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From Debatepedia

A Guide for Participants and Organizers of Public Debates

Originally written by Ken Broda-Bahm, Daniela Kempf and William Driscoll

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Preface

In September, 2002, as the people of the United States began to consider the possibility of a war on Iraq, students at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York, gathered to hear a public debate between two advocates—one, a U.S. Army colonel who favored an attack, and the other, a professor of social studies who opposed military action. The event proved to be lively, with fre­quent interruptions for applause, as well as boos and cheers. Because they were participants in a live event, the audience members became involved in a dramatic way. “Marist College debate coach Maxwell Schnurer, who orga­nized the event, said watching arguments over the issue on television makes ‘people feel as though they’re not invited to the table.’ But ‘public debates are conversational lightning,’ he said.

We wholeheartedly agree with Dr. Schnurer—public debates do affect us. More than that, they are an integral part of any society that is truly open. An open society, as defined by the philosopher Karl Popper, is a society based on the recognition that nobody has a monopoly on the truth, that di.er­ent people have di.erent views and interests, and that there is a need for institutions to protect the rights of all people to allow them to live together in peace. Public debates o.er a unique opportunity for the articulation of different views and interests in a forum that is characterized by reasonable argument and personal respect.

Debate has changed our lives, as it has changed many other lives.

For Ken, debate helped transform a rather shy boy from a military family into a young man who found as a teacher, coach, author, and advocate that he could influence with the power of words, and later into a (yes, somewhat older) man who found, again and in a new career, that a fascination with words, ideas, and audiences continues to serve as a profound calling.

For Daniela, a native of formerly socialist Croatia, debate finally channeled all the previously unsatisfied yearnings for free speech and open public debate, nonexistent in her country and so many others when she was growing up, and made her eager to share this epiphany with others. We can both say with confidence that debate helped to make us and many of our students into more tolerant people and conscientious citizens of the world.

We have had the privilege of seeing firsthand the difference that public debates can make in countries that face past and present threats to the ideal of respect­ful civil discourse—countries like the United States and many transitioning countries in East and Central Europe and around the world.

We owe the idea for this book and its realization to the Southeast Europe Youth Leadership Institute and its staff and students, who all contributed to the project with their insights and who served as our permanent inspiration and focus group. We are thankful to all of our students and colleagues at Towson University and Marymount Manhattan College for shaping us into the teachers that we are and for allowing us to test-run this material.

We are indebted to the International Debate Education Association for promoting debate in the United States and all over the world and for giving this book a publishing home. We would like to recognize and extend our thanks also to Gordon Mitchell, Max Schnurer, Alfred Snider, the Baltimore Urban Debate League and many others who play a role every day in helping to reawaken public debate in America and elsewhere.

Finally, we are grateful to all of our debate coaches, mentors, colleagues, family and friends who contributed to this book by making us who we are.

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Public Debate in Context

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A Rationale for Public Debates

The community of a medium size town in Lithuania is divided on the issue. The Town Council has announced in its monthly publication that is it plan­ning to introduce a curfew law for young people under 18. The law will make it illegal for any person under 18 to be out on the street after 10.00 pm on weekdays and 11.00 pm on weekends without a company of a parent or an adult guardian. The decision of the Council, according to the town authorities is related to the growing crime rate among young people and is aimed at curbing the increase of anti-social behavior as well as protecting young people against being involved in and being affected by crime.

The announcement has been met with various responses in the local community. Older citizens, especially the ones who live in the areas fre­quented by young people in the evenings (the center of town and surround­ing areas) have welcomed the proposal, since for long now they have felt threatened by groups of young people, congregating in the town’s square and being noisy and, as one of the senior citizens described, “disrespectful and rude”. The proposal has also received some support from parents, teach­ers and local police.

On the other hand, young people of the town feel that the proposed curfew law will be a major infringement on their liberty and that instead of solving the problem of crime it will a.ect negatively young people who may have legitimate reasons to stay out passed the curfew time: e.g. com­ing back from the cinema, gym, or social gatherings at their friends’. They believe that a 17 year-old person (who will be affected by the proposed law) is capable of making rational decisions and being able to take responsibility for his/her action and does not need to be controlled by the government.

During the sitting of the youth assembly of the town, elected representa­tives of young people voiced their and their voters’ concern about the pro­posed law and one of the delegates proposed that the members of the youth assembly should petition the local government not to adopt the law, while another delegate suggested that the youth assembly should approach the ombudsman for the rights of the child with a request to support the young people. The chairperson of the assembly, Valdas, suggested that it would be best if the issue was presented in a public forum, including different inter­ested parties and that it should have a form of a debate, where each of the parties would have an opportunity to present their arguments. Valdas also agreed to approach the local government with the proposal to have a public debate on the issue and represent young people in the debate.

The Head of the Town Council accepted the proposal from the young people believing that an open debate would help the Council make the best decision.

The Town Council has agreed that its side in the debate will be presented and defended by the Head of the Youth Committee and her assistant, while the young people voted that Valdas and Jurate should be presenting their voice in the debate. Both sides agreed on the speci.c format of the debate, giving each side the same amount time to present and respond to argu­ments. Agreeing to debate both sides began preparing their arguments. Arguing in favor of the curfew law, the Head of the Youth Committee and her assis­tant found evidence that in two German towns, the same law decreased the number of anti-social behavior cases among young people. They also devel­oped an argument that it is a duty of the government to protect young peo­ple from any harm and they found evidence that most incidents of crimes involving young people in Lithuania took place in the evenings. Valdas and Jurate anticipated this argument and they were ready to argue that young people are capable of making the right decisions concerning their lives and if the law allows them to drive a car (driving license being issued at 16), it is unreasonable to doubt a young person’s inability to be responsible after 10.00 pm. They also went to the local police station and interviewed the chief of the police about the feasibility of implementing the proposed law (e.g. the number of police patrols on the streets, their workload and addi­tional duties they would need to take on after the law is implemented).

When the day came for debate, the main conference room in the town hall, the traditional place for the meetings of the Town Council was filled beyond capacity. Advertisements for the debate had been placed on notice boards all over the town and it was also advertised through the publication of the local government. The room filled up with students, parents, mem­bers of the public and journalists.

Individuals stood at the back and in the aisles when all the chairs were taken and they were ready to listen to the arguments of the members of the Council and the young people. The debate began with the representative of the Council presenting the rationale for introducing the new law- they were talking about the increase in crime and anti-social behavior and the need for more e.ective policies. They also presented the new proposal and showed how it will improve the situation. Valdas and Jurate, disputed the involvement of young people in serious crimes and demonstrated how the new law will infringe on the personal freedoms of young people. They also pointed to the impracticality of the proposed solution. The participants of the debate did not only made speeches, but questioned each other directly, while several microphones placed in the audience allowed those attending to have a voice as well. The debate didn’t result in a “winner” per se, and may or may not have had an e.ect on the decision of the Town Council to introduce the curfew law, but the best indication of the debate’s success was this: once the debate had formally concluded, easily one third of the audience stayed and discussed the issues- with each other, the participants of the debate The debate repre­sented an ideal example of the role that public debates can play in helping people develop their ideas, share their views, and ultimately reach intel­ligent and responsible decisions.

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Definition of Public Debate

While the terms “public” and “debate” are familiar enough, a definition of the phrase as we use it in this text is important. We see public debates as more or less formal events in which advocates on opposing sides of a contro­versial issue make use of argument and the power of speech to express their own points of view and react to opposing points of view for the benefit of a large and non-specialized audience. While the chapters to follow will iden­tify a number of specific dimensions and considerations regarding format, content, support, and attention to audience and situation, several common elements can be identified in everything that we consider a public debate:

• Controversy: An issue, a question, or a problem; something that is unsettled and that ought to be settled.
• Opposition: There are two or more parties who have opposing views of the issue, question or problem.
• Argumentation: The parties have committed to the use of arguments and will support their claims with reasoning and evidence.
• Engagement: The parties have committed to focus not only on their own views but also on the views of their adversaries.
• Audience: The argumentation is presented to a particular or general audience, adapted to their level of comprehension, and aims to gain their understanding or agreement.

