, our model of argument is far closer to the
standards of academic debate than it is to public debate in front of lay audiences. No doubt this has a variety of disadvantages, educational and
otherwise. But as long as academic debate assumes in every other way a specialized audience, it
seems anomalous to uniquely reject conditional argument because it is unpersuasive to the
general public.
38
The argumentative irresponsibility argument strikes me as more persuasive on its face than it is upon consideration. First, it suffers the
same problem as all potential abuse arguments. You can reject the repugnant counterplans
when you see them without rejecting the vast majority of conditional counterplans which
are not repugnant. Second, it is simply not true that the negative is placed at no risk when they
run a conditional counterplan. They make a time investment in the argument. They read
evidence and advance analysis which can potentially be used against them. The affirmative
may be able to capture the counterplan's net benefit via link turn and argue that it is more
of an advantage to the plan than to the counterplan. The counterplan may invoke a
permutation which could take out another disadvantage. Third, while disadvantages can be straight turned,
few other types of debate argument entail that same degree of argumentative risk. You
cannot turn a harm, inherency, or solvency argument. Attempts to turn topicality (as a
reverse voting issue) are unpersuasive. Negatives can almost always get out of kritiks. And even
disadvantages are not straight turned all that often. In sum, the argument that the negative should be at HIGH
risk for any argument it advances seems untenable. Fourth, we should not artificially
exaggerate argument responsibility. Debaters should be responsible in proportion to the
logical weight which an argument carries. If the negative claims that either of two policies is superior to the plan and one
of their policies is shown to be inferior, they can still logically win on the other. Fifth and finally, the fear of repugnant counterplans seems
exaggerated. There are natural disincentives to running offensive arguments; they alienate judges and you are unlikely to win on them. In the age
of kritiks, extreme violations of political correctness are even more dangerous. And if you want to defend that people dying is good, you can
probably do so in the form of a disadvantage without recourse to counterplan as link magnifier.
39
The argument that negative conditionality justifies affirmative conditionality strikes me as
the weakest of the major arguments against conditional counterplans. At least it is easy to answer if one thinks
that the plan is the focus of the debate. If that is the case, then the plan cannot change and affirmative
conditionality is disallowed, but the negative can still attack the plan's desirability from
more than one policy perspective. This may seem unfair because it is non-reciprocal, but at
least a couple of points should be made. The affirmative ability to select a specific case and
plan is a huge strategic advantage. The affirmative almost always knows more about the
specific policy on which the debate is focusing. And the plan must remain the focus, even if
there is more than one counterplan in the round because counterplans are required to
compete, that is, provide a reason to reject the plan. Often, the affirmative has a vast
advantage in terms of specific knowledge and specific preparation. Thus, giving the negative
more flexibility in terms of its counter-advocacy can easily be considered to be a reciprocal
advantage offsetting the affirmative's case selection side advantage. Also, the affirmative
isn't really just limited to the plan, the whole plan, and nothing but the plan. Permutations
(of which each counterplan is likely to suggest a number) in effect function as additional policy alternatives
which can justify an affirmative ballot. Permutations, I will argue below, are inherently
conditional arguments, but a legitimate form of logical, limited conditionality. And letting the judge vote for a
permutation at the end of the round seems adequate reciprocation for letting the judge vote
for a conditional counterplan.
40
The first argument in favor of this position is that it follows from the logic of real world decision-making. A rational decision-
maker, confronted with two proposals for change, can almost always reject both and keep
things as they are, and indeed, s/he should do so if both changes would be inferior to the
policy that now exists.
41
Second, this form of limited conditionality is also consistent with real world advocacy. Faced
with one proposal for change, opponents of a policy frequently offer a counter-proposal. In
response to the Republican tax cut proposal, the Democrats will offer an alternative tax cut
proposal of their own. But even if the Democrats' plan is rejected, the Republicans' need
not be embraced. Democrats can still vote against the Republican plan. Indeed, this posture of
proposing an alternative, but still defending the status quo as superior to the policy proposed by one's
political opponents is so common that it is essentially business as usual. Thus, rejecting all
forms of conditional argument is in fact less in accord with the practice of real world public
advocates than is the acceptance of limited conditionality.
42
Third, the time limits argument against unconstrained conditionality has minimal force
against this version of limited conditionality. Each side gets only one proposal for change.
The status quo is still a logical policy option justifying a negative ballot; that is, it is a
competitive reason to reject the affirmative plan. But there is only one status quo; thus, the
number of negative policy options can never exceed two. There is thus no possibility of the
extreme abuse potential associated with multiple counterplans.
