Utilitarianism and Deontology, or, the only time I'll ever argue against bacon

In my last post about impact comparisons, I made the point that "magnitude" is usually a straightforward comparison - which war is worse, which policy harms the economy more, which impact should we avoid if we want to save the most lives. Comparing the size of two impacts is easy if they are both measured in dollars or lives, but what if there is no such apples-to-apples comparison? How do you compare an economic collapse to the existence of institutional racism? How do you evaluate a policy which ends a human rights violation, but risks starting a war?

On the scale of governments, this weighing of different impacts is a normal fact of public policy, but when you ask these kinds of questions of individuals, you've begun a study of ethics. After all, individuals have to weigh costs and benefits for nearly every decision they make. There are many ways that individuals or governments could resolve these apples-to-oranges impact comparisons, but there are two particularly important tools from the world of ethics that debaters tend to find useful. Though you might not have heard the terms for these decisionmaking systems, you most likely use both of them everyday.

Consider, for a moment, the vegitarian. Most people aren't raised vegetarians (a least among people of my own cultural background), which means most vegetarians made the choice at some point in their lives to stop eating meat. Every person who makes this choice makes it for different reasons, but there are a few common justifications for vegetarianism.

1. Meat production takes more resources. To take grain, feed it to chickens or cows, and then feed people with the resulting chickens and cows takes more grain than it would take to feed the people directly. Meat production also uses up a lot of land and other resources that could be better used to grow more food for more people. If everyone stopped eating meat, world food prices would go down, and more people would be able to sustain a healthy diet. Even if eating meat is enjoyable, vegetarianism does the greatest good for the greatest number.

2. Animals have rights. The animals that we consume for food are sentient beings that make decisions and feel pain. If we can avoid it, it is wrong to inflict pain on another creature. Animals raised for human consumption are caged, forced to ingest chemicals that modify their body chemistry, and are killed in ways that are far from painless. Even if an individual's decision not to eat meat does not end animal suffering, choosing to eat meat is still wrong.

Not only are these two arguments independent (you might agree with one, or the other, or both, or neither), they are based on completely different ethical systems.

Vegetarian argument #1 is an example of utilitarianism. A utilitarian decision-making process seeks to maximize "utility," which usually means minimizing pain or loss of life. If we did not eat meat, then fewer people would starve to death or face the pain of too little nutrition. Notice that evaluating a utilitarian claim requires looking at an action's consequences (whether or not it leads to less starvation), which is why we say that it is a consequentialist framework.

Vegetarian argument #2, and its claims about "rights", is rooted in the language of Deontology. In a deontic ethical framework, there are certain actions that one should never do, regardless of consequences. Unlike utilitarianism, which presents "conditional imperatives" like "we shouldn't eat meat if meat-eating leads to more hunger," deontology is based around categorical imperatives, things we should or should not do regardless of the consequences. These categorical imperatives are tightly linked with the concept of human rights (or animal rights, as the case may be).

Not all impacts fit neatly into these two categories, but usually we can distinguish between utilitarian and deontic arguments. Any argument about preventing a war or calamity that would happen some time in the future is utilitarian. Disads are largely utilitarian, by consequence. Arguments that seek to establish a "moral obligation," "decision rule," or "you must..." are drawing heavily on deontology.

So when will these two systems come into conflict? If you've been paying attention, they already have. There are two distinct claims built into a tagline like "You must vote aff to overturn a racist government policy." These claims are (1) removing racist policy is a categorical imperative and (2) that the existence of such a categorical imperative means we ought to discard other considerations, usually other utilitarian impacts in the round.

If the negative just extends their impact within a utilitarian framework ("war kills more people than racism"), they aren't going to make it far in this debate. It doesn't matter how many lives the status quo saves if the neg drops the claim that we ought to ignore the consequences of plan. To re-gain the upper hand in this debate, the neg needs to do one or more of the following:

• win that the government policy in question is not racist


• win that racism is not a categorical imperative


• win a stronger categorical imperative that the affirmative violates (support of capitalism will be a popular objection this coming year)


• win that utilitarianism is a better framework, IE that categorical imperatives do not exist

The neg (or aff, whoever is arguing against the deontic impact) generally has a few more common-sense responses to make as well. On balance, most of the claimed categorical imperatives are over-stated, especially upon a close reading of the impact and link cards in play. The opponents' impact also might not be such pure deontology as they claim it is. There is a wide gap, for instance, between "overturning a racist policy" and "solving racism." You shouldn't let teams claim they are doing the latter when their plan merely does the former.

One last piece of advice: the "utilitarianism vs. deontology" debate tends to revolve around a few obvious arguments against both systems. You could probably think of all of these arguments if you put your mind to it. But no policymaker (or individual) accepts "utilitarianism" or "deontology" in full - we all let both of these philosophies inform our decisionmaking. As such, debaters who can focus their utilitarian/deontic on the plan in question rather than in general can usually get a leg up in these debates.

