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2.2 Four Features of Debate
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How does one decide what are the ethical and unethical actions associated with debate—or with any other activity for that matter? One way is to examine the various features of an activity and assess those features in terms of moral purpose. The four features chosen for discussion in this section are not the only characteristics of debate nor do they represent all consideration of ethical conduct, however, these four features were selected by the authors as among the most important and the most salient: 1) communicating responsibly with others; 2) using arguments to solve disagreements; 3) using an adjudicator when participants are unable to solve their differences; and 4) reaching an outcome to a conflict. As a way to focus on some ethics of debate, each of these four features will be explained in terms of its moral purpose both to the activity and to the process of decision-making.
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2.2.1 Communicating Responsibly with Others
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Communicating with other people is an essential feature of debate. Without communication, debate is not possible. During preparation for, participation in, and debriefing after a debate, debaters communicate interpersonally with their school team members, their partners, their coaches and teachers, their judges, and students or officials from other schools. That interpersonal communication, like the public speaking performances within a formal debate, consists of a communicator purposefully choosing messages and intending to influence one or more others. Both the actions of choosing messages and the intentions of influencing others represent keys in this communication process and carry ethical implications.
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Communicating responsibly with others is one of the high moral purposes of debate. A person can communicate responsibly with others by considering the other person to be an equal partner in the communication process rather than an object to be overcome. Showing respect for each other does not mean compromising positions or deferring to the values of the other perspective.
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Responsible communicators value their own reasoning and evidence. They also view others as persons whose reasoning and evidence occupy that same critical value to the other person. Both sets of reasoning and evidence constitute specific and unique features, the combination of which will make up the substance of this debate. For that reason alone—that is, the better the clash between ideas in the debate, the more information and understanding can emerge about the topic—the moral purpose of the debate activity requires debaters to act in ethical ways. Whether or not debaters agree with others’ positions or reasoning has no bearing on the respect all debaters deserve from one another in the communication process. Communicating respectfully under all debate circumstances with all participants constitutes an essential ethical standard as a way to uphold the moral purpose of this feature.
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2.2.2 Using Arguments to Resolve Disagreements
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A second essential feature of debate involves the use of arguments to resolve disagreements. Using arguments rather than violence to resolve disagreements is one of the most important moral purposes of the activity.
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Argument represents a vital alternative to weaponry and violence. Throughout history humans have used their creative energies to invent and implement weapons of greater and greater destructive power. These weapons of mass destruction threaten the very existence not only of human life but of all other life on the planet. As humans continue to compete with one another for limited resources such as water, food, and clean air, they frequently resort to violence to accomplish their goals. The ability of humans to engage arguments instead of violence to manage their differences embodies one of the highest moral purposes of debate. Showing respect for the process of debate responds to the great moral value of arguing well.
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2.2.3 Using an Adjudicator to Resolve Differences
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When arguers are not able to manage disagreements themselves, they may elect to or be required to involve an adjudicator. At this point, both parties relinquish their roles as decision-makers together and present their arguments to an adjudicator. The adjudicator hears both sides of the disagreement and renders a decision that binds both parties. In some cases, one party may appeal the decision to another adjudicator, but ultimately a decision will be made by someone other than the two disagreeing parties.
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Since the adjudicator plays such a critical role in the process of managing the issues, their positions in the debate require respect from debaters, coaches, and administrators. If arguers disagree with the adjudicator’s decision, that disagreement can be respectfully presented. Honoring this process of decision making in this way maintains the principle of using these methods rather than violence to manage human difference. Treating adjudicators with respect demonstrates debaters’ understandings of the critical role their positions play in the process. At a stalemate between the parties, the decision-making process requires an outside decision. Those people serving as adjudicators—in educational debate or in other venues such as courtrooms—function to provide disagreeing parties with an alternative to violence. Since human beings function differently in the roles they play, excellent arguers understand the wide variances they face when they argue before an adjudicator. Whatever the decision is, the adjudicator provides a key function that promotes argumentation as the principle force toward peaceful resolution and deserves respect for fulfilling this moral purpose of debate.
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2.2.4 Reaching an Outcome to a Conflict
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The last feature of debate to be discussed is outcome, especially with regard to adjudicated debate. Respect due to any debate outcome emanates from the principle that reasoned, argued decisions generally produce outcomes that serve human needs at a significantly higher moral level than do those produced by unilateral, unexamined decisions. Using a process that can reach an outcome stimulates a higher investment by each party and also provides an expectation of change. Left without recourse to an adjudicator, the two disagreeing parties would have stalled at an impasse. Having turned the decision making over to an external adjudicator produces an outcome. While parties may choose to appeal the decision in an attempt to change the outcome, even that action suggests the outcome represents another critical component of the debate process. Providing a means for disagreeing parties to reach an outcome—even if they are unable to do so themselves—demonstrates the high moral purpose of debate.
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In conclusion, these four features (communicating with others, using arguments to resolve disagreements, turning the decision over to an adjudicator, and reaching an outcome) are critical to the process of the debate. Each of those features not only describes part of the activity of debate, but describes some aspect of debate’s high moral purpose.
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The next section will suggest a few guidelines debaters can use to debate in an ethical and moral manner. Each of these guidelines is derived from one or more of the essential features described in this section.
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2.3 Some Guidelines for Developing a Code of Ethics in Debate
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Each debater is responsible for the choices they make and the consequences of those choices. Each debater is responsible to act in ethical ways. Ethical choices do not apply only to the debating moment; an excellent debater also uses a code of ethics to guide actions taken during debate training, at tournaments, during debriefings, and in conversations with others about debates. Debaters can benefit from understanding how to engage ethical principles in these interpersonal circumstances, principles that also apply during formal debates. The following guidelines may help debaters begin their work toward developing a strong, ethical code to guide them in their debate practices. Since these points represent only a beginning toward establishing ethical practices, debaters who advance past the novice stage will use references in this textbook to seek out many more ways to increase their understanding and mastery of ethics in debate2.
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2.3.1 Employ Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Evidence
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Many ethical standards regarding the use of evidence in debate are clear and virtually absolute. Debaters would agree, for example, that fabrication of evidence is absolutely and categorically unethical. Likewise, taking evidence out of context or selectively omitting significant segments of evidence to make it “fit” a chosen argument are also unethical practices. Other actions, such as choosing to exploit an opponent’s slip of the tongue as a way to support a certain argument, degrade the debate and the debater who has chosen to do so. These kinds of unethical conduct in regard to evidence seem clearly unacceptable to most debaters. They reduce the value of the debate and fail to uphold the important purposes of debate in a civil society.
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Other ethical issues, however, are less easily resolved. They generate difficult questions about the tension between winning and truthfulness, and may need to be carefully considered in each case. For example,
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During a debate, should debaters acknowledge and accept evidence that undermines their own cases?
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