43
Fourth, allowing the negative to revert to the status quo is reciprocal with the affirmative's
ability to suggest doing both. The "do both" permutation also follows from the logic of
rational decision-making. If a rational decision-maker were confronted with two mutually
compatible and simultaneously desirable policies, s/he would presumably embrace both.
Likewise, if the judge is modeling the behavior of a rational, real world decision-maker, s/he should be able to
simultaneously endorse both plan and counterplan, if the two taken together constitute the
best policy option. Similarly, s/he should be able to endorse the option to "do neither,"
since this option equally well follows from the logic of rational, real world decision-making.
One could even regard the "do neither" option as a kind of negative permutation of plan and counterplan.
44
Fifth, normal permutation theory still gives the affirmative more policy options than the
negative, even allowing the negative an inherent right to the status quo. There are almost
always several legitimate permutations which can be articulated in response to a given
counterplan. Thus, in most rounds there will be several policy options (the original plan or any of a
number of permutations) justifying an affirmative ballot. Even allowing the status quo fallback, the
negative does not reach complete parity. But disallowing even that option constitutes a
major failure of reciprocity.
45
Eighth, the negative disposition option constitutes a reasonable middle ground between the
extremes of classic, unconstrained conditionality and strict, single option advocacy.
Negative disposition helps offset the large side advantage associated with affirmative case
and plan selection. It also allows, at least to a limited degree, kinds of hypothetical thinking
which contribute to sophisticated policy analysis.
46
Undergirding this theory of counterplan disposition is a view of debate which I have labeled
"policy analysis." Basically, this is the view that the purpose of a policy debate is to find the
best policy. At least, this is the best purpose. Politicians may use debates to gain political victories over
their opponents. But in debate we are not active politicians, and we can use debate in a
more disinterested way. Why should academic debate be concerned with finding the best policy? Because as citizens we
are concerned about finding optimal policies. Because policy makers SHOULD be
concerned about finding optimal policies. Because debate should provide training in the
processes of rational policy assessment which are essential for a democracy. Training in the logic of
finding the best policy option is not the only thing debate should seek to accomplish. It should also train advocates, activists, and academics.
But learning how best to pursue the best policy is surely an IMPORTANT thing for policy
debate to teach. This does not mean that we can never depart from the logic of rational, real world decision-making. Sometimes other
values, competitive or educational, may be more compelling. But it does mean that departures from clear, real world models of rational choice
should be undertaken reluctantly and only for compelling reasons. Academic debate, all too clearly, is not the real world. But it is
designed to train us to think, to argue, and to evaluate within the real world. If the logic of
sound policy analysis matters in the real world, it should also matter in debate.
47
I would not deny, of course, that the counterplan is a powerful tool for the negative, nor that the
theory of negative disposition offers strategic advantages to the negative. Every theory
offers benefits to one side or the other; strict, single option advocacy is a theory which
strongly favors the affirmative. Thus, helping one side or the other is not really a
compelling argument against a theory construct. This is especially true if the other side has
reciprocal, offsetting advantages (like the power of permutation) or if, in general, side equity remains
reasonably in balance. The days of massive affirmative side bias appear to have passed, at least temporarily, but we have hardly entered an era of
clear negative preponderance. Thus, arguments of the "pity the poor affirmative" variety seem a bit
premature. Counterplans are powerful tools, but they are not overwhelmingly powerful.
Counterplans generally function as defensive arguments; that is, they negate affirmative advantages. But it is
rare that a counterplan, operating on its own, provides a sufficient reason to vote negative.
Generally, it must be coupled with a disadvantage to serve as a net benefit. Thus, whereas the
negative can often win on a disadvantage standing alone (because it outweighs the case), or on topicality, or on a kritik, it is rare that the negative
can win just on a counterplan. Since counterplans are not THAT powerful, they need not be subject to
special theoretical impediments.
48
To start with the last point first, it seems clear that the affirmative never HAS to debate against itself. It can
always defend the position that its plan (or a permutation) is the best policy option in the
round. Affirmative debaters have presumably devoted a whole speech to proving the plan better than the status quo; now all they have to do is
to prove the plan superior to the counterplan. If the status quo is still an option, this does place some
constraints on exactly how the affirmative attacks the counterplan. They cannot, for
example, run a disadvantage to the counterplan which applies even to a lesser degree to the
plan if the disadvantage has the effect of proving the status quo superior to the plan as well.