The Economy Links Debate: Pay Up, Uncle Sam

The next in my four-part series on Economics covers the economy link debate for the coming season, roughly will social services for people living in poverty help or hurt the US Economy?

Right up front, let me admit that I can't possibly cover every meaningful economics debate you are going to have this year, even as a novice. As the year progresses, smart negatives will find specific, nuanced stories of how affs ruin the economy, and affirmatives will develop specfic, nuanced link turn stories of how they save it. That being said, many debates this year will center around two negative link stories, so we'll start with the generics.

This year's topic calls on affirmatives to increase social services, which in most cases means increaed federal spending. The federal goverment as we know it needs to spend money to function, but for the past 10 years the federal government's debts (via spending) have grown faster than their ability to repay them (via taxes and other revenue), a situation we call a budget defecit.

If you or I want to spend money that we don't yet have, we have many different options. Depending on the situation we could take out a loan from a bank, borrow from family or friends, seek investor capital, or use a credit card. But when the federal government wants to spend more than it makes, it can't just reach for its American Express card. The government uses a more technical system called a Treasury Bill. Roughly, a treasury bill is a government I.O.U. given to an investor in exchange for cash up front. Treasury bills are usually very low interest loans, but they are useful because they are highly likely to be repaid. Uncle Sam is good for it.

The fact that Uncle Sam is good for it means that many investors are attracted to "buy" government debt, including businesses and governments in other nations. These foreign investors form a symbiotic relationship with our government for now. But there is some worry that if the federal government stretched its budget too far, it would scare these foreign investors off. If Uncle Sam suddenly doesn't seem so reliable, you might stop investing in new treasury bills or worse, try to "dump" them for less than you paid. The government would not be able to finance its current committments and would have to either raise taxes or make cuts to spending that is already promised. This would be disastrous for the US Economy.

So if you are a negative team, you might argue that there is an invisible threshold of spending that triggers this collapse, and that the aff's new spending pushes us over it. This is a popular story (often the first disad that new debaters learn) but it has some serious problems to overcome. The most glaring is that the government has just spent on the order of a Trillion Dollars in attempt to prevent an economic depression - if that didn't trigger an economic collapse, then a few billion here and there for social services shouldn't matter, should it? Coming up with answers to basic objectives like these are an important step for negatives that want to win on spending disads.

Though the behavior of government has a major effect on the economy, it is not the only economic factor worth considering. The majority of "the economy," after all, is made up by businesses. Though the decisions made by your local grocery store won't bring widespread success or ruin on their own, the aggregate behavior of the larger business community matters. Are businesses investing in new equipment, entering in new markets, and hiring more people? This is usually the key sign of economic success. Businesses only take these risks if they are likely to see a return on their investment. Debaters generally phrase the likelyhood of businesses to take risk on new investments as business confidence.

So, if you owned a business, what could the government do to make you less confident? That list will be different for different businesses, but "take away my market" would surely be high on the list for all of them. For example, if I made money by providing broadband internet access to individuals, I might not like it if the government started providing my product to people for free. Even if the government targets people who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford my services, the notion that net access is something you should get "for free" instead of paying your local cable company is surely detrimental to my long-term business model. This is the kind of policy that might make me reconsider hiring a bunch of people to lay new cable lines.

Regulation is another common point of contention between business and government. Right now, health insurance companies base their pricing model off of denying people with pre-existing conditions. If the government told all insurance companies that they had to cover anyone who wanted coverage, they might not like that.

Lucky for the aff, almost anything that hurts one business (or one type of business) helps another. Broadband companies might not be enthused if people got free broadband, but Google and Amazon would love it if a few million more people showed up on the internet tomorrow. Health insurance companies might not want to compete with the government to provide health care, but I can think of a few major companies that might like it if their employees had easier access to cheap healthcare. And the businesses that would have the largest effect on the US economy are not always the same ones that lobby the hardest to congress.

In addition to the tit-for-tat answers to the popular negative link scenarios, strategic affirmatives will come up with independent ways that their plan helps the economy. This year, many of those stories will revolve around the "hidden costs" of poverty. For example, even though many in the United States don't have adequate health care coverage, they still do occasionally show up at a hospital needing life-saving treatments. In fact, their lack of insurance makes them less likely to visit a doctor regularly and more likely to end up in the emergency room, where they receive expensive treatments for which they are unable to pay. There is some debate over exactly how large this problem is, but widespread health insurance would save costs, and might be a net positive for the economy.

These are the tools to get started, I look forward to writing a follow-up later in the season explaining all the new tricky link scenarios debaters have managed to craft.