While these parameters are broad enough to include a large number of diverse events, we would like to be clear in identifying a few events that we purposely do not include. Panel discussions can be considered events in which a number of speakers address a common topic. Without opposition— without participants’ willingness to identify and commit to distinct and incompatible positions on a topic—we cannot term these events “debates.” Most debating that occurs at formal competitive tournaments can certainly be considered debate but not “public debate,” because it generally takes place in front of a specialized judge rather than an audience, and in many to most cases it takes place in relative privacy, with few parties other than the judge in attendance. In addition to requiring a genuine audience, the public debate also requires a commitment to argumentation. The airwaves are presently filled with talk shows featuring controversy and opposition, but because participants frequently oppose each other by shouting, insulting or even throwing chairs, rather than by offering reasons, these events generally shouldn’t be considered public debates either. Finally, an element of engage­ment with the arguments of the other side is important as well.

While high profile exchanges between candidates for national office, such as the U.S. presidency, are commonly called “debates,” critics have argued that because candidates often simply answer questions posed by a journalist/moderator and don’t directly address each other’s arguments, these events are more accurately called “joint press conferences” rather than public debates. Our view is that such events are debates only to the extent that they feature direct engagement in argumentation and direct clash between points of view offered by the adversaries. A public debate, then, occurs in any setting in which advocates on two or more opposed sides of a controversy engage each other through arguments before an audience. The remainder of this chapter will develop a rationale for public debates. We intend this rationale to serve not only as a justi.ca­tion for the subject matter of this book, but more importantly as a resource for individuals who need to persuade others of the value of public debates.

Of course, if you yourself were not already a believer in the value of public debating, you probably would not be reading this book. However, at some point you may find yourself in the position of having to justify the value of a public debate to a student council (as in the example above), a city gov­ernment, a potential opponent or expert guest, or an organization that may supply funds to sponsor public debates. In all of these cases, you will need arguments on the bene.ts of public debates. In the following sections, we o.er arguments to support three general claims: public debates build skills, contribute to the public sphere, and help an organization meet its goals.

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Public Debates Build Skills

Perhaps the most common justi.cation for debating in all of its forms is the argument that it builds a specific set of very important skills. For the debater, the advisor, the attentive audience member or the moderator/judge, public debates promote skills in both communication and critical thinking.

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Communication Skills

In front of an audience of dozens, hundreds, or more; possibly under the glare of television lights; facing an opponent and a situation that are only partially predictable, the public debate has all of the makings for a public speaking experience of the greatest intensity. The pressure of knowing that many eyes and ears will be attending to you and the spontaneity of having to respond to a line of reasoning as it develops both ensure that a public debate is a situation demanding all of your resources as a speaker. The more experience in such a setting that a speaker has, the greater the chance that the speaker will gain the sensitivity and the virtuosity to excel.

The presence of the audience and the likelihood that the public debate has emerged out of a concern for a real issue both raise the stakes for the advo­cate. Public debates demand the development of basic skills such as employ­ing variety and emphasis in voice; developing eye contact with as much of the audience as possible; controlling and employing facial expression, ges­ture and movement; creating and communicating clear organization and comprehensible logical connections; and selecting concise, appropriate, memorable, and vivid language. Public debates also emphasize extempora­neous presentation; this is a demanding style in which the speaker is neither presenting memorized or pre-written material nor speaking from the top of her head, but is instead actively fitting prepared knowledge and ideas to the needs of the moment. The audience is obviously and palpably present and for that reason, they demand adaptation: a speaker’s goals must be based upon what the audience is likely to understand and appreciate.

In addition, the fact that public debates involve a .ow of development from argument presentation to argument conclusion emphasizes the need to think of an overall strategy and not simply a message. Because each speaker in a public debate is confronted by a present and engaged opponent, debaters must anticipate the arguments of others and react accordingly. Finally, the presence of an audience promotes a realization of the importance of good communication habits. Two university debate coaches with long histories of promoting on-campus public debates have observed that “when confronted with an audience that participates in the debate through its questions and comments, students recognize that their ideas must be structured clearly, that their language must be understandable, and that their delivery must be dynamic and their speaking rate comprehensible.”

With all of these considerations, the public debate requires a great deal of grace under pressure. Despite the high stakes, though, some participants may .nd the setting of a public debate easier and more pleasant than other comparable speech settings. Rather than being based on an assigned or casually selected topic, public debates often emerge from timely issues of great salience and importance to speakers, and it is easier to speak about something that is personally important to you. In addition, the competitive elements of debate, and the fact that there is implicitly or explicitly a win­ner, makes it more like a game, and it is more pleasant to engage in a game than to complete an assignment.

Finally, the fact that they are focusing on opponents and a goal makes it possible for nervous speakers to diminish their self-awareness a bit by directing their energies toward their adversaries and not toward themselves.

For the audience members, the public debate also provides a setting in which to develop the communication skills of listening, evaluating, and in some settings, participating as a speaker as well. Today of course, many citizens receive their information from the electronic media—small “sound bites” of information from either the radio or the television. It is more chal­lenging to attend to a speech in its entirety, and this experience engages the audience more fully by inviting them to appreciate the speaker’s overall structure and strategy. It is more challenging still to follow a line of argu­ment through several speeches as it is disputed back and forth. In this way, public debates encourage activity and engagement on the part of the audi­ence by rewarding sustained attention.

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Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking includes the ability to understand the support for claims and to test that support. These skills are involved when advocates fully explore the arguments for their side of the question, and anticipate the arguments of the other side of the question; when debaters research and analyze the reasoning and the evidence that is used to support the claims in the debate—whether to refute or to defend—they are using critical thinking skills. This requires public debaters to be critics not only of the claims of their adversaries, but of their own claims as well. To think like your oppo­nents, it is necessary to see your own weaknesses as well.

Critical thinking is seen as one of the most salient benefits of debate generally. After reviewing the empirical research on the question, there is “presumptive proof,” as one researcher concluded, for believing that debate provides precisely the critical thinking bene.ts described above.2 An addi­tional group of authors concluded, “Many researchers over the past four decades have come to the same general conclusions. Critical thinking abil­ity is signi.cantly improved by courses in argumentation and debate and by debate experience.”3 One of the most recent works on the subject was a “meta-analysis” of nineteen previous studies on the relationship between experience in debate and similar activities and critical thinking, and that review concluded “this summary of existing research rea.rms what many ex-debaters and others in forensics, public speaking, mock trial, or argu­mentation would support: participation improves the thinking of those involved.”

While some of this research has focused on debate as it occurs in a classroom or a tournament context, some confidence in the inference that public debates promote comparable critical thinking benefits can be gained from the fact that the basic elements that constitute critical thinking (ana­lyzing, advocating, evaluating) are as prominent in public debates as they are in any other format. The practitioner of tournament debating may well benefit from the relative frequency of the debates (for some college debaters as many as ten debates on a given weekend). But the public debater might benefit from the proportionately greater attention that is being paid to one setting, one case, and one opponent. The focus on the public debate as a single unique event, rather than just one in a string of debates, encourages the debater to plan more thoroughly and to reason more deeply on the comparatively limited possibilities for argument in this one setting.

At least when it is done well, the public debate—by adding additional elements such as moderator and audience—has the potential to promote a deeper experi­ence in critical thinking. An additional critical thinking bene.t to the public debate must also be added: the bene.t to the audience. Attentive audience members at a public debate will not only hear and appreciate the speakers, but they will also follow and evaluate a line of argumentation. This means critically under­standing claims, searching for their logical support and implication, and weighing the relative strength of competing claims. In this way, the active audience member of a public debate will be participating in a critical think­ing process that parallels the thinking of the advocates themselves.

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Public Debates Contribute to the Public Sphere

The benefits of debate have convinced many secondary schools and univer­sities throughout the world to include debate programs within their activi­ties and curricula. Modern debate, however, focuses much of its energies on preparing for debating tournaments, relatively large gatherings at which students from a number of di.erent schools and programs will compete largely out of the public’s eye. The corollary is that the bene.ts of modern debate are gained largely by participants, not by the public. We see that pub­lic debates can signi.cantly broaden the benefits of debate by contributing to the public sphere.

Interscholastic debate did not always avoid the public eye. Before there were tournaments, the way in which one college or university would debate another was fairly direct: one school’s team would travel to the other school and they would debate in front of an audience. Often teams would string together several such events and go on a debating “tour.” As the debate tour gave way to the debate tournament, teams were able to debate many more schools in much less time at a fraction of the cost. Much was gained, but one thing was lost: the audience. In time, debate tournaments established their own context in their own setting—one in which debates moved from the auditorium to the common classroom.

