Instigator / Pro
13
1702
rating
77
debates
70.13%
won
Topic
#1810

Does a good, perfect man struggle with evil

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
6
3
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
1
2

After 2 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...

fauxlaw
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
3
Time for argument
Two days
Max argument characters
5,000
Voting period
Two weeks
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
11
1490
rating
7
debates
42.86%
won
Description

Definitions:
Good: the state of acting on influences to be a better person today than yesterday. It is not a static condition, but continually dynamic, demanding of one to not just espouse goodness, but to be committed to its action in all circumstances.

Perfection: living a perfect life is living a life without error of any kind, being good under any circumstance. It is always making correct choices to be good when faced with every circumstance.

Struggle: either a combat against an initiating assailant, be it from an external or internal source, or combat initiated by the person against another person, or an idea conflicting with their own.

Evil: The opposite of good. Any obstacle that attempts to prevent the effort of a good person to act contrary to their sense to be good. The choice to be an obstacle to one's self, or others, to use their agency to be good. The effort to entice another, or the self, to seek power, pride, and possession; the roots of all evil thoughts or acts.

This is appropriately a philosophic, not a religious debate. The definitions above may seem to have a religious tone, but the challenge is to conduct this debate purely from the limited definitions of all terms defined herein, which have not referred to religion, or deity [good or evil], or morality couched in religious jargon. No holy writ ought to have place, even by reference, in the debate. The challenge, then, is to question whether even a perfect person still must struggle to avoid evil behavior.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

DOES a GOOD, PERFECT MAN STRUGGLE with EVIL

Before the debate begins, PRO has introduced a couple of problem impacting clarity.

PRO suggests dual subjects, both GOOD and PERFECT humans. GOOD is committed to doing better each day. PERFECT is never failing to do better each day which suggests contradiction: if a human is perfect on Monday, there is no room for improvement on Tuesday and so that human cannot do better and by PRO's definition is neither good nor perfect any more.

PRO's thesis is never clearly stated. The title is formatted as a question and because instigator is PRO, we infer that the thesis is
Both good and perfect humans struggle with evil

STRUGGLE is insufficiently defined as combat.

EVIL is defined as enticement, power, pride, and possession and also the opposite of GOOD so good can be additionally defined as revulsion, weakness, shame, and poverty.

PRO argues even God struggles with evil, the battleground being the free will of humans. All humans are continuously tempted, PERFECT humans resist temptation without fail but yes, that's still a STRUGGLE

CON intelligently goes after PRO's highly personalized definitions. Better is relative to condition ands unspecified. CON faults PRO's standard as too generic and the main verb "STRUGGLE" as insufficiently defined. The vegetarian fox makes an excellent metaphor.

CON's approach is smart but is not going to win this debate because CON accepted the debate with these terms pre-defined.

"the challenge is to conduct this debate purely from the limited definitions of all terms defined herein"

Normal debate conduct suggest that acceptance of the debate implies agreement to pre-defined terms & definitions. This VOTER tries to maintain an open mind to kritiks of inadequate or offensive pre-definitions and PRO's definitions are wide open to criticism- not rooted in dictionary definition, not sourced, self-contradicting and (as PRO concedes) limited. But for CON's kritik to win the day, I think CON needed to BOTH fault the definitions as unsourced and inadequate AND provide new, well-sourced definitions that makes PRO's thesis fail.

CON's argument is very good; GOOD/EVIL too vague, STRUGGLE is a much more inclusive word than mere combat. HOWEVER, PRO explicitly stated that these definitions stand. This debate can only be conducted by the terms defined (and so should never have been accepted).

Therefore, ARGUMENT to PRO.

This VOTER is sorely tempted to award sources to CON, since the debate depends on definitions that would not stand up to cross-reference In spite of the deficit of sourcing in DESCRIPTION, however, PRO uses many sources of good quality in the debate itself while CON uses no outside source. I expect that was a stylistic choice since CON's positions are in agreement with many reliable sources. CON desperately needed to bring dictionary definitions to bear against PRO's personal definitions. If CON had elected to show that his position is much better supported by scholars and philosophers than PRO, this VOTER would likely have awarded the point to CON in response to PRO's made up definitions, (and so, tied up the debate).

CONDUCT to CON

Both debaters gave good game and demonstrated fine conduct and engagement. This VOTER looks forward to reading future debates from both.

Both PRO and CON violated the terms of the debate but CON is the more forgiven since his approach was a kiritik of those terms while PRO's over-reliance on those terms to win the debate merits a higher standard of conduct. CON was quite right to fault PRO for "referencing God no more than 14 times in both answers, with 5 actual cited references" PRO did well to acknowledge errors on both sides but PRO's violation is the more grievous because PRO wrote the rules and won significant benefit from those rules in ARGUMENTS.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

I really can't decide between the two. I will give a tie on this vote and let someone else using their distinctive minds to do their jobs.