Right there with you, both on your perspective and lack of comfort with this kind of debate. Had a long discussion with a couple of people over the Problem of Evil. It plays a substantial role in my beliefs, despite remaining Jewish.
Not sure I understand the question. Are you asking if Pro could reasonably make the argument that it's better for the government to compensate organ donors in some way? Because, at least from what I understand of the resolution, it would not be possible, since you're shutting down the opportunity for a market to exist. If the government pays for it, then the government is creating a market, even if it's not subject to the usual market forces. There's a buyer and a seller, so that's a market.
I'd advise you to be careful on the whole "this is basically never going to happen in the real world" stance. Depending on how he runs this, he can either argue that this is entirely theoretical and thus leave apart the issue of practicality entirely, or he can argue this as policy and use fiat to guarantee that it happens within the context of this debate. You have recourse in both cases, and especially in the latter, there's reasonable arguments to be made about what forcing this would actually do, but I'd suggest you don't run the argument that this can't happen. It's a "should" resolution, ergo it's a discussion of whether it is worth doing, not whether it can happen.
That would have been pretty bad. Generally, I view waiving a round as a concession of any points your opponent made against your points in the previous round, so anything that you responded to previously would have been cross-applied, but you would have sunk yourself on any novel refutations. It also would have made me rethink the strength of your best arguments if my perception of them was that you were unwilling to push the most important elements of them in the end. I think you handicapped that strength, but you would have been just as if not more handicapped by refusing to push the reasons they matter in the end. Also, if your opponent is the only one summarizing and examining the debate as a whole, then they control the entire narrative. Usually a bad move to let them do that.
I agree, though it also engenders a host of harms that are specific to an open border over just opening up to movement of labor. Watched an exceptional debate on opening up borders to labor that allowed those advocating it to skirt around a lot of those problems.
Be interested to see how this one shapes up. I personally wouldn't go this far, but one of these days I mean to do a "let anyone work anywhere" topic. However, at least for this case, I don't like running that kind of counterplan, since it's just meant to steal some of your impact while avoiding some of the negatives. Always feel like that's a cop out that avoids a great deal of the debate. I have no doubt you'll get someone to take a fully opposing position.
And yeah, that's a monster of an RFD. Lots to read through, and some parts are a bit rambling/stream-of-consciousness, but it gets across how I'm perceiving the arguments as I go through them. Some look a little better as I go through, some degrade a bit, but you can see where I'm following you better or worse and get some indication of what's working and what's not. It's a lot to plug through, and it's only one judge's perspective, so take your time with it and take it with a giant grain of salt. I've got my own biases and problematic perspectives, and while I'd like to see those balanced by another RFD, this is a big and difficult debate to judge, so I understand if I'm alone in handling it.
I wouldn't call it muddling the resolution. I would say that your best bet was to double down on your argument about uncertainty, whether it's uncertainty over application of a just cause or uncertainty over what suffices as oppression, and then focus on giving as big of a picture as possible on that, especially in your final round. I've been trying the "ask three questions" or "make three statements" that define the debate, and then putting everything under those three. They don't all have to be offense, but by doing this, I can usually drive towards the bigger picture of what my arguments represent and why they're important. I'd say the whole comparison of two worlds aspect of the final round is one of the most important aspects that should be represented, and both of you could use some work fleshing that out. And, yeah, that was a have your cake and eat it, too moment. It's always tempting to go for everything with every point, but that final round requires that you be more incisive and really hit at what matters most in the context of the debate.
And, yeah, in thinking about this resolution, I do think it's more Pro-biased. Making it vaguer can also vastly expand the burdens of both sides, though, so just be careful of where you take it.
That's an interesting way to take it. I felt that the American Revolution and BLM points seemed pretty separate throughout, and that would have linked them together well enough. The trouble is that that line of logic depends on the perspective. A person could argue that we had a revolution to overthrow a powerful oppressor, whereas BLM is being used as a means to shake up the current government and force changes to the existing system, rather than bucking our leadership entirely. Some might call that an evolution of the tactic, though you could argue that that "evolution" still involves the use of force against people who shouldn't be the targets of BLM.
Included some specific suggestions towards the end. I think you started this strong and you were solid throughout in defending your points, but the main thing I think you could stand to do in general is to have a better perspective of what you're winning and why it's important. It's still something I struggle with. Going on the line-by-line is important throughout much of the debate, but the people I've seen do the best will drop a point or two before the final round, and then zero in on a couple of key issues at the end. It's difficult when you feel like you have to win several points or when you really do feel like you're winning several arguments, but I'd say that's where you could put in the work. It's honestly easier when you're doing these live because there's not a clear record of the things you're dropping, but it's just as important.
I have my own views regarding where I see the topic being weighted towards, though that does at least partially depend on the interpretation. My RFD will include some thoughts on that.
And, in case you're wondering, no, I haven't figured out who's winning this yet. Going into the final round, you both have options left to take this, though I do think one side is favored, won't say which.
I should have this RFD up tomorrow. Be advised, this is going to be a long one (it's 8 pages and I just started on the last round), even by my standards. I'm doing speech-by-speech breakdowns. There'll be a TL:DR, and if you don't want to go through all the specific feedback for each round, you could just skip to the last two to focus on how I perceive the final rounds and how things wrap up for each side. However, I thought this was thorough and impressive enough that each round deserved attention, so I'm providing the info (it also just generally helps me keep things straight, so it wasn't all for you, but I hope it's helpful).
Well, at least this debate has one vote. Not entirely sure of myself on this one - like I said, philosophy isn't exactly my thing. And yeah, it's fine if you disagree. I'm still not sure of my decision, though it's the one I've come to most often after considering all the given arguments. It's difficult because I wasn't sure what established the threshold of "likely exists" beyond having greater likelihood, and that doesn't necessarily require definitive proof. I'm tempted to agree that it SHOULD, but I need more of a reason to believe it DOES.
I was considering doing a longer RFD to examine a lot of what happened in this debate and get through each individual point, but I don’t think that would accomplish much because, at the end of the day, this debate comes down to a single question:
Does the metaphysical possibility of engaging in separate decisions equate to a real-world probability of individuals being able to change their minds?