The new audience—the often solitary judge—quickly became a specialist in possession of a very speci.c way of viewing, structuring, and talking about the debate. Debate developed into a powerful tool for developing skills in analysis, research and criticism. The rhetorical role of presenting ideas in a clear and lively fashion to an untu­tored audience in large part vanished from many debate communities.

The idea of public debate on school campuses is not dead—that much can be seen in international debates, parliamentary debating societies, and the occasional intramural debate tournament. And yet it is clear that the vast majority of the energy of most of the national and international debate organizations is focused on preparing for and planning tournaments. Given the demands of competition, it is also quite likely that a clear majority of program directors’ and coaches’ time is also directed away from the campus and away from potential audiences. Tournament debating can limit the bene.ts gained by the debaters themselves in their capacity as citizens. That is, there is a danger when the educational task of preparing debaters focuses exclusively on tournament preparation. As Gordon Mitchell of the University of Pittsburgh noted, such a focus can serve to distance debaters from the very topics and ideas that they discuss.

Academic debaters nourished on an exclusive diet of competitive contest round experience often come to see politics like a pictur­esque landscape whirring by through the window of a speeding train. They study this political landscape in great detail, rarely (if ever) entertaining the idea of stopping the train and exiting to alter the course of unfolding events. The resulting spectator mentality de.ects attention away from roads that could carry their arguments to wider spheres of public argumentation.

Debate’s movement from an audience-centered forum to a tournament-centered laboratory and its resulting avoidance of the public sphere ought to be viewed in a larger context as well. Numerous social critics have noted fundamental changes in the character of public dialogue over the past few decades. A reliance on one-way channels of information, for example, risks transforming citizens from active partners in the production of knowledge and opinions to mere consumers of information. Membership in a mass audience can have the e.ect of making people feel like witnesses to the dramas of democratic life, and not participants. In addition, there is the risk that a “public sphere” of deliberative decision-making is being replaced on the one hand by the technical decisions of experts and on the other hand by the purely personal experiences and opinions of individuals. Electronic sources have potential for facilitating group dialogue, but even they often find themselves channeling the public’s views in an atomized fashion: as public opinion data or as personal narratives. A proliferation of sources of information—Internet sites, cable television channels, and desktop-published magazines and newspapers—has contributed to a segmentation of audiences, meaning that even as modern communication reaches more and more people, those who are reached are more targeted, more specialized, and less “public.” Northwestern University professor Thomas Goodnight, for example, has lamented that “issues of signi.cant public consequence, what should present live possibilities for argumentation and public choice, disappear into the government technocracy or private hands.”

The consequences of this decline in the public sphere are crucial to any society that prides itself on an active citizenry. Converted to information consumers, citizens become atomized, and begin to lack the psychological capacity that permits them to feel a responsibility for, and an ownership in, the a.airs of their society and their government. “The results of the deterioration of public debate,” two Harvard professors wrote, “include a loss of public faith in democratic institutions, a distrust of government, and reduced public participation.”

Public debates have the potential to play their own part in restoring the public sphere by encouraging the general population to experience an actual and sustained engagement with issues. By promoting a dialogue between parties on opposing sides, and between experts and non-experts, public debates facilitate a deeper level of interaction than that which is normally a.orded by vehicles of mass communication. While an audience member may choose to be passive at a public debate, as much as they are passive as a television watcher, the dynamics of the public debate provide several incentives for a greater level of involvement. The first is participation. Audience members attending a live public debate have a direct opportunity to be heard. By their comments, their applause, and their very presence at the debate, they send a message. The second reason is evaluation. Even when public debates are televised or otherwise presented to a mass audi­ence, the back-and-forth of the exchange encourages audience members to investigate and re-examine their own views. The third reason is improved information. Public debates provide a better chance to develop arguments fully as well as a better chance to expose shallowness and deceit.

For students as well, public debates o.er opportunities to learn in a new way—a way that is intimately connected to the intellectual life of a commu­nity. As Gordon Mitchell of the University of Pittsburgh noted, by creating forums where salient and pressing contemporary issues can be debated and discussed in a robust, wide-open fashion, stu­dents can lend vibrancy to the public sphere. Public debates repre­sent sites of social learning where the spirit of civic engagement can flourish, ideas can be shared, and the momentum of social move­ments can be stoked.

By promoting a greater number of on-campus debates, university and sec­ondary school programs could serve the functions of teaching advocacy and educating audiences without sacri.cing the argumentation laboratory that tournament debating has become. As a complement to (not a substitute for) current debate activities, programs should expand the practice of on-campus debating. Public debates can be incorporated in argumentation and public speaking classes, integrated into student government and elections, connected to on-campus political clubs, or linked to international traveling teams. Adding a public debate on the Thursday or Friday evening before the beginning of a weekend tournament is an easy and inexpensive way to promote public debates in conjunction with the tournament schedule. Such an addition can also provide a tournament with a “public face” that will allow administrators and members of the general public to develop a posi­tive image of the debate program and the debate activity.

By contributing to interactive public dialogue, public debates can help society at a fundamental level. President John F. Kennedy wrote, “The give and take of debating, the testing of ideas, is essential to democracy. I wish we had a good deal more debating in our institutions than we do now.”

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Public Debates Help Organizations Meet Their Goals

We have looked at the benefits of public debates at an individual level (building skills) as well as at a societal level (promoting the public sphere). A final category of benefit relates to the organizations that support debates. Whether they are competitive debating clubs, activist organizations, gov­ernment agencies, educational institutions, or political clubs, any group that seeks to carry a message to the public can benefit from public debates. While potential bene.ts may be as numerous and specific as the goals of these groups, public debates can be seen as yielding the following general outcomes for organizations:

• Promoting visibility by allowing the group receive attention for its message.
• Providing information by educating audience in a dynamic way.
• Attracting new membership, audiences, and partners.
• Leveling the playing field by allowing smaller, less recognized or less powerful groups to compete on an equal footing.
• Motivating existing membership by providing an exhilarating and even addictive experience.

Promoting Visibility. No matter what other goals an organization has, one basic need is to be seen and recognized. To attract sponsors, clients, audience’s, and partners; to get its message out; to form an identity and to be appreciated for what it does, an organization needs .rst to be noticed. Public debates offer a unique means to attract a form of attention that would be di.cult to obtain through comparable events. Hosting a speaker, giving an award, and issuing a press release are all potential ways to communicate, but particularly for media outlets that focus on con.ict and controversy, a debate is inherently more worthy of attention. For the same reason that an announcement of a new policy is not as newsworthy as a dispute over a new policy, a debate naturally .ts into media priorities and audience interests. “Debate is an activity thick with motivation and laden with drama, mean­ing, and purpose,” Professor Mitchell wrote, and as a result it provides a unique way to capture interest and attention.

Providing Information. Conveying information in some form or other is a common objective for all kinds of organizations. While newsletters, narra­tives, panels, and individual speakers all serve to convey information, the dynamic of a debate has unique bene.ts. Its embedded con.ict promises a more interesting exchange: people who might cringe at listening to a lecture might welcome listening to a debate—even if it conveys essentially the same information. In addition, a debate is unique in not only informing on a particular point of view, but also capturing the diversity of opinions contained in an issue.

Attracting New Membership, Audiences, and Partners. With rare exceptions, school debating clubs and programs are always attempting to find new members. Those of us who coach university programs, for example, can identify with the experience of having long-term, successful, and (we think) visible programs, while still encountering students who say, “I didn’t know this college had a debate team.” Hosting frequent and well-publicized public debates is one way to spread awareness to potential members. Without fail, after every public debate there are a few individuals who will drift toward the stage to chat with the debaters or the coaches about the possibility of joining the team. Organizations other than debating teams bene.t from this attention as well. By bringing together representatives of di.erent organi­zations and by targeting still more organizations in your advertising, your public debate can serve as a ‘networking’ opportunity which allows you to identify new audiences and potential partners.

Leveling the Playing Field. One important element of debate is its formal equality. In most formats at least, speakers receive equal time in which to state their views, with no restrictions on what they say. In many formats, speakers receive a direct opportunity to question the other side. Public debates limit opportunities to introduce unfair elements into the public dialogue. They limit opportunities to monopolize attention by “.libustering” (or refusing to yield to another speaker), by interrupting, or by speaking louder or longer than an opponent. The power of money—so essential for political campaigns that must buy advertising time and send promotional letters—counts for little in a public debate; it is impossible to defeat a debate opponent by spending more money than he does. This element of the public debate not only keeps the exchange civil, it also has the potential to allow smaller, less recognized or less powerful groups to compete on an equal footing with larger, more familiar, or more powerful groups. In the U.S. for example, there is a recent movement to bring debate to urban, inner-city, secondary schools.11 By targeting schools with high populations of racial minorities and needs that go beyond the available resources, this movement seeks to use debate as a method of empowerment. Public debates within a program such as this provide an ideal opportunity to hear the voices of mar­ginalized groups: groups that we are used to hearing about, but not always used to hearing from.

