Intro to Framework
Disclaimer: This applies to only LDers.
Imagine you're standing by a set of train tracks when suddenly, you see a runaway trolley speeding toward five unsuspecting people. Beside you is a lever—if you pull it, the trolley will switch tracks, saving the five but killing one person on the other track. Do you pull the lever or do nothing and let the five die? This classic moral dilemma is known as the Trolley Problem.
LD is different from other events in the sense that it involves ethics and frameworks. In Lincoln-Douglas debate, judges determine the winner by applying a set of standards that guide their decision-making.
These standards revolve around two key components:
Value: The value represents the overarching principle that each debater argues should be prioritized in the round. It serves as a lens through which all arguments should be evaluated. Common values include justice, morality, liberty, societal welfare, and democracy.
Value Criterion: The criterion is a standard used to achieve the value (how we measure the value). It provides a way to determine which arguments actually advance the value. Common examples include utilitarianism, deontology, the harm principle, or protecting rights. Consider: if our value is morality, utilitarianism would say that what is moral is based off the utility of actions.
The two most commonly used value criterions are:
Utilitarianism: The most common value criterion is usually utilitarianism, which prioritizes actions that maximize overall happiness or minimize harm for the greatest number of people. Utilitarianism is frequently used because it provides a clear, measurable standard for weighing impacts, making it appealing in debates centered on policy, ethics, and justice. The biggest impact under util is usually deaths and extinction, so debaters couple util with impacts like nuke war.
Deontology: While utilitarianism is usually focused on the endpoints/results of actions, deontology is concerned with the means (think: do the means justify the ends). Deontology is the ethical theory that judges actions based on their adherence to moral principles rather than their consequences. Deontology argues that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, regardless of the outcomes they produce. A key concept in deontological ethics is Kant’s Categorical Imperative, which states that we should only act according to principles that could be applied universally. For example, lying is bad because if it was universal (everyone did it), then there would be no conception of what truth is.