If I could, I would have italicized the “possibility” and “probability” points in there because I think that makes a big difference in assessing this debate. However, before I examine that, I’d just like to clarify the obvious. In the physical sense, both sides agree that there is functionally no free will. I could go through those arguments, but the result is basically clear from R2. In a physical, neurobiological sense, free will doesn’t exist. Also, in the sense that we don’t choose what we want, there is no free will to select what would be our preferences.
So, the debate comes down to points made by Pro in this debate and how well they stood up. On its face, the argument wasn’t super convincing to me. If the point had stopped at “we have possible choices, so we could have made them,” I probably wouldn’t be considering this argument. It’s essentially a theory-based point for free will, and it doesn’t demonstrate anything above possibility, so it can’t demonstrate probability. That being said, this argument doesn’t stop at “the possibility exists.” Pro makes two arguments to support this:
First, he argues that neuroscience simply can’t explain everything. Essentially, this is a “mind of the gaps” argument. I’m aware that doesn’t exist, but I’m repurposing “God of the gaps” to explain this. The point goes that, since neuroscience still can’t explain decision-making in full, there must be some other means to determine how one makes a decision. Pro argues that free will is that other means, and it cannot be determined by science.
Second, he argues that our ability to act in ways that don’t fit what would be “expected” based on our wants and the resultant likelihoods suggests that there is more to a decision than just some deterministic view of what we want or would be most likely to pursue.
Con’s responses to these points addresses some of the pieces. He argues that our inability to predict with current neuroscience doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of free will, but rather just suggests that we don’t have the necessary means to make those assessments. Essentially, Pro’s point is that there’s simply too much complexity and too few controls to manage an actual determination of what someone is going to do in any given situation, but Con’s response is that that lack of understanding doesn’t equate to a greater probability of free will. The problem may be with the methods used, the tools available, or any variety of factors that could affect accuracy.
This is the general problem with the “_____ of the gaps”-type arguments – you don’t actually make your position more likely to be right, you just reduce the number of possible options. That being said, I also don’t buy the argument that Pro had to prove a metaphysical world is likely to make this point, though that probably would have made his job easier. Essentially, I think the statement that there are elements of the mind we will never fully understand just needed more support. Distinguishing the mind from the brain was part of that, and Pro did a bit of it, but he needed to provide more detail on why we will always find ourselves unable to fully explain how the mind works. Essentially, I needed a clear challenge to the notion that neurobiology will eventually find a way to explain it all. It’s a big claim to say that neurobiology can eventually figure it out, but the only response I get to it is that it will forever be too complicated by too many factors, which isn’t really enough to defeat the point. The reality that studies are hampered by too many variables now doesn’t mean they forever will be. I needed to hear why the mind is distinct enough that our understanding of the brain will always leave something to be desired, but I’m not getting enough on that point.
As for the deterministic argument, this is a bit trickier. I actually thought initially that it was the weaker of the two, largely because the simple response is to throw Pro’s argument back at him – there are sufficiently complex factors at play in any decision that the resulting approaches would never be 100% or 50-50. Sometimes people just want some spice in their life and try new things even if they would otherwise just want more of the same. Sometimes they base their decisions on coin flips because it’s fun. The reality that decisions don’t go in either direction doesn’t mean free will exists, it just means that different “wants” can outweigh others at specific points in time based on any number of possible variables.
Anyway, that’s the response I wanted to see from Con. However, Con’s rebuttals don’t really engage with this argument. He just says that the point is unfalsifiable, which isn’t a particularly compelling reason to dismiss it, and that the existence of randomness doesn’t prove free will, which really wasn’t his point. Con’s contention on determinism is a kind of sort of response, where he argues that if we control for all the variables we will act precisely the same in the same situation. That kind of gets to my point, but it falls just short of a direct rebuttal since Pro had already addressed this point in his initial argument: if this was true, we would expect 100% adherence to this behavior if all variables could be controlled, but people simply don’t behave the same ways every time, which calls this into question. If Con had gone on to address that by arguing that any variable can change that 100% adherence, then I probably would have bought it, but I don’t see that in his responses. Merely saying that your point survives the debate doesn’t mean it does anything for you here.
Conclusion:
I’ve struggled with this one. I thought I’d be pulling the trigger for Con before I wrote this, but Pro has an argument that survives the debate, albeit I am unclear whether it reaches the threshold of probability. However, that’s not for me to decide. If Con wanted to argue that this doesn’t make free will more probable (there are reasonable points to be made that, even if Pro is winning this, he only shows that it’s more likely than absolute determinism rather than more likely than all other options), he should have done so. In the absence of that, I see a point on the table that elevates Pro’s case to slightly more likely. In general, a debate like this rides on Pro’s being able to prove something, and Con’s ability to prevent it. Free will either exists or it doesn’t, and the latter would only get my vote if the former is dismissed entirely. With one point on the board for free will, I can’t dismiss it, so I vote Pro.
I don't really want to make the arguments for whoever decides to take this on here in the comments, but there are lots of reasons. The main problem, and I'm guessing this will be part of Pro's point, likely has little to do with the reasons why those countries have made the choice not to allow for the sale of organs, and that has more to do with exploitation of the poor. I think I'd have the most trouble with that. The argument that most countries refuse to do this isn't particularly convincing.
That certainly requires a little more effort of the opposition because now they have to allow for the existence of markets rather than individual choice. Still not going to take this in the short term, but it's arguable.
DM is direct messaging, i.e. the private messages feature on this site. Appreciate the responses, still have some disagreements, but thinking we should take this there if you're interested in continuing.
Not going to cover everything, mainly because I don't want this to turn into a full debate here in the comments. We can transition to DMs if you're interested.
I generally agree with you regarding evolution, though I guess we see the terms differently in some regards. I have found that creationists tend to argue that they're entirely separate, which never made any sense to me. I find evolutionary theory to be sound, though whether species changes are the result of an accumulation of many traits or a specific few is a separate story. That's a separate issue, and I'm not going to throw in my two cents on that because that's a whole other debate and I think we're mostly on the same page here anyway.