Motivating Existing Membership. A final benefit to public debates can be found in the experience of the debate itself, in its exhilarating and even addictive quality. Hosting public debates is an excellent means to provide members of your organization with an experience that is likely for many to be intrinsically satisfying. For many, in fact, this bene.t may make the preceding pages of this chapter quite unnecessary. Generations of students have embraced debating, not because it is educational (though it is) and not because it improves the life of the polis (though it does), but because it is fun. The game-elements, the need for quick thinking, the unpredictability of the situation, the possibility of winning the capitulation of an adversary or the assent of an audience, can all make the debate experience seem like an end in and of itself.

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An Ethical Perspective for Public Debates

As a member of society, you may feel that your life is totally structured by rules—by lists of what you must do and what you must not do. Perhaps that is your attitude toward the subject of “ethics” as well. After reading the chapter heading, you might approach this discussion warily, thinking that it too will just amount to more commands to be good. If that is your fear, rest assured. While we would never play down the importance of being good, our perspective in this chapter is that anything that deserves the name “ethics” can never be reduced to a simple list of what to do or what not to do. Instead, ethics is a perspective, a worldview even. While we will mention several things that should be done, and several things that should be avoided, we believe that such guidelines must stem from a common foundation, and can’t simply be a list of disconnected commands, like the list above. The ethics of public debating in particular, because they relate to communication, have much more to do with relationships than with rules.

What does that mean? Let’s start by considering the following true story. The year 2001 Tournament and Youth Forum, conducted by the International Debate Education Association (IDEA) and held in Saint Petersburg, Russia, ended with a .nal debate before an audience of more than two hundred students and teachers from twenty-six di.erent countries. The two teams of debaters, who themselves represented several di.erent nations, focused on the issue of cultural rights, with the a.rmative side advocating a United Nations role in increasing educational opportunities for Europe’s Roma population. The negative side was responsible for opposing this policy, and while other options certainly existed, they chose to argue that there was no need for such a policy. Appealing to broad racial stereotypes, these debat­ers argued that Roma children have no interest in learning anything and simply can’t be taught. At a factual level, there are good reasons to doubt this conclusion.

Even in the audience there were living refutations to this claim since two Roma observers attended the program outside of their nor­mal school year in order to gain education. Believing that the claims were not only wrong but insulting as well, both of these Roma participants left the room in protest, returning only when the debate ended and then only for the opportunity to address the audience and to defend, as forcefully as possible, the idea that the Roma should not be stereotyped as a people who don’t seek out or bene.t from education. Others spoke as well, the problem was laid bare and in the end both teams apologized for the way they had handled the issue.

One could hopefully say that these remarks from the final debate served to instigate an important discussion and may have raised the conscious­ness of those who witnessed it or heard of it. Still, there are better ways to promote understanding, and the story of this debate gone awry serves as an important reminder to all involved: participants and audience members alike need to view public debates from an ethical perspective, understand­ing that debates are better or worse, e.ective or worthless, noble or dis­graceful based upon the degree to which the participants emphasize several elements of a good relationship: honesty, respect, and dialogue. As broad as these elements are, a concern for ethics can’t be contained or isolated in just one chapter. For that reason, you will see that we return to ethical considerations at a number of points in further chapters. This chap­ter, however, has the purpose of developing a point of departure for these applications. For the remainder of this discussion, we intend to develop this relational view of ethics by .rst exploring the connection between ethics and public debating, then identifying several elements of an ethical perspec­tive, and finally discussing practical ways to promote and negotiate ethical guidelines in public debates.

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Ethics and Public Debating

“Ethics” is a term that reflects the human concern for issues of what is right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust in our conduct and our commu­nication. The term stems from the Greek word ethos which the early Greek teachers of rhetoric saw as an aspect of character. Aristotle, who described the art of rhetoric as “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion,” noted that “character may almost be called the most e.ective means of persuasion.”

The reason that your character may rival the importance of your arguments is found in the simple fact that because they lack the ability to verify every statement independently, audiences must trust, and trust is not given out indiscriminately. “We believe good men more fully and more readily than others,” as Aristotle says, and “this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.”

The relevance of this aspect of character to public debating is clear: when presenting your ideas to your audience, you are also presenting yourself. As you decide how to use researched information, how to characterize events and people, how to address your opponent and your audience, all of these choices will re.ect something of your own character. Your knowledge, your trustworthiness, even your likeability are all a part of your message, and it is impossible to fully separate an audience’s reaction to an idea from an audience’s reaction to the source of that idea. To paraphrase Quintilian, the Roman teacher of communication, the e.ective public persuader is not just a good speaker, but also “a good person, speaking well.” Public debating, because it involves practical communication, reason­ing, and adaptation, always involves choice. All issues involving choice are potentially moral issues. Because a public debate is aimed at a general audience, unethical debaters might be tempted to engage in demagoguery by appealing to popular emotion and prejudice rather than making argu­ments. The fact that most public debates are speci.c and solitary events also means that opponents and audience members will rarely have a chance to use the “next time” in order to point out an erroneous quotation or criti­cize a suspect strategy.

The importance of ethics is fueled by the fact that public debates take place in a context in which it is impossible to check on the validity of each bit of information and unwise to call attention to each act that is arguably unethical. Few audiences enjoy watching debat­ers bicker over who is more moral, and that is why the ethics of any public debate should be established and understood before the debate even starts. Good public debates can be found where event organizers, advocates, and audiences are committed to a positive view of responsible communication. Rather than being a bitter struggle for your view to prevail by any means necessary, a public debate should ennoble you, your opponent, the audience, and the issue.

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An Ethical Perspective for Public Debating

Philosophers have long contended with the issue of the origin of ethics. Precisely how do we arrive at a view of what is good and what is bad? Some may turn to religion to answer that question. Others may say that an act’s value depends upon its consequences. Still others would say that you can’t evaluate any human action without considering its intent. Some would say that morality is found in one’s community and would depend on the group and the age in which someone lives. Finally, some would go further and say that ethics always depends on the situation, and that few actions are always wrong or always right.

While each of these outlooks may contribute to one’s personal worldview on ethics, we would like to develop a perspective on public debate ethics that is rooted in the value of dialogue. From a public perspective, the goal of a debate in front of a large audience is to provide a fair and rational hearing of all sides of a controversy. While advocates’ goals may be to win, and orga­nizers’ goals may be to attract attention to an issue, the goal of the debate, seen from the broadest possible perspective, is to introduce dialogue. For that reason, our perspective on ethics should be dialogic as well. One illus­tration of this perspective of ethical rhetoric as dialogue is provided by the father of dialogue himself. Plato’s dialogue entitled Phaedrus uses a familiar metaphor in order to di.erentiate the self-interested arguer from the arguer with a more dialogic intent.5 The attitudes of arguers to their audience can be compared to the attitude of lovers toward those they love.

To Plato, the “evil lover” stalks the target of his a.ections as a hunter stalks his prey—the beloved becomes an objective and hence is reduced to an object, a goal to be won. The parallel to the evil lover is the argumentative “Lothario” who sees the audience as nothing more than a fitting target for seduction. The evil lover in this case is the debater who is driven by the desire for victory and sees other elements of the debate—reason, persuasion, understanding, communication—as means to that end only. Rhetorical misdirection and outright deception may be justifiable in the mind of this “lover” if they increase his chance of attaining his goal and capturing his audience.

One alternative to the evil lover is the “non-lover.” While the non-lover lacks the insidious wiles of the evil lover, the non-lover also lacks passion. As the name would suggest, the non-lover is not invested—she cares little if she is successful or not. As a debater, the non-lover is one who may seek to inform the audience, but lacks an interest in genuinely moving the audi­ence. A non-lover may not distort or deceive, but she also imperils dialogue by failing to attempt persuasion and motivated argument; the non-lover bypasses an opportunity for engagement.

