all of the positions on this topic are equally plausibly untrue. that’s what happens when the topic area is so poorly circumscribed.

here are things i hope DON’T win the TOC:

Excuse v. Justification
Gaultier
Kantian Self Defense
Proportionality
“Un-universalizable Maxims Bad”

things that are likely to win TOC:

all the above arguments
some dumb disad or counterplan
an aff that is largely skep triggers

disclosure theory

I’m confused. You both think excuse and proportionality are “untrue”? They seem pretty central to the topic.

In light of this article, which encouraged people to not run dumb random crap in favor of engageing the topic in order to avoid silly theory/procedural debates it seems to make little sense to then disparage the very set of arguments that constitute the neg engaging the topic.

I would love for my debaters to run these positions. There is a huge research base for them, and they substantively respond to the most common affirmative cases like social contract. What is the alternative you recommend that actually engages the topic?

The neat distinction between legal and moral arguments is a false dichotomy- no legal standard, for instance proportionality, emerged in a vacuum. It evolved out of moral discourse (such as just war theory). To say that excuse and proportionality are exclusively legal arguments ignored by morality is a total misnomer.

The topic is written such that the aff has to defend a disproportionate response, to say the neg is incapable of arguing that that is bad leaves them with very little ground.

Similarly, while “excuse vs justification” is a legal debate, there is also a moral debate about “excuse vs permissible” in self defense literature.

Rebar,

Proportionality is also a moral concern. The ethics literature on self-defense in both interpersonal killing and killing in war include debates about proportionality. I agree that it’s debatable whether proportionality is really necessary for justified killing, but it’s clearly not just *irrelevant*.

I also disagree with your claim that the distinction between excusability and permissibility is purely semantic. Most moral philosophers agree that wrongdoing does not entail blameworthiness: there are cases of blameless wrongdoing. The literature on free will and moral responsibility proves this: you can think, for example, that determinism undermines blameworthiness without undermining moral obligations. (Not saying that’s true — just that it’s coherent because we understand the substantive distinction.) The distinction between excusability and permissibility is just the distinction between not-being-blameworthy and not-being-wrong. That distinction is substantive, even though I also happen to agree that negatives are wrong to claim that killing the abuser is an excusable wrong, but for apparently different reasons than you.

I think it’s kind of silly for people to be calling self-defense requirement NIBS. If that’s the case, 1ACs should suck it up. I love that 1/2 everyone out there says “omg self-defense is so true that the NC can’t win” and the other half thinks disproportionality is an unfair white construction (and a NIB to boot).

I’m with Scott on this—I think there’s very good ground for NCs on the self-defense debate, and I’d like to see those arguments as well. I’d much rather see debaters research that than write generic pacifism NCs. Also far superior to watching people take philosophical paradigms and awkwardly apply them in way the original authors never would have accepted.

ummm stand your ground da with no topic link?