I guess I need to rephrase my point from earlier, though I disagree with the idea that non-action is entirely distinct from action. Instead, I'll put it this way: any shift in economic policy can have unintended consequences. If that shift is towards more or different regulation, or towards less regulation, people still adapt to the changes in ways that we cannot necessarily anticipate. I suppose you can argue that, by taking away regulation, you remove the ability of governments to intervene and cause their own unintended economic consequences. On that, we can agree. The problem, however, is that taking away those regulations also frees up individuals to take more actions that could be harmful. I don't think that automatically balances in favor of deregulation. I can see how inflexibility can create some problems, but I disagree that having as much flexibility as possible is always better.
I think your argument largely assumes that markets will raise wages without setting a minimum wage, which may be true for some, but the very fact that so many workers have their wages set at the minimum suggests that their wages would fall if that minimum was removed. For that subset, being effectively forced to, say, work for $5 an hour puts them in an absolutely untenable situation where they are not earning enough to sustain themselves.
It strikes me that that can also be bad for the economy at large, reducing the purchasing power of a large subset of the labor market to the point that they can't afford basics that otherwise have a consistently large and booming market. I'm not saying that any circumstance is necessarily better on the whole, but it strikes me that your reasoning is based in favoring a specific general outcome for the market that ignores how power dynamics in the labor market, especially among those without significant training or education, are likely to play out. You would have to assume both a boom in the market and a dissemination of the resulting wealth through wages to get to your view of how things would work out.
Appreciate the response, though it appears we have some solid differences on both this and the topic of macro-evolution (I disagree that it functionally doesn't exist), though for separate reasons. I agree that trying to pin down economic behavior across a broad set of people is ridiculously difficult if not impossible, though there are some rules of thumb we can follow that are generally true enough that they're practically axiomatic, e.g. poorer people tend to spend more of what they earn than richer people. However, I don't think that should result in us throwing out economic research, but rather engaging with social and economic in combination and focusing on how people are likely to behave given a set of economic circumstances. It's not 100% and, while I generally agree that it leads to a lot of biased source claims by each side, I do think there are valid take-aways for each that are largely unquestioned. You pointed some of those out yourself.
I guess the main problem I have with this, though, is that you're essentially arguing that a free market system is better because tinkering tends to cause problems of its own. I'd say that refusing to take action is, effectively, an action itself. It comes with its own set of consequences, side-effects of standing back and letting things play out without intervention. Essentially, unintended consequences happen whether we choose to intervene or not. There is always a cost, regardless of whether there is action or inaction. Just because a free market system could reach a "free natural equilibrium" doesn't mean that it will, nor that even if it does, it will not cause a great deal of harm on the way or even set an equilibrium that is inherently damaging to a majority of the people it affects. A stable outcome isn't necessarily a good one. Moreover, I don't think that the reality that many interventions have better studied consequences than the free market system makes the free market system the better system to use, and I say that while simultaneously agreeing that a free market system is better for a great deal of national and international trade. I also say all this knowing that you probably have a much better grasp on economics than I do (and a much clearer way of explaining it), so I admit that my understanding may come from a flawed and uninformed perspective.
Looking back on it, I think I was a bit harsh in my RFD, but I'm glad you appreciated it. Honestly, you have a very solidly articulated argument. I've been trying to up my voting a bit in recent weeks (largely due to requests), and I'm glad I have, as it's given me an opportunity to see some excellently constructed arguments from new debaters. I'd count you among those. I think Seldiora started off strong in this debate, but tapered off as it went along. Meanwhile, I think your arguments, and particularly your rebuttals, evolved quite expertly as the debate went on. I look forward to seeing further debates from you.
It’s pretty rare for me to vote on debates like this, but it’s not a first. In this case, impacts tend to be less of an issue than logical analysis. Most of it comes down to what burdens each side had to meet in this, so while I’ve already read the debate, I’m going back through with the aim of figuring out who is providing the best argument in the context of the debate. As per usual with debates like this, you’re both winning certain points, so it’s a matter of determining which points matter most. That would usually be based on impacts, but in philosophical debates, it’s about hitting or failing to hit an established bar.
Rather than go through each point in this debate, I'm going to focus on a few key things that I think matter to the debate as a whole, and make my decision based on them. I'll try to do this in the context of providing feedback, so yes, I'm frontloading criticism.
I think Con has a really strong argument from the outset that pervades throughout... but I'm not sure that he has a counterplan, and I should be sure. He says multiple times that it would be better if we had an entirely free market system without any minimum wage. You can absolutely advocate for that, but you should make clear from the start that it is your advocacy. I kept reading your first round thinking about how your argument is mostly non-unique because it applies both to the present system where a lower minimum wage exists and Pro's advocacy, and honestly, I would have bought that your efforts to claim this pretty vague counterplan later in the debate would have been abusive. That's not to say you have no points without it, but if you're going to take the stance that this is your advocacy, clarify that immediately. Even by the final round, I'm still unsure. Moreover, if you are going to advocate for that, then the burden of proof in this debate is shared. You can't just knock down your opponent's argument and get by, as you claimed later in the debate. Finally, while I understand your concerns about individual studies and their effectiveness to tell the story, making sweeping claims about what imposing a minimum wage does in terms of big patterns based solely on a book I cannot access just leaves me questioning why I should buy your sources over those of your opponent when you keep telling me we're waist deep in literature on the subject for both sides. If you want to elevate your source, do that, but do it up front instead of leaving me scratching my head about why you'd undercut your own source that I can't access or validate.
As for Pro, I can see where you were going with your argument, but if the words "wage slavery" and/or "exploitation of labor" aren't appearing in your argument, then something is desperately wrong. You're practically gifting Con much of his argumentation when it comes to choice and negotiation rather than confronting him with the reality that the employer and the employee are, very often if not always, not playing on an equal playing field. That's particularly true of minimum wage workers who, as your opponent helpfully pointed out, often lack basic experience that would allow them to better negotiate their wages and working circumstances. In general, you're letting him control the conversation when it comes to how companies behave and what is in their best interests, which is a big mistake on your part. You're also letting him get away with a lot of sweeping statements regarding how economies and individual businesses address the imposition of new costs on them. There are reasons why a company might want to maintain a certain number of workers on their payroll, why slashing dividends for investors is likely to backfire in a big way, and why raising costs can also cause a great deal of harm to a business's bottom line. Con kept talking about these actions as though they were virtually inevitable. You have to counter that. You have points in this debate that could have been used to challenge this, particularly when you talk about individuals having more money to spend on businesses, but you need to wield them. You can't just say them once and then leave them behind.