Since we are talking about Plato, an ideal has to be involved, and the ideal in this case is the “noble lover.” By pursuing her intended only in ways that suit their mutual interests and goals, the noble lover embodies the value of dialogue. Its parallel in the setting of a public debate lies in an advocate whose main motivation is to conduct an argument within a dialogic setting. Of course, noble lovers have viewpoints, and they are committed to defend­ing those viewpoints with the best arguments available. But they have also committed to the idea of a debate—they have committed to a process that privileges the exchange of views and rewards the best of each side. In addi­tion, they’ve committed to a view of the audience as a group in possession of independence, rationality and free choice. The noble lover de.nitely tries to persuade, but only by appealing to the audience’s best judgment.

The view expressed in this chapter is that the ethics of a public debate are in large part determined by whether or not participants have taken the dialogic perspective of a noble lover toward their audience. A dialogic perspective on ethics can be captured in the following formula: strategies, attitudes and behaviors that promote reasoned and respectful dialogue are presumptively ethical, and those that do not are suspect.

In writing on the ethics of argument, professor Stanley Rives argued that the debater has three main responsibilities: “(1) the responsibility to research the proposition thoroughly to know truth, (2) the responsibility to dedicate his effort to the common good, and (3) the responsibility to be rational.” To these responsibilities, professors Karyn and Donald Rybacki added a fourth: “the responsibility to observe the rules of free speech in a democratic society.” We believe that a dialogic perspective includes these four responsibilities—which must, however, be expanded in two important ways. The first element, the responsibility to research, should be seen more broadly as a responsibility to prepare fully. Beyond gathering needed evi­dence, advocates have a responsibility to the audience and to the issues to take preparation seriously. The last element, the responsibility to preserve free speech, should be broadened as well. Advocates and audiences should observe free speech because doing so respects individual views and indi­vidual autonomy. So it is really respect—for people and for their ideas and experiences—which is the final responsibility of the public debater. As a result of these modifications, we can identify four cornerstone responsibili­ties of the public debater:

• A commitment to full preparation.
• A dedication to the common good.
• A respect for rational argument.
• A respect for ideas and people.

Let’s consider each of these responsibilities in greater detail and look at some of the resulting guidelines.

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A Commitment to Full Preparation

By spending time at a public debate, an audience is doing more than simply spending; they are actually investing. The time and the e.ort that it takes to follow a public debate attentively are given in the hope that there is some sort of return or bene.t for the listener. The audience’s reasonable expecta­tion of bene.t creates an obligation on the part of the debaters to do their best to provide the audience with useful information presented in a way that interests and engages. A debater who wastes an hour in front of a large audience is wasting more than an hour. Indeed, he is wasting an hour for each member of the audience, and the resulting span of wasted time could be measured in days if not weeks or months. Without full preparation, opportunities for productive dialogue are limited. Thus is born the need for public debaters to commit to full preparation, and this obligation includes a number of elements.

Plan in Advance of the Debate. As much as experienced debaters are tempted to “wing it” or assume that inspiration will arrive in the heat of the moment, a public debate demands thorough preparation. This includes previewing the necessary arrangements, selecting and developing arguments, planning speeches and all of the other steps mentioned below. In chapter five, we dis­cuss various advance steps to take in preparing for the debate.

Practice. There is no substitute for demonstrating your preparation by con­ducting a dry run of the debate. Ideally, you should practice in conditions that are as close as possible to those you can expect during the debate. In chapter nine, we discuss ways of practicing for the debate.

Know Your Subject. Audiences attend public debates in the hope of hearing, if not experts, then at least individuals with an informed perspective on the subject. Complete preparation for any public debate requires that advocates seek out answers to a number of different questions: What is the factual foundation of the controversy? Who are the major parties? What has hap­pened up to now? When debaters take short cuts by relying on what they already know, or think they know, then they are limiting the potential for clash, risking insult to the audience and imperiling the possibilities for genu­inely informed dialogue; solid knowledge is essential for a successful debate. (Even so, we will note that a debate is not a quiz show: no one is expected to know every fact, and no one wins a debate simply by knowing more facts. “I don’t know” is often a perfectly appropriate answer during questioning.)

Make Reference to External Research Material When Necessary. A primary element of the need to prepare is the need to inform yourself on the topic. By researching the subject matter, you are avoiding error and presenting a more comprehensive argument in favor of your side. You will notice in the section above that we developed the responsibilities of the arguer by con­sulting Professor Stanley Rives and Professors Karyn and Donald Rybacki. By beginning with the thoughts of these authors and adding our own, we are participating in a conversation with other scholars—and that, after all, is what research is. Turning to external authorities doesn’t limit your origi­nality; rather, it permits you to participate along with others in an ongoing discussion of the topic. In chapter eleven we discuss more fully the need to provide evidentiary support and the best methods for developing it.

Avoid Representing the Thoughts of Others as Your Own. If, in writing this chapter, we had read the professors mentioned above, and then just pre­sented the four elements of responsibility without reference to their work, we would have committed plagiarism. Plagiarism (originating from plagia­rius, the Latin word for “kidnapper”) is the act of representing the ideas or words of another as your own. It can be global (stealing an entire speech) or partial (stealing a particularly good sentence, or an example). The solu­tion to plagiarism is simply to give credit when you are using the words or ideas of another. Information that is in the public domain (e.g., the fact that Quintilian was Roman) doesn’t need to be cited, but when taking material that is unique due to its judgment, reasoning, phrasing, or structure, you need to be careful to cite the original source of the information.

Identify Your Sources. Instead of saying, “I remember reading somewhere that...” or “Scientists say...” advocates should let listeners and opponents know where their information comes from. Information from a source that is unidentified or vague is difficult to evaluate and may simply be discarded. Remember also that oral speeches do not have footnotes: the fact that a reference for your claim exists isn’t likely to be impressive to an audience unless they are given some detail about that source. While you don’t have to give every detail about your source (page numbers and speci.c dates, for example, are often omitted) it is a good rule of thumb to provide the audi­ence with as much detail as they need at that moment to understand and evaluate the source of information.

Ensure That Your References Are Not Exaggerated or Distorted. Because you are a debater, it is natural that you will want to make the best possible case for your side. When you refer to an author to support one of your arguments, make sure that you are giving the argument as much force as the author would give it, but no more. If an author said, “some would say that globalism is bene.cial, but they haven’t studied the issues,” it would be grossly inaccurate and unethical to quote the author as saying “global­ism is bene.cial.” If an author said that free trade was “a way” to promote international understanding, it would be grossly distorting and unethical to paraphrase the author as saying that free trade was “the only way” to pro­mote international understanding. When you represent an author’s views, the critical question of fairness is this: Would that author agree to the way in which you have used his or her words, including your selection, emphasis, and implication?

Ensure That You Are Using Fully Accurate and Legitimate References. It should go without saying, of course, but fabricating support by inventing an expert who doesn’t exist or creating a quotation that was never published represent the absolute lowest points of advocacy. Even if you believe that something like this was probably said by someone, it is never acceptable to lie about evi­dence. Because it is impractical to verify independently every reference used in a public debate, the survival of intelligent advocacy in this context depends on trust. To violate that trust is to in.ict the gravest wound to the dialogue.

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A Dedication to the Common Good

Inherent in the act of choosing debate over other potential means of persua­sion is a willingness to place the common good over one’s own interests. The purely self-interested persuader would probably prefer an uninterrupted monologue to a debate in which an opponent receives equal billing and equal time. By choosing debate, you commit to a process that showcases both sides—a process that may or may not help your “side” conceived nar­rowly, but a process that will serve the common good by promoting com­plete understanding and fair judgment.

An ethical perspective on public debate includes a commitment to these ends. It is impossible to say categorically which motives are appropriately oriented to the common good and which motives are purely personal; nev­ertheless, we o.er six items of advice regarding motivation.

Examine Your Goals. It may sound obvious, but our .rst suggestion is sim­ply to ask yourself why you are participating in a public debate. Are you interested in the thrill of competition? The pride you feel in your ability to defeat an opponent? The glory and admiration you expect to receive from the audience? There is nothing ignoble in any of these motivations, but one goal that should be present, and the goal that should take precedence if it con.icts with any of the previously mentioned goals, is the objective of helping an audience understand a complex issue and make a reasonable decision. A debater wouldn’t ask an audience to vote for her side because “I want to win...” Similarly, an ethical arguer should not expect to sway an audience with appeals that are primarily self-serving.