The Jump to Conclusions Mat: Choosing Between Policy and LD

Since this can be something of a hot-button issue, I feel like I ought to be upfront about my background and how it might effect my lay of the land. The only form of debate that I've ever formally coached or participated in is Policy. I have watched a fair amount of LD debate as a judge, coach, and casual observer, though. Also, I will soon be marrying an LD debater/coach, and she does a pretty good job of keeping me honest (read: calling out my blatant bull-pucky).

If you've been in debate more than a few days you've probably already heard this, but it's worthwhile to point out all of the reasons that these activities are really not all that different. They are both forms of competitive debate, and (depending on where you live) there are excellent opportunities to compete in both at the Local, State, and National Level. Neither activity is considered "better," "smarter," or "harder" than the other by anyone who matters. Competing in either activity gives you the opportunity to develop speaking, researching, strategic, and critical thinking skills that is pretty much unrivaled, in my humble opinion.

So. Differences. Well, in policy you have a partner and in LD you don't. For most novices I think that this is the biggest determining factor because it's the one you best understand. You know that working with a partner can be infuriating, but it's nice having someone who's "got your back." Similarly, Working on your own means you get all the glory, but you're on your own out there. Now, these are all true, but they tend to matter a whole lot less than you think. You have to work in groups in both activities to prepare arguments, and in either activity you are going to have to pull your weight if you want to win. Most debaters tend not to stay with the same partner for long anyway as novices, so don't sweat the partner dynamics too much.

Now about the topics. The way I've always heard this is you debate "Questions of policy" in policy debate and "questions of value" in LD. This explanation tends to favor policy in most kids' minds, because most kids at least some fleeting idea of what policy means, while "value" is kind of vague. The hard part is, once you start explaining LD with words like "ethics" or "philosophy," kids get the impression that LD involves questions like "What is beauty?" and they run for the hills.

Interestingly enough, the two types of debate have covered some of the same subject matter over the years of resolutions, so I think the best way to compare and contrast the different debate styles is to look at how they approach the same topic. For example, take this pair of resolutions:

Policy Resolution (2009): The United States federal government should substantially increase social services for persons living in poverty in the United States.
LD Resolution (2008): Limiting economic inequality ought to be a more important social goal than maximizing economic freedom.

Both of these resolutions deal with the question of income inequality, but the different phrasings lead to different sets of important arguments. The LD resolution asks the general question of whether limiting inequality "ought" to be more important than economic freedom, while the policy resolution asks debaters to evaluate the merits of a particular type of action (social services) to limit inequality. The policy resolution is rooted in a particular place and time, meaning that arguments must take the present-day US into account, while arguments in the LD resolution can be somewhat disconnected from any particular society's laws or culture.

Another important difference is that the Policy resolution specifies a particular actor, IE the United States Federal Government, and the LD resolution does not. Some LD resolutions will specify an actor (though sometimes a more abstract actor, like "a just society"), but all policy resolutions will. This further constrains the debate to the limitations of that actor. Most policy debate rounds are further constrained by the particular plan the affirmative proposes, while LD debaters tend to defend/attack the "whole res."

Notice also the weighing systems in both resolutions. The LD resolution asks us to pick a "societal goal", something an entire soceity should strive toward. The policy resolution just asks us the bare "should?" This is implicitly asking: "The affirmative's plan, is it a good idea?" Now, the aff's plan might be a good idea because it meets some societal goal, but the policy resolution doesn't ask us to debate the goals themselves, at least not exclusively.

There are some other differences (time limits, how often the topic changes), but these are bad things to base a decision on, in my opinion. If you love LD debate, it's because you love debating LD resolutions. Same goes for policy. You could make policy a 1-on-1 activity with rotating bi-monthly topics, and policy debaters would still want to debate policy. They love the subject matter, not the set-up. You don't have to pick a favorite exclusively, and you definitely don't have to know right away, but you should play the game that excites you, debate the things that you feel need to be debated.

This is fuzzy, but LD debates tend towards the general case, the underlying decision-making systems. Policy debaters seek local truths, predictions of the future based on the world we live in. Remember this scene in Office Space?

Peter Gibbons: Our high school guidance counselor used to ask us what you'd do if you had a million dollars and you didn't have to work. And invariably what you'd say was supposed to be your career. So, if you wanted to fix old cars then you're supposed to be an auto mechanic.
Samir: So what did you say?
Peter Gibbons: I never had an answer. I guess that's why I'm working at Initech.

Michael Bolton: No, you're working at Initech because that question is bulls*** to begin with. If everyone listened to her, there'd be no janitors, because no one would clean s*** up if they had a million dollars.

Samir: You know what I would do if I had a million dollars? I would invest half of it in low risk mutual funds... and then take the other half over to my friend Asadulah who works in securities...

Michael Bolton: Samir, you're missing the point. The point of the exercise is that you're supposed to figure out what you would want to do if...
[printer starts beeping]
Michael Bolton: "PC Load Letter"? What the f*** does that mean?

Micheal is a LD debater. Samir is definitely a policy debater.