With all this being said, it's a relatively clear decision for Con. He controls almost the entire flow of the debate throughout each round, hyping up an argument that he largely bases in huge claims about how things would work under a pure free market system that I'm having tremendous trouble verifying through the limited and often inaccessible sources he provides. Nonetheless, his logic is sound, and he goes through a great deal of effort to provide analogies to make his points for him. He also puts a lot of warrants down on his arguments, building a substantial case for why having a minimum wage and/or raising it does a great deal of collateral damage. While I'm unclear on the benefits of liberty beyond its links to the "free market solves most everything" impact, it stands largely unopposed. Pro's argument doesn't really challenge Con's case in a meaningful way. The need to get more money makes sense, but a) the collateral damage appears to outweigh, b) it's mitigated Con's argument that different places require different amounts of money to survive (which isn't an incredibly strong point, but gets no response) and c) it's turned by Con's argument that "rising tides raise all ships", i.e. that wages will go up as the economy rises (haven't seen evidence of this, but I don't see any rebuttals to it, either). The Market Benefits point could have been strong if it had been wielded better, but Con's Bastiat's tale point, despite being a bit of a head scratcher in terms of how well it links, pretty effectively takes it out anyway. That just leaves the depression argument, which has its support directly challenged and it's at least clear that people losing their jobs will also up the amount of depression, which leaves this either mitigated or turned and I can't really decide which. While I've got my issues with Con's impacts and determining what his case actually is, he's nonetheless clearly winning some points, and those points outweigh any potential impact from Pro. Hence the vote.
Cloning really only works as a response to the “what makes a human a person is the uniqueness of their DNA” point, which I’ve always found to be a kind of trashy argument, anyway. If I insert a separate gene into a human stem cell, it doesn’t suddenly become a person.
The black market argument is always pretty decent, though in practice there’s likely to be relatively good doctors performing abortions in secret. Doesn’t mean there’s not a point to be made here - I know I’d rather have these done at registered clinics or hospitals where patients can be treated if something goes wrong - but it’s not as powerful as many make it out to be.
The biggest problem is that it effectively politicizes the medical profession. Suddenly, doctors are being put in a position where they put their legal status in jeopardy simply because they see a woman who may not precisely fit the framework of needing an abortion for medical purposes? I’d point to efforts to prevent doctors from pursuing euthanasia for their patients, but this is far more damning. Patients are actively asking for treatment, and the government tells these doctors they cannot provide it. If someone is medically impacted and refused an abortion, which is bound to happen, doctors will be the ones to eat those lawsuits. They’re not the ones making the decision to get an abortion, yet they take all the blame when the legal system forces them to abstain when they would otherwise be able to objectively analyze a patients status. Basically, I would argue that Pro is putting doctors in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation where the legal system will hit them either way.
Without going back and reading through this (I'll rely on my limited memory of the arguments made), I believe the response that MisterChris presented against uncertainty regarding the future of the unborn was that it's not about a sense of potential. I agree that there's a point to be made about how the unborn is often miscarried, but that argument relies on everyone already agreeing that what matters most is to be born into the world alive. Sure, it's possible that many unborn would die through no fault of anyone, but your opponent argued that that doesn't lessen the value of the unborn, it just means that a certain amount of tragedy is inevitable. The existence of said tragedy doesn't mean that we should heap onto that tragedy with more loss where such loss is unnecessary. The other aspect that affects this is that even if I buy that they matter less simply because many of them will never reach the point of viability, the loss of life is a more severe harm than the loss of autonomy on the part of the woman. I largely agree with the point made by the article you're quoting, but to say that pregnant women are "those most affected" is a point that's not clearly true on its face. I'm sure MisterChris would argue that the one most affected is the one who loses their life, which would be the unborn.
If I was going after the same point (eschewing more scientific questions that relate to it), which I have on occasion, I don't think I'd rest on the probability point. If we could somehow determine whether someone is likely to die at a young age or not, we wouldn't reduce their value as human beings as a result because we have established that life matters past the point of birth. MisterChris is simply trying to push that back to conception. Ragnar's made some pretty solid arguments about uncertainty regarding the value of the unborn, partly as a result of probability, and that the loss to rights is more absolute and continuous. Here, MisterChris tried to precede such arguments with his point on the Uncertainty Principle. I think that's both his most important point and the one that must be assailed most strongly. Still, even if he won the uncertainty principle, it's possible to outweigh him, and I think the 20% point could be used to do that. You would just have to put some really hefty weight on the loss to self-ownership that women suffer, and use the 20% point to reduce the impact of the losses that MisterChris used to weigh his arguments. This balancing act is a major reason why my arguments in other abortion debates have shifted a bit - I think it's possible to shift the dynamic of these debates and force more discussion over implementation - but I do think it's possible to win on these points. It just gets more complicated.
Seriously, dude, you won. MisterChris is going to be voting on future debates in this tournament. Why are you actively trying to antagonize him when he voted for you?
Good to see someone's picking up the strategies. Impact calculus should be pretty common across debates, so yeah, pretty great that Ayyantu's doing it.
Right there with you, both on your perspective and lack of comfort with this kind of debate. Had a long discussion with a couple of people over the Problem of Evil. It plays a substantial role in my beliefs, despite remaining Jewish.
*skims debate*
You’ll be fine.
Not sure I understand the question. Are you asking if Pro could reasonably make the argument that it's better for the government to compensate organ donors in some way? Because, at least from what I understand of the resolution, it would not be possible, since you're shutting down the opportunity for a market to exist. If the government pays for it, then the government is creating a market, even if it's not subject to the usual market forces. There's a buyer and a seller, so that's a market.
Yep.