Ensure That You Would Be Comfortable Having the Audience Know Your Real Motivation. While there is no mathematical test for separating an unethi­cal motivation from an ethical one, one easy way to test your motives is to ask yourself if you would be comfortable being fully frank in sharing your goals with your audience. For example, imagine your discomfort in saying to an audience, “I am hoping that this next example is going to cause you to have so much sympathy that you don’t notice the fact that I’m using some pretty questionable statistics.” That discomfort is a good sign that any such strategy would be suspect.

Address the Debate to the Audience’s Level of Understanding. Many forms of competitive debate are evaluated by technical experts only. If these judges are accustomed to faster speech and technical language, then it seems appropriate to give that to them. In public debates, on the other hand, you usually address a general audience, and while audience members have a responsibility to try to understand, ultimately the question of whether the debate is enlightening or incomprehensible is in the debaters’ hands. Addressing the audience using terms that they don’t understand or in a style of speech that they find incomprehensible makes as much sense as debating in French for an audience that understands only Russian.

Share Information. Those focusing on the debate as a battle might be dis­turbed at the prospect of sharing information with the “enemy.” Viewed from the perspective of the debate’s larger goals, however, sharing informa­tion (speci.cally, main arguments and sources of information) can only improve the quality of debate. For those still focused on individual perfor­mance, remember that you can only look good if your opponent presents a reasonable challenge—sharing information will help that happen. In chap­ter nine we consider more fully the question of what information should be shared in what situations.

Choose Depth Over Breadth. While you may put maximum pressure on your opponent by including every good argument that you can think of, that strategy is also likely to overwhelm the audience and result in insuf­.cient development and explanation. A few fully developed arguments are always going to be more conducive to dialogue than a profusion of more shallow arguments.

Privilege Content Over Competition. The exhilaration of debating—show-ing your skills, besting your opponent—can be an important motivator. An emphasis on the common good, however, requires you to remember that audiences are rarely interested in personal rivalries and instead want to see debate as a contest in ideas; they don’t go to a debate because they want to see a horse race. Before and after the debate, any public comments you make should emphasize the value of the exchange of ideas, rather than predictions or proclamations of victory. During the debate, your attention should focus on showing that your arguments have the most merit, not on showing that you are the best debater.

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A Respect for Rational Argument

Public debates are more than an opportunity to showcase your speaking skills or state your point of view. They are opportunities for argument and for the reasoned exchange of views. This interest in dialogue requires an emphasis on reasons.

Make Your Reasoning Explicit. As we will develop in chapter 10, a central factor of argument in any context is that it always addresses the question “why?” In a public debate this question may be silent or it may be quite vocal, but debaters have a responsibility to provide an answer in each argument that they make. Statements like “my support for this is...”, “here is why...” and “the reason for this is...” should run throughout the debate. In order to prevent the debate from becoming a simple exchange of position-state-ments, debaters should identify their reasoning and not rely on what they assume to be true or obvious.

Avoid Basing Arguments Solely Upon Your Audience’s Prior Beliefs. As we will emphasize in chapter 10, reasoning in any public context must account for and include audience beliefs, but this is not a license simply to parrot audience views without offering reasons. Speaking to an audience of hunt­ers, for example, you could probably rely on their belief that people should have the right to own guns, but there are three practical reasons to provide justification for this premise anyway: it will reinforce the audience’s beliefs, inoculate them against your opponent’s e.orts to change their minds, and demonstrate that you are holding up your end of the debate. The less prac­tical but probably more important reason not to rest too comfortably on audience opinion is to promote the dialectical function of the debate: rea­soning that isn’t made explicit and resides instead only in the minds of the audience is hard to attack or defend, and less likely to lead to understanding or resolution.

Attack the Argument Not the Person. “My opponent is still very young and inexperienced... scarcely knows English... can’t grasp the complexities of my argument... looks funny... dresses badly.” All of these statements fail to promote rational dialogue by substituting an attack on the person for an attack on the argument. While there are a few circumstances in which the character and honesty of the advocate is a relevant issue (for example, in a debate between political candidates one may argue that character predicts future policy choices), in many cases the character assault merely covers for an inability to address the arguments. In most public contexts, debates are best conceived as contests between ideas, which happen to be represented by people, not contests between people.

Avoid Appeals to Fallacious Reasoning. Reasoning solely based on audience beliefs may be termed argumentum ad populum just as attacking the person rather than the argument may be termed argumentum ad hominem. Like other fallacies, these strategies subvert reason by o.ering an appearance of proof. Other “tricks” of reasoning include bandwagon appeals (“everyone thinks it is so...”), reasoning from too few or atypical examples (“I know in my town it is true that...”), slippery slope (“if we require licenses for guns, what is to stop us from requiring licenses for everything?”), and many others. These fallacies short-circuit the reasoning that should be central to the dialogic function of the debate. In chapters 10 and 11, we review some strategies for identifying, avoiding, and attacking these arguments.

Clarify Arguments and Refutations at the First Opportunity. The public debate on the curfew for young people which was discussed at the beginning of chapter 1 illustrates the need for this standard. In the very last moment of this debate, Valdas, the chairperson of the youth assembly opposing the introduction of the curfew law, introduced the argument that the need to use police to reinforce the law will lead to the increase of more serious crimes, backing it up with a particular study from Poland. Since this was the last speech of the debate, the other side had no opportunity to respond. This tactic, called “sand-bagging” in competitive debate circles, impairs the dialogic function of the debate by robbing one side, and the audience as well, of the opportunity to give a fair hearing to both sides. Luckily in the curfew debate this trick did not pay o.. A member of the audience hap­pened to have information on this study. In the audience comment section, he not only presented evidence criticizing the study’s findings, but he also took Valdas to task for waiting to present the argument only when his oppo­nent could not respond. When debaters hide arguments or delay arguments, rational dialogue su.ers, and for that reason advocates have an obligation to clarify their own arguments and respond to opponent’s arguments at their .rst opportunity to do so. The saying that “silence is consent” implies that if you fail to answer one of your opponent’s arguments, then you have agreed to that argument (which doesn’t necessarily mean that the debate is over—it just means that you grant them that one point). To answer the argument only later, after you’ve had time to think or to realize the implications, is unfair because it denies your opponents their best opportunity to defend their argument against your attack.

Evaluate Arguments Based on the Reasons Offered. As an audience member or judge of a public debate, you may be tempted to base your assessment of the debate on the credibility or speaking skills of the debater, or the extent to which the debater’s views mirror your own. While these considerations can’t be dismissed, you should be committed—whether as a spectator, partici­pant, or judge—to the debate’s dialogic function of allowing a comparison of reasoning. In chapter 18 we outline a method of debate evaluation that moves through the process of identifying issues, comparing the reasoning of both sides, selecting the better argument in each case, and .nally putting it together into a judgment for one side or the other. Evaluating a debate in this way takes some practice and patience, but it shows greater respect for rational dialogue than evaluations based on surface characteristics, such as the likeability or wit of a particular speaker.

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A Respect for Ideas and People

An essential element of a debate is that it is a human encounter, one that respects reason over force, arguments over assertions, and persuasion over demagoguery. One assumption of this text is that if you did not respect your opponent, your audience, and the process of a reasoned exchange of views, then you would probably not choose to engage in a public debate. In its Statement of Ethical Principles, the American Cross Examination Debate Association notes the need to promote respect, both for people and for the process of debate.

Furthermore, students should remember that debate is an oral, inter­active process. It is the debater’s duty to aspire to the objective of e.ective oral expression of ideas. Behaviors which belittle, degrade, demean, or otherwise dehumanize others are not in the best interest of the activity because they interfere with the goals of education and personal growth. The ethical CEDA debater recognizes the rights of others and communicates with respect for opponents, colleagues, critics and audience members. Communication which engenders ill-will and disrespect for forensics ultimately reduces the utility of foren­sics for all who participate in it and should, therefore, be avoided.

Aside from a simple recognition of respect for all parties and the process itself, there are several important elements that we see.

Avoid Name-Calling, Personal Categorization, and Harassment. While most of us are smart enough to avoid making gratuitous insults to our hosts, our audience or our opponents, many public debates still provide opportunities for insensitivity and incidents such as the one described at the beginning of this chapter. The negative team in that debate, by wrapping their arguments in gross generalizations and ethnic stereotypes of Roma people, failed to show respect to speci.c audience members, for the reasoning process, and for simple human diversity. Even if there had been no Roma in the audience, arguments along these lines would have been o.ensive—perhaps especially so. That is, it would have been even worse if no Roma had been there to defend themselves.