But it is not clear to me that the affirmative should be able to make arguments which prove
they are inferior to the status quo. This seems to amount to refuting their own advocacy, something that is ruled out in almost
any debate rulebook. As far as debating in two worlds, there is some truth to this argument, but it also seems overstated. The existence
of two negative policy options in the same round does create argument interactions which
the affirmative must identify and keep straight. But making two policy comparisons at the end of the round instead
of just one is not quantum physics. In a world without negative disposition, we have to answer the question, which is best, the plan or the
counterplan? In a world with negative disposition, we must answer the question, which is best,
plan, counterplan, or status quo? This does not seem monumentally more complex.
Besides, debate is supposed to be intellectually challenging. Probably the worst argument against kritiks is that
philosophy is too complex to debate about. If we can intellectually cope with postmodern philosophy, global circulation models, and theories of
deterrence, I suspect we can cope with the status quo as a fallback option. And the challenges of debating in
two worlds at once are reciprocal. The negative also has to keep track of the various argument
interactions and make their strategic choices accordingly.
49
One of the most powerful arguments in favor of the theory of negative counterplan
disposition is that the status quo option is reciprocal with the affirmative's ability to
permute. But there is a fairly obvious objection which will doubtless have come to the minds of many readers at this point in
the argument. This is that permutations are only a test of competition; they are not a policy option
available to the judge at the end of the round. I believe that this view is misguided. I will
argue in this section that permutations should indeed be regarded as conditional
affirmative policy options and that they are options which the judge can endorse at the end
of the round. Furthermore, in light of this, the existence of permutations justifies at least minimal negative conditionality in the form of
the retention of the status quo option.
50
But if we say the judge can vote to do both, then the judge has two ways to vote affirmative,
since it was already assumed that the judge can vote for the plan alone. And this,
unquestionably, is affirmative policy conditionality. So if severance, alternative justification, and intrinsicness
arguments are all bad, why is this form of affirmative conditionality legitimate? The best answer, I think, is that the affirmative is still defending
its full lAC plan (thus there has been no severance of its advocacy), and the permutation (if it is a legitimate permutation) only incorporates
policy elements advocated by the negative. (Thus, the permutation adds no new element not found in either plan or counterplan.) If follows
from the logic of rational decision-making that the judge should be able to endorse both the
plan and the counterplan. If the judge can endorse the plan by voting affirmative, and if
the judge can endorse the counterplan by voting negative, there is no reason why the judge
cannot endorse the two policies in combination. This logic is perfectly real world. If
Congress has two mutually compatible and mutually desirable bills on its docket, then it
can and should pass both. When presented with two policy options the rational decision-
maker will almost always have the opportunity to do either option A, option B, or options
A and B together. Not to permit the judge this range of choices defies the logic of rational
decision-making.
51
Appeals to fairness are generally subjective and self-interested. (So, of course, are many other kinds of
arguments.) Strategies and approaches which you commonly employ are likely to seem "fair."
Those favored by your opponents (especially those you find hard to answer) are likely to be deemed
"unfair." I don't foresee the banishment of fairness arguments from debate theory. Nor do I
even favor it. Debate is a competitive activity, which means that it is, in part, a game. Unless, as
seems unlikely, we agree to write a definitive rulebook, there are going to be disputes about
what practices and conventions are fair. I nonetheless think that fairness arguments are overemphasized, both by debaters
and by many coaches. It is easy to see why debaters find fairness-based arguments the most compelling. They are in the trenches, and their
competitive juices are flowing. But it is important to remember that debate is not just a game but an
intellectual game undertaken for educational purposes. Thus, it seems to me that
arguments grounded in the educational values of the activity should generally take
precedence over fairness considerations. I am enough of a pluralist to think that we should perhaps be willing to trade off
a little education for a lot of fairness. And, of course, we should trade off a little fairness for a lot of
education. More commonly, of course, we are not really talking about a whole lot of either. Both fairness and education
claims tend to operate at the margin. I would find a debate world without logical, limited
conditionality less intellectually satisfying. But debate would almost certainly still be an
intellectually challenging, educational activity whatever conventions reign with regard to
conditionality. Similarly, someone else might find a debate world in which logical, limited conditionality is acceptable to be less fair than
a debate world without it. But a world with limited conditionality is certainly not grossly unfair; with or without limited conditionality, a
reasonable degree of competitive equity is likely to prevail.

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What are the four main arguments presented in favor of punishment according to the text?

What are the two dominant incentives for labeling an objection to a given theory or practice a voting issue according to the author?

Theory as a Voting Issue: The Crime of Punishment, Roger E.

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