Alright. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
I'd advise you to be careful on the whole "this is basically never going to happen in the real world" stance. Depending on how he runs this, he can either argue that this is entirely theoretical and thus leave apart the issue of practicality entirely, or he can argue this as policy and use fiat to guarantee that it happens within the context of this debate. You have recourse in both cases, and especially in the latter, there's reasonable arguments to be made about what forcing this would actually do, but I'd suggest you don't run the argument that this can't happen. It's a "should" resolution, ergo it's a discussion of whether it is worth doing, not whether it can happen.
That would have been pretty bad. Generally, I view waiving a round as a concession of any points your opponent made against your points in the previous round, so anything that you responded to previously would have been cross-applied, but you would have sunk yourself on any novel refutations. It also would have made me rethink the strength of your best arguments if my perception of them was that you were unwilling to push the most important elements of them in the end. I think you handicapped that strength, but you would have been just as if not more handicapped by refusing to push the reasons they matter in the end. Also, if your opponent is the only one summarizing and examining the debate as a whole, then they control the entire narrative. Usually a bad move to let them do that.
I agree, though it also engenders a host of harms that are specific to an open border over just opening up to movement of labor. Watched an exceptional debate on opening up borders to labor that allowed those advocating it to skirt around a lot of those problems.
Be interested to see how this one shapes up. I personally wouldn't go this far, but one of these days I mean to do a "let anyone work anywhere" topic. However, at least for this case, I don't like running that kind of counterplan, since it's just meant to steal some of your impact while avoiding some of the negatives. Always feel like that's a cop out that avoids a great deal of the debate. I have no doubt you'll get someone to take a fully opposing position.
And yeah, that's a monster of an RFD. Lots to read through, and some parts are a bit rambling/stream-of-consciousness, but it gets across how I'm perceiving the arguments as I go through them. Some look a little better as I go through, some degrade a bit, but you can see where I'm following you better or worse and get some indication of what's working and what's not. It's a lot to plug through, and it's only one judge's perspective, so take your time with it and take it with a giant grain of salt. I've got my own biases and problematic perspectives, and while I'd like to see those balanced by another RFD, this is a big and difficult debate to judge, so I understand if I'm alone in handling it.
I wouldn't call it muddling the resolution. I would say that your best bet was to double down on your argument about uncertainty, whether it's uncertainty over application of a just cause or uncertainty over what suffices as oppression, and then focus on giving as big of a picture as possible on that, especially in your final round. I've been trying the "ask three questions" or "make three statements" that define the debate, and then putting everything under those three. They don't all have to be offense, but by doing this, I can usually drive towards the bigger picture of what my arguments represent and why they're important. I'd say the whole comparison of two worlds aspect of the final round is one of the most important aspects that should be represented, and both of you could use some work fleshing that out. And, yeah, that was a have your cake and eat it, too moment. It's always tempting to go for everything with every point, but that final round requires that you be more incisive and really hit at what matters most in the context of the debate.
And, yeah, in thinking about this resolution, I do think it's more Pro-biased. Making it vaguer can also vastly expand the burdens of both sides, though, so just be careful of where you take it.
That's an interesting way to take it. I felt that the American Revolution and BLM points seemed pretty separate throughout, and that would have linked them together well enough. The trouble is that that line of logic depends on the perspective. A person could argue that we had a revolution to overthrow a powerful oppressor, whereas BLM is being used as a means to shake up the current government and force changes to the existing system, rather than bucking our leadership entirely. Some might call that an evolution of the tactic, though you could argue that that "evolution" still involves the use of force against people who shouldn't be the targets of BLM.
Included some specific suggestions towards the end. I think you started this strong and you were solid throughout in defending your points, but the main thing I think you could stand to do in general is to have a better perspective of what you're winning and why it's important. It's still something I struggle with. Going on the line-by-line is important throughout much of the debate, but the people I've seen do the best will drop a point or two before the final round, and then zero in on a couple of key issues at the end. It's difficult when you feel like you have to win several points or when you really do feel like you're winning several arguments, but I'd say that's where you could put in the work. It's honestly easier when you're doing these live because there's not a clear record of the things you're dropping, but it's just as important.
I have my own views regarding where I see the topic being weighted towards, though that does at least partially depend on the interpretation. My RFD will include some thoughts on that.
And, in case you're wondering, no, I haven't figured out who's winning this yet. Going into the final round, you both have options left to take this, though I do think one side is favored, won't say which.
I should have this RFD up tomorrow. Be advised, this is going to be a long one (it's 8 pages and I just started on the last round), even by my standards. I'm doing speech-by-speech breakdowns. There'll be a TL:DR, and if you don't want to go through all the specific feedback for each round, you could just skip to the last two to focus on how I perceive the final rounds and how things wrap up for each side. However, I thought this was thorough and impressive enough that each round deserved attention, so I'm providing the info (it also just generally helps me keep things straight, so it wasn't all for you, but I hope it's helpful).
Been working on this one. It's taking a while, but I should have it up by the end of the week.
Third try's the charm!
Thank you for listening and voting! I'd say it was pretty close as well.
Don't worry, we won't hold it against you. While you're working on this one, I'll work on yours with Undefeatable.
I'll be starting to read through this sometime this week after I'm done with Undefeatable's other debate. Shouldn't take me too long.
Working on this one next. Should be able to get something up sometime this coming week.
Happy to do it. If you have other debates you'd like me to vote on, I'm usually willing.
Well, at least this debate has one vote. Not entirely sure of myself on this one - like I said, philosophy isn't exactly my thing. And yeah, it's fine if you disagree. I'm still not sure of my decision, though it's the one I've come to most often after considering all the given arguments. It's difficult because I wasn't sure what established the threshold of "likely exists" beyond having greater likelihood, and that doesn't necessarily require definitive proof. I'm tempted to agree that it SHOULD, but I need more of a reason to believe it DOES.
RFD Pt. 1:
I was considering doing a longer RFD to examine a lot of what happened in this debate and get through each individual point, but I don’t think that would accomplish much because, at the end of the day, this debate comes down to a single question:
Does the metaphysical possibility of engaging in separate decisions equate to a real-world probability of individuals being able to change their minds?