In these and other situations, there is a tension between a desire to promote an open forum free from restrictions on speech and the desire to maintain a civil dialogue. The Cross Examination Debate Association, the American organization that promotes policy debate, addresses this balance in its sexual harassment policy in words that are worth quoting and adopting: It is the nature of the academic debate community to provide a forum for the robust expression, criticism and discussion (and for the tolerance) of the widest range of opinions. It does not provide a license for bigotry in the form of demeaning, discriminatory speech actions and it does not tolerate sexual [or, we would add, racial, ethnic, religious, national, linguistic, or sexual-preference] harass­ment... In the debate community, the presentation of a reasoned or evidenced claim about a societal group that offends members of that group is to be distinguished from a gratuitous denigrating claim about, or addressed to, an individual or group such as those enumer­ated above. The former is bonafide academic behavior while the latter may demean, degrade or victimize in a discriminatory manner and, if so, undermines the above principles.

Applying these principles in practice requires no small amount of consid­eration and sensitivity. As a rule, however, public debaters should avoid the use of names or attributes that are considered derogatory, seriously question any argument that is based on generalizations about broad human catego­ries (national, ethnic, linguistic, religious, or gender), and remember that every person, even those whose views we do not share, is entitled to basic human respect.

Appeal to the Best in Your Audience. In his first inaugural address in 1861, President Abraham Lincoln urged his listeners at the time, and generations since, to unite on common ideals, appealing to what he termed “the bet­ter angels of our nature.” In a context of public debate, we focus on these “better angels” when we appeal to an audience’s compassion, intelligence and honesty. We dishonor dialogue, however, when we appeal to vanity, specious nationalism, pure self-interest, or prejudice of any kind. The rhe­torical theorist Edwin Black noted that the ethics of communication can be assessed not only by the persona or character that a speaker conveys but also by a “second persona” that is a speaker’s view of his audience. This second persona is a rhetorical re.ection—an image of the audience as seen by the speaker.

For example, let’s say that in a debate before students, a student debater argues that a change to their school’s honor code is a good idea because it will allow students to cheat more effectively without get­ting caught. In this case, he would be communicating a speci.c image of the audience—namely that he sees them as people who would applaud the opportunity to cheat. He communicates not only his own persona (some­one who advocates cheating) but also a second persona (an audience that appreciates cheating). Most obviously, he would be o.ering a grave insult to the students, but even if such an appeal were e.ective in a given context it would remain unethical because it appeals to an unethical motivation. Such appeals can corrupt not only the speaker but the audience as well. As Black said, “In all rhetorical language we can find enticements not simply to believe something but to be something. We are solicited by the discourse to fulfill its blandishments with our very selves.”

For this reason, the public debater ought to be evaluated not only for what she presents of herself, but also for what she presents of her view of the audience. An ethical advocate strives to focus her appeals on an audience’s “better angels.”

Preserve the Value of Free Expression. All debates will at least attempt to restrict discourse to a more or less specific topic (see chapter 6, “Crafting A Proposition”), but there is a world of difference between topic restriction and viewpoint restriction. Consistent with the values of debate in the pub­lic sphere, organizers and participants should avoid any a priori e.ort to exclude a particular viewpoint. While adhering to the principles articulated above, advocates should consider themselves free to pick the best available argument and should not restrict themselves to whatever the audience con­siders most palatable. In an address in 1994, Colin Powell, later to become U.S. secretary of state, noted that “freedom of speech means permitting the widest range of views to be presented, however controversial those views may be. The [U.S. Constitution’s] First Amendment right of free speech is intended to protect the controversial and even the outrageous word and not just comforting platitudes too mundane to need protection.”12 In promot­ing free expression in public contexts, a distinction deserves to be drawn between the freedom from censorship (a freedom that must be protected) and freedom from criticism (a freedom that ought never be protected). Sometimes in public dialogues, those who advocate unpopular viewpoints, and are criticized for it, will answer their opponents: “I have the right to my own views!” Certainly so, but as long as their opponents are saying, “You can express your view, but you are wrong,” and not, “You can’t express your view,” then they are not censoring. On the contrary, we avoid censorship precisely in order to allow criticism.

Avoid Excessive Partisanship. Those serving as advocates in a public debate are obviously supposed to be for one side and against another. Audience members as well are likely to lean more toward one side of the debate than toward the other. In the spirit of showing respect to people as well as ideas, however, audiences should avoid any displays that demonstrate contempt or disregard. Good-natured rooting for your side, of course, can add needed energy to a debate, but refusing to applaud for one side, booing a speaker or heckling in a mean-spirited fashion (see chapter 17, “Moderating the Debate”) all constitute public displays of bad manners. Our assumption here is that if you were not interested in hearing and respecting both sides, you probably would not have come to a public debate.

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Promoting Ethical Public Debates

We have attempted in this chapter to provide a relatively complete perspec­tive on the ethical issues likely to arise in most public debates. Still, it is probable that there are other issues relating to speci.c topics, circumstances or participants that will suggest a need for additional application and devel­opment of the principles contained here. Most organizations that promote speech and debate competition have developed ethical guidelines that may be relevant to public debates.13 While sections dealing with tournament procedures, eligibility and rules of competition are not likely to apply to public debates, those that relate more generally to the responsibilities of ethical advocacy can provide a useful additional resource.

One advantage that organizations have in promoting ethical debating is continuity of con­tact. Within a community, regular meetings at tournaments and workshops can help groups of arguers develop ethical norms that are understood and observed. In addition, the governing boards, executive councils and general assemblies of these organizations have the ability to create binding and enforceable codes of conduct in a democratic way. Because they are usually staging one-time-only events, the organizers of public debates face greater challenges in promoting ethical behavior. In competitive contexts, the debater who uses inaccurate evidence in one tournament may well be caught at the next tournament. For public debates, however, there is likely to be no “next time.” Expert judges who are trained to notice and penal­ize faulty logic and rhetorical tricks may not be present at a public debate. Rather than justifying a lighter standard of ethics for public debates, these considerations make it all that much more important for public debaters to commit themselves in advance to ethical advocacy.

When we are dealing with sponsoring organizations and opponents that we know, we can ideally rely on an unspoken understanding. In other contexts it may be advisable to make our ethical commitments explicit. One way to adapt the need for clear ethical commitments to the one-time nature of the public debate is to use a signed ethical compact. The purpose of an ethical compact is to set forth the advocates’ mutual views on appropriate debating behavior in the form of an agreement that could exist on its own or could be incorporated into a larger agreement to debate that includes other elements such as format, topic, schedule and physical arrangements. While an ethical compact in itself is not likely to be enforceable on advocates who may after all still behave unethically even after agreeing not to, the existence of such a compact has several advantages nonetheless. First, it is explicit and thus reduces the possibilities for misunderstanding. Second, the positive act of a.xing one’s signature can serve as a strong rhetorical inducement to follow those commitments. Finally, the existence of the signed agree­ment can substantially increase the chance that an advocate who violated one of the principles can be e.ectively criticized for doing so after the fact. The possibility of being criticized for ethical violations is a powerful deter-rent—especially so in high pro.le debates that involve the possibility of cov­erage by the mass media. In settings that are likely to be highly contentious, the compact could even be made public or be distributed to the audience prior to the debate. While it isn’t always necessary, a signed agreement can promote clear understanding and deter unethical behavior, something that is in the interests of both sides.

We offer the following as one example of an ethical compact. Because such agreements, and ethics more generally, can be seen as the product of dialogue, your own compact may di.er. Ethical Compact for a Public Debate

We, the undersigned, having agreed to a debate on [your topic] on [a given day and time] and having committed ourselves to the belief that a free, fair, and full exchange of rational arguments contributes to a public dialogue that is more important than either of our personal goals, do agree and promise to uphold the following principles of ethical practice during our debate.

1. We see the debate as a forum for rational disagreement, not simply a vehicle for personal expression and competition.

2. We agree to make arguments and to support them explicitly with our knowl­edge, evidence or logical analysis.

3. We agree to state every argument in the clearest possible manner at the earli­est opportunity and to the best of our ability, and not to hide, disguise, or delay arguments for the purpose of trapping our opponent.

4. We agree to address our arguments, in both matter and manner, to the audience’s level of understanding, not allowing technicalities, jargon or rate of speech to interfere with audience comprehension.

