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1705136771 Another kind of evaluative claim discussed in Chapter 15 is a claim about policy or action. Arguments based on consequences are commonly used to support claims about policies and actions. A policy or an action is good (positively evaluated) to the extent that its positive consequences outweigh its negative ones. A claim that “Nations should provide a minimal level of education to all their citizens” is a claim of policy. A debater might support such a claim by arguing that his or her proposal to provide a minimal level of education to all citizens would have more benefits than costs. When a debater discusses benefits, he or she usually talks of direct material benefits. So, a proposal is a valuable one and is positively evaluated when its benefits outweigh its costs. The illustration presented below contains an example of a policy claim that exemplifies an argument of consequence. Debaters have at their disposal a variety of methods to construct an argument based on consequences. The illustration below shows how three sub-arguments (descriptive, associational, and evaluative) can be combined to create a primary argument about the consequences of a proposed action. In this example, the debater is proposing a policy to replace a current one. The first sub-argument describes both the current and the proposed policies. It compares and contrasts the current policy with the one the debater proposes as a replacement. The second sub-argument shows how features existing in the proposed policy, and absent in the current policy, are causally associated with certain consequences. The third and final sub-argument provides an explicit evaluation of the consequences established in the second sub-argument.

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1705136773 Motion for debate: Nations should provide a secondary education to all their citizens.

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1705136775 Primary argument: Increasing funding and infrastructure for secondary education will improve people’s lives by helping to alleviate poverty.

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1705136779 ·Sub-argument 1 (Description):

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1705136781 The Government Team’s proposal substantially changes the policies of the current system.

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1705136783 ￭ The current policies of nations of Sub-Saharan Africa provide insufficient funding and infrastructure to secondary education.

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1705136785 ￭ The Government Team’s model provides both funding and infrastructure.

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1705136787 ·Sub-argument 2 (Associational):

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1705136789 Infrastructure and funding is causally related to access to secondary education.

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1705136791 ￭ The lack of funding and infrastructure in the current system leads to poor access to education.

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1705136793 ￭ By increasing funding and infrastructure, the Government Team’s proposal provides better access to education.

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1705136795 ·Sub-argument 3 (Evaluative):

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1705136797 Increasing access to secondary education will help relieve poverty and will improve people’s lives.

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1705136799 ￭ Lack of access to secondary education leads many to live a life of poverty.

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1705136801 ￭ Evidence that the Government’s proposal to increase access to education is the fact that people without a secondary education are more likely to be poorer than those with a secondary education.

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1705136803 ￭ Fewer people with a secondary education go without food.

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1705136805 ￭ People with a secondary education are generally healthier, living longer and better lives.

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1705136807 In the illustration above, the Government Team has focused the debate on funding and infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa. Their primary argument is that, by increasing funding and infrastructure, their proposal will improve people’s lives by helping to alleviate poverty. As explained earlier, this primary argument is supported by three sub-arguments. The first sub-argument describes both the current and the proposed policies with regard to funding and infrastructure. In that sub-argument, the debater from the Government Team contrasts the current system with the proposed system, indicating that the proposed system will provide funding and infrastructure that is lacking in the current system. The second sub-argument then draws a cause and effect association between providing increased funding and infrastructure and access to a secondary education. The claim made in this sub-argument is that the current system’s lack of funding and infrastructure leads to inadequate access to education, whereas, conversely, the proposed policy will enhance educational access. Therefore, the consequence of increased funding and infrastructure is better access to education. The debater cannot simply assert this cause and effect association; he or she must provide evidence that funding and infrastructure are real contributors to access to education. The third sub-argument then goes on to provide an explicit evaluation of the consequence of better access to education. Better access to education is valuable because it helps relieve poverty and generally improves people’s lives. Again, the debater needs to do more than assert that access to education is valuable to people. He or she needs to provide specific evidence that educational access has a real effect on poverty and, thus, on people’s lives.

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1705136809 In summary, one way to support a claim of evaluation is to create an argument related to the consequences of actions. That is the method associated with the philosophy of utilitarianism that suggests that a good action is one that creates the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

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1705136811 思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132509]

1705136812 19.2 Evaluation Based on Principles of Duties and Rights

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1705136814 A related way to make evaluative arguments involves appealing to universal principles. Such method, grounded in morals and ethics, is associated with the philosophy of deontology, a philosophy that seeks to link the evaluation of one’s action to duties or rights. One of the clearest deontologists was philosopher Immanuel Kant. Deontology, unlike utilitarianism, evaluates a good (or bad) action using certain principles involving duties and rights rather than the consequences of the action. Thus, a good action is one that is in accord with important principles rather than with consequences (Kant, 2002).

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1705136816 How does one know when an act is in accord with certain duties and rights? Deontological normative theory is a kind of formal, deductive logic that philosophers might use to answer this question. Without resorting to formal deductive argument, the question can be answered in less formal but more practical ways. For instance, if an act and its essence (its definition) coexist, one might say that the act is in accord with the principle on which the essence of the object exists. To put this more simply, a freedom fighter is a person whose acts correspond with the essence of a freedom fighter. In other words, the coexistence of the object and its essence is indicative of the principle toward which the object ought to be aimed. For instance, one might argue that two features define the essence of a freedom fighter: 1) fighting against a repressive regime; and 2) doing so for the cause of the larger community. Assuming that the audience sees these two features as positive moral values, they serve as principles by which the acts of a group described as “freedom fighters” can be evaluated. Any group of people engaging in the two acts (fighting against a repressive regime for the cause of a larger community) is following a positive moral principle that might be called “fighting for freedom.”

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1705136818 Another practical method of arguing for a principle involves arguing by analogy. For instance, if one group of people can be said to be acting on a certain principle, a second group who are doing essentially the same acts will also be following that principle. For instance, if a debater selects a group of people whom the audience already believes is acting on a particular principle, and then shows that a second group also acts in an essentially similar way, the debater can argue that the second group is also acting on the principle. The debater might start with a group of “freedom fighters” that the audience evaluates positively. Depending on the audience, that group might be the Viet Cong or the American Revolutionary War Soldiers.13 The debater would then describe the essential features of the first group (fighting against repression for the good of the larger community) then compare the first group to a second group, the Grand Alliance in World War II, for instance. To the extent that the Grand Alliance acts on the same principles as the Viet Cong or American Revolutionary Soldiers, then the Grand Alliance can arguably be said to be following the same principle—fighting for freedom.

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