If I could, I would have italicized the “possibility” and “probability” points in there because I think that makes a big difference in assessing this debate. However, before I examine that, I’d just like to clarify the obvious. In the physical sense, both sides agree that there is functionally no free will. I could go through those arguments, but the result is basically clear from R2. In a physical, neurobiological sense, free will doesn’t exist. Also, in the sense that we don’t choose what we want, there is no free will to select what would be our preferences.
So, the debate comes down to points made by Pro in this debate and how well they stood up. On its face, the argument wasn’t super convincing to me. If the point had stopped at “we have possible choices, so we could have made them,” I probably wouldn’t be considering this argument. It’s essentially a theory-based point for free will, and it doesn’t demonstrate anything above possibility, so it can’t demonstrate probability. That being said, this argument doesn’t stop at “the possibility exists.” Pro makes two arguments to support this:
First, he argues that neuroscience simply can’t explain everything. Essentially, this is a “mind of the gaps” argument. I’m aware that doesn’t exist, but I’m repurposing “God of the gaps” to explain this. The point goes that, since neuroscience still can’t explain decision-making in full, there must be some other means to determine how one makes a decision. Pro argues that free will is that other means, and it cannot be determined by science.
Pt. 2
Second, he argues that our ability to act in ways that don’t fit what would be “expected” based on our wants and the resultant likelihoods suggests that there is more to a decision than just some deterministic view of what we want or would be most likely to pursue.
Con’s responses to these points addresses some of the pieces. He argues that our inability to predict with current neuroscience doesn’t prove or disprove the existence of free will, but rather just suggests that we don’t have the necessary means to make those assessments. Essentially, Pro’s point is that there’s simply too much complexity and too few controls to manage an actual determination of what someone is going to do in any given situation, but Con’s response is that that lack of understanding doesn’t equate to a greater probability of free will. The problem may be with the methods used, the tools available, or any variety of factors that could affect accuracy.
This is the general problem with the “_____ of the gaps”-type arguments – you don’t actually make your position more likely to be right, you just reduce the number of possible options. That being said, I also don’t buy the argument that Pro had to prove a metaphysical world is likely to make this point, though that probably would have made his job easier. Essentially, I think the statement that there are elements of the mind we will never fully understand just needed more support. Distinguishing the mind from the brain was part of that, and Pro did a bit of it, but he needed to provide more detail on why we will always find ourselves unable to fully explain how the mind works. Essentially, I needed a clear challenge to the notion that neurobiology will eventually find a way to explain it all. It’s a big claim to say that neurobiology can eventually figure it out, but the only response I get to it is that it will forever be too complicated by too many factors, which isn’t really enough to defeat the point. The reality that studies are hampered by too many variables now doesn’t mean they forever will be. I needed to hear why the mind is distinct enough that our understanding of the brain will always leave something to be desired, but I’m not getting enough on that point.
As for the deterministic argument, this is a bit trickier. I actually thought initially that it was the weaker of the two, largely because the simple response is to throw Pro’s argument back at him – there are sufficiently complex factors at play in any decision that the resulting approaches would never be 100% or 50-50. Sometimes people just want some spice in their life and try new things even if they would otherwise just want more of the same. Sometimes they base their decisions on coin flips because it’s fun. The reality that decisions don’t go in either direction doesn’t mean free will exists, it just means that different “wants” can outweigh others at specific points in time based on any number of possible variables.
Pt. 3
Anyway, that’s the response I wanted to see from Con. However, Con’s rebuttals don’t really engage with this argument. He just says that the point is unfalsifiable, which isn’t a particularly compelling reason to dismiss it, and that the existence of randomness doesn’t prove free will, which really wasn’t his point. Con’s contention on determinism is a kind of sort of response, where he argues that if we control for all the variables we will act precisely the same in the same situation. That kind of gets to my point, but it falls just short of a direct rebuttal since Pro had already addressed this point in his initial argument: if this was true, we would expect 100% adherence to this behavior if all variables could be controlled, but people simply don’t behave the same ways every time, which calls this into question. If Con had gone on to address that by arguing that any variable can change that 100% adherence, then I probably would have bought it, but I don’t see that in his responses. Merely saying that your point survives the debate doesn’t mean it does anything for you here.
Conclusion:
I’ve struggled with this one. I thought I’d be pulling the trigger for Con before I wrote this, but Pro has an argument that survives the debate, albeit I am unclear whether it reaches the threshold of probability. However, that’s not for me to decide. If Con wanted to argue that this doesn’t make free will more probable (there are reasonable points to be made that, even if Pro is winning this, he only shows that it’s more likely than absolute determinism rather than more likely than all other options), he should have done so. In the absence of that, I see a point on the table that elevates Pro’s case to slightly more likely. In general, a debate like this rides on Pro’s being able to prove something, and Con’s ability to prevent it. Free will either exists or it doesn’t, and the latter would only get my vote if the former is dismissed entirely. With one point on the board for free will, I can’t dismiss it, so I vote Pro.
I'll get a vote up on this at some stage. Haven't given it enough of a look to answer your question, seldiora.
Promise I'll be voting this weekend.
Looking forward to what you've got in store.
Well, that's sad. Was hoping this would be a good one.
I don't really want to make the arguments for whoever decides to take this on here in the comments, but there are lots of reasons. The main problem, and I'm guessing this will be part of Pro's point, likely has little to do with the reasons why those countries have made the choice not to allow for the sale of organs, and that has more to do with exploitation of the poor. I think I'd have the most trouble with that. The argument that most countries refuse to do this isn't particularly convincing.
That certainly requires a little more effort of the opposition because now they have to allow for the existence of markets rather than individual choice. Still not going to take this in the short term, but it's arguable.
DM is direct messaging, i.e. the private messages feature on this site. Appreciate the responses, still have some disagreements, but thinking we should take this there if you're interested in continuing.
Not going to cover everything, mainly because I don't want this to turn into a full debate here in the comments. We can transition to DMs if you're interested.
I generally agree with you regarding evolution, though I guess we see the terms differently in some regards. I have found that creationists tend to argue that they're entirely separate, which never made any sense to me. I find evolutionary theory to be sound, though whether species changes are the result of an accumulation of many traits or a specific few is a separate story. That's a separate issue, and I'm not going to throw in my two cents on that because that's a whole other debate and I think we're mostly on the same page here anyway.