5. When relying on factual knowledge, we agree to identify the source of our information whenever possible and to avoid knowingly misrepresenting a fact or in.ating the certainty of our knowledge. At the same time we realize that the debate is not a quiz show and we will not expect our opponent to know every fact or detail.

6. When using evidence, we agree to identify and qualify our sources, and to quote and paraphrase in ways that are accurate and in keeping with the origi­nal author’s manifest intent.

7. We agree that we will to the best of our ability avoid the use of unrepresenta­tive examples, personal attacks, appeals to popular opinions and other logical fallacies.

8. We agree, within the limits of time, to respond to each important argument of our opponent at our .rst opportunity to do so, realizing that an argument not refuted is an argument granted. We will refrain from introducing new arguments into the debate at a time that would deprive our opponents of the opportunity to respond.

9. Whether we believe that the audience agrees with us at the start of the debate or not, we agree to use the debate to advance audience knowledge and under­standing and to challenge and deepen their opinions, and not to simply tell them what we think they already believe.

10. We agree to treat each other with respect and to avoid name-calling and to focus on the arguments at hand and not on the irrelevant personal qualities or the debating skills of our opponents.

11. We agree, through our own behavior and our arguments in the debate, to treat all people and groups with respect and to avoid appeals to broad and unsub­stantiated stereotypes regarding race, ethnicity, nationality, age, sex, sexual orientation or language.

12. We agree, within the constraints of relevance created by the topic, to respect free expression and understand that freedom of expression is not the same thing as freedom from criticism—all views are open to both expression and refutation.

13. We agree to encourage our supporters in the audience to show respect to both sides in the debate and to avoid any disruptive partisan displays.

14. We agree to exchange basic information no later than one week prior to the debate by sharing simple argument outlines and sources of information.

15. We agree that in comments to mass media organizations following the debate neither we nor our representatives or agents will emphasize the contest nature of the event as if it were a sports competition. Rather than declaring a winner or concentrating on debating feats or foibles, public comments will focus on the ideas presented.

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Preliminary Steps

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Introduction

We began this book with an account of a public debate held in a town hall. The debate you will recall focused on whether the town council should introduce curfew laws for young people under 18. The debate was successful because the topic, the audience, and the debaters’ objectives combined to form a harmonious whole. The topic was inspired directly by recent events (the increase in anti-social behavior cases and a proposal to introduce a cur­few). The controversy was localized- that is the debate questioned whether that particular law should be passed locally (not whether the law should be introduced nationally). As a result the audience (young people, their par­ents, senior citizens, etc.) had a stake in the outcome of the debate; as inhab­itants of the town they had a reason to care whether young people under 18 will be allowed to walk the streets on the town after 10.00 pm. Finally, the mandate of the debaters was clear: each debater aimed to persuade the audience to adopt a clear position; either for or against the proposed law. In short the debate had coherent internal logic; given the time, the place and the audience, the topic of the debate made perfect sense.

This chapter is devoted to a discussion of preliminary steps that must be taken by anyone who undertakes the organization of a public debate. We have resurrected our original model because we think that it provides a very useful ideal. The curfew debate worked precisely because the organizers carefully considered the audience, the situation, and their own objectives for hav­ing a debate. Such consideration, we believe, is essential if a debate is to be successful. The debate will fail if the organizers look at only one or two of these factors.

Our point may be clearer if we offer some examples of failed debates. Let’s say the organizers focus all their attention on coming up with a good topic for the debate, and they decide that the debate should focus on the role of the European Parliament in the EU and whether it should be given greater powers to, e.g. select the members of the Commission and its President. This issue is important for Europe and genuinely controversial – if only because at the moment the European Parliament is the only pan-European directly elected institution in the EU and its legislative powers are limited. One team of debaters in this debate is ready to argue that the European Parliament should be given broader mandate, while the other team will argue that the current solution is working. It is a fine topic for debate, but it will not lead to a successful debate if the debaters are univer­sity students staging a demonstration debate at an assembly in a primary school. The problem is that the average 13 year old is unlikely to have any knowledge of the relationship between the European Parliament, national parliaments, Council of Ministers, European Commission and national governments. The proposed debate may work well for a university audience – although even then it might need the spur of events to focus the issues and make them immediately vital. Certainly, the debate would .nd suitable audience in a school of foreign a.airs.

A debate would also fail if organizers focused exclusively on the audi­ence, without thinking enough about the situation or their own objectives. Say that the audience is the student body of a high school, and the debate organizers presume that their listeners are interested in rock and roll. After pondering various rock and roll controversies (e.g., whether Eric Clapton is a greater guitarist than Jimi Hendrix), they decide to create a debate inspired by an opinion piece someone has seen in a music magazine: “Rock and roll should acknowledge its debt to rhythm and blues and other forms of African-American folk music.” The problem here is that while this issue may interest musicologists or sociologists, it is unlikely to stir the blood of the average teenager looking for new tracks to load on an MP3 player. It’s also not clear how the organizers want to a.ect the audience: Is the debate supposed to change the behavior of the listeners? Is it supposed to change their attitudes? Is it meant simply to inform them? A debate about the morality of downloading music from the Internet might work very well indeed—but this topic, however sober and well-intentioned it may be, leads to a dead end.

To put it another way, debate organizers must analyze—they must ana­lyze their own motives, the audience, the situation, the medium and their opponents. In the pages that follow, we will discuss each of these tasks separately, but we cannot emphasize too strongly that all of these issues are intertwined. Organizers may begin by asking, “Who is our audience?” but in almost the same breath, they must ask, “What do they care about and what should they care about?” and “How do we want to affect them?”

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Analyzing Motives

The first question anyone organizing a public a debate should ask is “Why? Why are we having this public debate? What are we trying to get out of this? What do we hope to achieve?”

That brings us to the main difference between public and competitive debates. In a purely competitive debate the primary purpose is winning. The debaters are not concerned with changing the personal opinion of the judge who is listening to them—after all, the judge’s vote is not supposed to be a register of her own personal opinion on the issue; it is supposed to be an assessment of the quality of the debate. The debaters are con­cerned, rather, with presenting a case that is stronger than the case of their opponents; they may even choose to write a case that is boring, but easily defensible. They don’t particularly care if the judge .nds them interesting; winning is all that matters.

In a public debate, by contrast, the debater’s primary focus is on the audience and their response. Of course, the debaters want to do their best and “win” if a winner is to be chosen, but the primary purpose of a public debate is to a.ect the audience in some way.

The speaker’s impact on the audience has been a serious consideration of rhetoricians since classical times. In his treatise De Oratore, the famous Roman statesman and orator Cicero (106–43 B.C.) discusses the speaker’s goals when addressing an audience. A speech, he says, can have three main purposes: to teach or inform (docere); to move or persuade (movere); or to entertain (delectare).2 Speakers can, of course, pursue more than one goal at the same time—it is certainly possible, for example, to teach in an enter­taining way.

The purposes outlined by Cicero are still useful in creating an analytical framework for today’s public debate. In the following discussion, we will subdivide Cicero’s categories, and add few of our own. We see that a public debate can have six distinct goals. The organizers of a public debate must decide which of these goals they intend to pursue.

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To Inform

Sometimes the goal of a debate is simply to give the audience the informa­tion they need to assess an issue for themselves. This goal is re.ected in the motto of the Fox News Network: “We report, you decide.” (Many critics, of course, claim that this is untrue, given the conservative bent of Fox’s news coverage.) When they adopt this goal, debaters present both sides of a con­troversy, and each side argues its position forcefully; the primary purpose of the debate, however, is just to convey information, perhaps as a preparatory step for some persuasive e.orts at a later date.

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To Bring Attention to an Issue

Sometimes the primary aim of a debate is to get the issue on the table. If the debaters and organizers conclude that the target audience does not care enough about a certain issue, or is unaware of it and its importance, their motive would be to raise awareness about the issue. Even though the ultimate goal may be persuasion, in a case where the audience is not even aware that a problem exists, debaters may want to start with that limited goal in mind .rst. For example, if a school is having its budget cut by the government, the general public might not even know about the issue. Having a debate about whether cuts are justi.ed might at least raise awareness and get people to read about it with more interest; it might even get people involved in resolv­ing the issue. Similarly, a debate on whether the United States should ratify a treaty on the ban on land mines may be aimed at raising awareness about the issue with the general public. The debate may spur their interest and prompt them to get involved by making donations to organizations con­cerned with land mines and helping land mine victims, or by writing letters to their senators and to newspaper editors, or by contributing in some other way. Sometimes just raisi