I guess I need to rephrase my point from earlier, though I disagree with the idea that non-action is entirely distinct from action. Instead, I'll put it this way: any shift in economic policy can have unintended consequences. If that shift is towards more or different regulation, or towards less regulation, people still adapt to the changes in ways that we cannot necessarily anticipate. I suppose you can argue that, by taking away regulation, you remove the ability of governments to intervene and cause their own unintended economic consequences. On that, we can agree. The problem, however, is that taking away those regulations also frees up individuals to take more actions that could be harmful. I don't think that automatically balances in favor of deregulation. I can see how inflexibility can create some problems, but I disagree that having as much flexibility as possible is always better.
I think your argument largely assumes that markets will raise wages without setting a minimum wage, which may be true for some, but the very fact that so many workers have their wages set at the minimum suggests that their wages would fall if that minimum was removed. For that subset, being effectively forced to, say, work for $5 an hour puts them in an absolutely untenable situation where they are not earning enough to sustain themselves.
It strikes me that that can also be bad for the economy at large, reducing the purchasing power of a large subset of the labor market to the point that they can't afford basics that otherwise have a consistently large and booming market. I'm not saying that any circumstance is necessarily better on the whole, but it strikes me that your reasoning is based in favoring a specific general outcome for the market that ignores how power dynamics in the labor market, especially among those without significant training or education, are likely to play out. You would have to assume both a boom in the market and a dissemination of the resulting wealth through wages to get to your view of how things would work out.
Appreciate the response, though it appears we have some solid differences on both this and the topic of macro-evolution (I disagree that it functionally doesn't exist), though for separate reasons. I agree that trying to pin down economic behavior across a broad set of people is ridiculously difficult if not impossible, though there are some rules of thumb we can follow that are generally true enough that they're practically axiomatic, e.g. poorer people tend to spend more of what they earn than richer people. However, I don't think that should result in us throwing out economic research, but rather engaging with social and economic in combination and focusing on how people are likely to behave given a set of economic circumstances. It's not 100% and, while I generally agree that it leads to a lot of biased source claims by each side, I do think there are valid take-aways for each that are largely unquestioned. You pointed some of those out yourself.
I guess the main problem I have with this, though, is that you're essentially arguing that a free market system is better because tinkering tends to cause problems of its own. I'd say that refusing to take action is, effectively, an action itself. It comes with its own set of consequences, side-effects of standing back and letting things play out without intervention. Essentially, unintended consequences happen whether we choose to intervene or not. There is always a cost, regardless of whether there is action or inaction. Just because a free market system could reach a "free natural equilibrium" doesn't mean that it will, nor that even if it does, it will not cause a great deal of harm on the way or even set an equilibrium that is inherently damaging to a majority of the people it affects. A stable outcome isn't necessarily a good one. Moreover, I don't think that the reality that many interventions have better studied consequences than the free market system makes the free market system the better system to use, and I say that while simultaneously agreeing that a free market system is better for a great deal of national and international trade. I also say all this knowing that you probably have a much better grasp on economics than I do (and a much clearer way of explaining it), so I admit that my understanding may come from a flawed and uninformed perspective.
Looking back on it, I think I was a bit harsh in my RFD, but I'm glad you appreciated it. Honestly, you have a very solidly articulated argument. I've been trying to up my voting a bit in recent weeks (largely due to requests), and I'm glad I have, as it's given me an opportunity to see some excellently constructed arguments from new debaters. I'd count you among those. I think Seldiora started off strong in this debate, but tapered off as it went along. Meanwhile, I think your arguments, and particularly your rebuttals, evolved quite expertly as the debate went on. I look forward to seeing further debates from you.
It’s pretty rare for me to vote on debates like this, but it’s not a first. In this case, impacts tend to be less of an issue than logical analysis. Most of it comes down to what burdens each side had to meet in this, so while I’ve already read the debate, I’m going back through with the aim of figuring out who is providing the best argument in the context of the debate. As per usual with debates like this, you’re both winning certain points, so it’s a matter of determining which points matter most. That would usually be based on impacts, but in philosophical debates, it’s about hitting or failing to hit an established bar.
There's enough time left to make the vote that I'm taking my time with this one. I will vote.
Pt. 1
Rather than go through each point in this debate, I'm going to focus on a few key things that I think matter to the debate as a whole, and make my decision based on them. I'll try to do this in the context of providing feedback, so yes, I'm frontloading criticism.
I think Con has a really strong argument from the outset that pervades throughout... but I'm not sure that he has a counterplan, and I should be sure. He says multiple times that it would be better if we had an entirely free market system without any minimum wage. You can absolutely advocate for that, but you should make clear from the start that it is your advocacy. I kept reading your first round thinking about how your argument is mostly non-unique because it applies both to the present system where a lower minimum wage exists and Pro's advocacy, and honestly, I would have bought that your efforts to claim this pretty vague counterplan later in the debate would have been abusive. That's not to say you have no points without it, but if you're going to take the stance that this is your advocacy, clarify that immediately. Even by the final round, I'm still unsure. Moreover, if you are going to advocate for that, then the burden of proof in this debate is shared. You can't just knock down your opponent's argument and get by, as you claimed later in the debate. Finally, while I understand your concerns about individual studies and their effectiveness to tell the story, making sweeping claims about what imposing a minimum wage does in terms of big patterns based solely on a book I cannot access just leaves me questioning why I should buy your sources over those of your opponent when you keep telling me we're waist deep in literature on the subject for both sides. If you want to elevate your source, do that, but do it up front instead of leaving me scratching my head about why you'd undercut your own source that I can't access or validate.
As for Pro, I can see where you were going with your argument, but if the words "wage slavery" and/or "exploitation of labor" aren't appearing in your argument, then something is desperately wrong. You're practically gifting Con much of his argumentation when it comes to choice and negotiation rather than confronting him with the reality that the employer and the employee are, very often if not always, not playing on an equal playing field. That's particularly true of minimum wage workers who, as your opponent helpfully pointed out, often lack basic experience that would allow them to better negotiate their wages and working circumstances. In general, you're letting him control the conversation when it comes to how companies behave and what is in their best interests, which is a big mistake on your part. You're also letting him get away with a lot of sweeping statements regarding how economies and individual businesses address the imposition of new costs on them. There are reasons why a company might want to maintain a certain number of workers on their payroll, why slashing dividends for investors is likely to backfire in a big way, and why raising costs can also cause a great deal of harm to a business's bottom line. Con kept talking about these actions as though they were virtually inevitable. You have to counter that. You have points in this debate that could have been used to challenge this, particularly when you talk about individuals having more money to spend on businesses, but you need to wield them. You can't just say them once and then leave them behind.
Pt. 2
With all this being said, it's a relatively clear decision for Con. He controls almost the entire flow of the debate throughout each round, hyping up an argument that he largely bases in huge claims about how things would work under a pure free market system that I'm having tremendous trouble verifying through the limited and often inaccessible sources he provides. Nonetheless, his logic is sound, and he goes through a great deal of effort to provide analogies to make his points for him. He also puts a lot of warrants down on his arguments, building a substantial case for why having a minimum wage and/or raising it does a great deal of collateral damage. While I'm unclear on the benefits of liberty beyond its links to the "free market solves most everything" impact, it stands largely unopposed. Pro's argument doesn't really challenge Con's case in a meaningful way. The need to get more money makes sense, but a) the collateral damage appears to outweigh, b) it's mitigated Con's argument that different places require different amounts of money to survive (which isn't an incredibly strong point, but gets no response) and c) it's turned by Con's argument that "rising tides raise all ships", i.e. that wages will go up as the economy rises (haven't seen evidence of this, but I don't see any rebuttals to it, either). The Market Benefits point could have been strong if it had been wielded better, but Con's Bastiat's tale point, despite being a bit of a head scratcher in terms of how well it links, pretty effectively takes it out anyway. That just leaves the depression argument, which has its support directly challenged and it's at least clear that people losing their jobs will also up the amount of depression, which leaves this either mitigated or turned and I can't really decide which. While I've got my issues with Con's impacts and determining what his case actually is, he's nonetheless clearly winning some points, and those points outweigh any potential impact from Pro. Hence the vote.
I’ll try to get to this.
I can work on a vote for this after I’ve read through it.
Cloning really only works as a response to the “what makes a human a person is the uniqueness of their DNA” point, which I’ve always found to be a kind of trashy argument, anyway. If I insert a separate gene into a human stem cell, it doesn’t suddenly become a person.
The black market argument is always pretty decent, though in practice there’s likely to be relatively good doctors performing abortions in secret. Doesn’t mean there’s not a point to be made here - I know I’d rather have these done at registered clinics or hospitals where patients can be treated if something goes wrong - but it’s not as powerful as many make it out to be.
The biggest problem is that it effectively politicizes the medical profession. Suddenly, doctors are being put in a position where they put their legal status in jeopardy simply because they see a woman who may not precisely fit the framework of needing an abortion for medical purposes? I’d point to efforts to prevent doctors from pursuing euthanasia for their patients, but this is far more damning. Patients are actively asking for treatment, and the government tells these doctors they cannot provide it. If someone is medically impacted and refused an abortion, which is bound to happen, doctors will be the ones to eat those lawsuits. They’re not the ones making the decision to get an abortion, yet they take all the blame when the legal system forces them to abstain when they would otherwise be able to objectively analyze a patients status. Basically, I would argue that Pro is putting doctors in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation where the legal system will hit them either way.
Without going back and reading through this (I'll rely on my limited memory of the arguments made), I believe the response that MisterChris presented against uncertainty regarding the future of the unborn was that it's not about a sense of potential. I agree that there's a point to be made about how the unborn is often miscarried, but that argument relies on everyone already agreeing that what matters most is to be born into the world alive. Sure, it's possible that many unborn would die through no fault of anyone, but your opponent argued that that doesn't lessen the value of the unborn, it just means that a certain amount of tragedy is inevitable. The existence of said tragedy doesn't mean that we should heap onto that tragedy with more loss where such loss is unnecessary. The other aspect that affects this is that even if I buy that they matter less simply because many of them will never reach the point of viability, the loss of life is a more severe harm than the loss of autonomy on the part of the woman. I largely agree with the point made by the article you're quoting, but to say that pregnant women are "those most affected" is a point that's not clearly true on its face. I'm sure MisterChris would argue that the one most affected is the one who loses their life, which would be the unborn.
If I was going after the same point (eschewing more scientific questions that relate to it), which I have on occasion, I don't think I'd rest on the probability point. If we could somehow determine whether someone is likely to die at a young age or not, we wouldn't reduce their value as human beings as a result because we have established that life matters past the point of birth. MisterChris is simply trying to push that back to conception. Ragnar's made some pretty solid arguments about uncertainty regarding the value of the unborn, partly as a result of probability, and that the loss to rights is more absolute and continuous. Here, MisterChris tried to precede such arguments with his point on the Uncertainty Principle. I think that's both his most important point and the one that must be assailed most strongly. Still, even if he won the uncertainty principle, it's possible to outweigh him, and I think the 20% point could be used to do that. You would just have to put some really hefty weight on the loss to self-ownership that women suffer, and use the 20% point to reduce the impact of the losses that MisterChris used to weigh his arguments. This balancing act is a major reason why my arguments in other abortion debates have shifted a bit - I think it's possible to shift the dynamic of these debates and force more discussion over implementation - but I do think it's possible to win on these points. It just gets more complicated.
Should be able to manage. Remind me in a couple of days.
Seriously, dude, you won. MisterChris is going to be voting on future debates in this tournament. Why are you actively trying to antagonize him when he voted for you?
Well, congrats to Ayyantu. Looks like you'll be moving on up the tower. Looks like you'll be facing down Discipulus_Didicit next round.
Good to see someone's picking up the strategies. Impact calculus should be pretty common across debates, so yeah, pretty great that Ayyantu's doing it.
I'll admit, my personal perspective is kinda torn on this one. I'll be interested to see what arguments each side used.