@ BETTER DEBATE MANUAL
Thinking and Speaking a Better World
Although many debaters, especially beginners, see the debate primarily as an exercise and a competition in construction of arguments, the essence of the debate does not come to realisation until the opposing sides interact in a common area of clash. No matter how excellent or true the opposing cases are, they do not make a debate1. Refutation is an essential component that connects the strategies and content of both teams into a confrontation, and understanding refutation gives the debater an important set of skills not only to be able to interact with the opposing team, but also to be able to test and strengthen one's own arguments. In this section, I will review what refutation is and how it occurs in a debate, and I will give some basic guidelines for how to attack the arguments of the opposing team.
Go Get 'Em
Refutation
PROJECT VIDEO: Famous British debate trainer G. Rhydian Morgan delivers a lecture entitled Opposition Case - Theory and Exercise at WSDA 2013
What Is Refutation?
Refutation is the effort to demonstrate the error or inadequacy of the opponent's case. It is a necessary component for any team to be able to win the debate, regardless of the side they are debating. To refute an argument means to deliver a persuasive and effective justification for why this argument is wrong, either in a broader scope of the world or simply for that particular debate (or sometimes even for that particular case). In a team's case, various points of refutation as well as refutation strategies will ofter intertwine, and form a persuasive attempt at proving the side's case together with the constructive part of the case. In World Schools debate format, refutation is usually associated with all opposition speeches and
Types of Refutation
There are several different ways to classify types of refutation. Here I will focus on two discrete categories: direct and indirect refutation, and briefly explain what is preemptive refutation and how it can be employed.
1. DIRECT REFUTATION
Direct refutation is a clear-cut attack on the opposing team's argument with the aim of demonstrating a fault in the argument. It can address a mistake in reasoning behind the argument, a faulty example or an insufficient link in the relationship between the argument and the case the team is claiming to prove. In a debate about instituting death penalty for severe crimes, the proposition usually tends to claim that death penalty is an effective way of reducing crime rates for severe crimes because of the deterrent effect. The argument is traditionally substantiated by a piece of evidence that compares crime rates in certain areas with data about the status of death penalty in those same areas.
The direct refutation of such argument could be: "The opposition claims that the institution of death penalty lowers the crime rate for severe criminal acts. The logic behind it is supposedly that people will be deterred by the prospect of such a severe punishment. However, the deterrent factor argument presupposes that people who commit such crimes are capable of rational consideration of the consequences of their actions. This is not true for most horrible crimes, since they are usually committed either in a state of immense emotional distress, or by a mentally unstable person. Therefore, the lowering of the crime rate cannot be attributed to a rational deterrence mechanism that the opposing team is proposing in their argument." This would be an attack on the reasoning.
The direct counter-argument could be as well: "The evidence in the argument shows only correspondence of two occurrences (lowering of crime rate and institution of death penalty), not correlation, let alone causality. At the time of measurement, many other social factors have changed in cited areas (such as population density, economic status, police control etc.), and the change in crime rate could easily be attributed to any of those factors." This is an attack on the evidence provided for the claim.
Finally, the speaker could attack the relationship between the argument and the case that the team is arguing for: "Even if death penalty really influences the rate of crime, side proposition still needs to prove why this is the only or the most effective way to do so. Side opposition believes that there are many other ways of achieving the same goal, but many of them do not share the same risk as death penalty."
2. INDIRECT REFUTATION
Indirect refutation is less apparent than direct refutation, but nonetheless of the same importance for the interaction of the teams in a debate. Indirect refutation usually appears as a part of constructive case of a team. Indirect refutation in a debate takes form of competing arguments from different sides on the same issue, which results in a direct clash of the opposing cases. The winning argument is the one which reaches the conclusion with higher probability.
If we go back to the example above, in the debate about death penalty, the proposition could make a constructive argument: "The aim of the criminal justice system is retribution for caused damage and pain. If someone has committed a horrific crime that has caused a vast amount of suffering, they deserve to be punished in the harshest possible way." On the other hand, opposition could make an argument: "The aim of the criminal justice system is not retribution but rehabilitation. Execution achieves simply that the person is killed, instead of giving them a chance to learn new behavioural patterns and be reintroduced into the society after they have served their time. Therefore, death penalty does not achieve the aim of the criminal justice system."
The arguments are in a direct clash with one another, even though one does not address the components of the other directly. In the context of the debate, it is useful to try to connect the two arguments by flagging points of clash in the presentation of the argument.
3. PREEMPTIVE REFUTATION
As the example in the previous paragraph shows, the two sides of the debate could speak in any order, yet the arguments presented would still be refutations of one another. This is useful in construction the case so that the team anticipates attacks of the opposing team and preemptively provides responses to those possible attacks. Preemptive refutation is usually not a separate argument (though it can be!), but rather an extension of one of constructive arguments of the team.
If we build on the example above, the proposition could expand their argument by saying: "We do understand that for certain crimes justice also bears the aim of rehabilitation. We agree that for lighter crimes, rehabilitation is often times possible, and if it is so, it should be employed. However, we also believe that the people who commit the gravest of crimes, for which the death penalty is reserved, are incapable of rehabilitation, and therefore they can only be affected by the retribution mechanism of the criminal justice system." Here the reader should note that preemptive refutation is a powerful tool of strengthening the team's case and opening a ground for deeper analysis of the points during the course of the debate.
However, a team cannot win the debate by simply anticipating the opposing team's arguments and preparing suitable responses. Often times, arguments we hear differ only slightly from the one's we expected, but this can make a big difference in the strategic success of the refutations. Therefore, even if teams start the debate with a preconceived notion of the clash that will happen, they should be able and willing to adapt their refutations as the debate progresses.
What Is Not Refutation?
As I have hinted upon above, refutation and other material in many cases intertwine and contain one another, so it is hard to draw a narrow line of where one stops and other begins. There is, however, a consideration worth mentioning: the task of any team is to oppose the other team, not to adjudicate them1. Sometimes, speakers pay close attention to the technical presentation of the argument - the accuracy of the numbers, the consistency of the wording with the rest of the case, the execution and delivery of the argument, the speakers respect of the debate format. While these can be important in some debates, these are usually less important than the content of the team's case. The judge's job is to make notice of all
Structure of Refutation
In the same way that a constructive argument has a generic structure, refutations can also be structured in a clear and simple way that contains all the necessary components for it to be understandable and effective. The proposed structure of the refutation that I will cite is one of the several, but others do not differ dramatically in their essence. The structure goes as following:
1. WHAT THEY SAID
First, it is necessary to briefly summarise the argument made by the opposing team. A sentence or two is enough. Here it is important that we avoid misinterpreting the opposing team - our refutations should be strong enough to address the strongest possible version of the opposing team's argument, not the weakest.
2. WHY THIS IS WRONG
This is the main part of the refutation, and it has the structure of an argument - Statement, Explanation, Example and Impact. It is important to not only link the components of the argument to why the counter-argument is right, but also to why this proves that the original argument is defeated.
3. WHAT WE SAID
Debate is sometimes viewed as a game of controlling territory. The team that is able to advance their ideas the most in the debate is usually the team that wins the debate. Therefore, it is important to combine refutation with presenting your side of the clash. The argument presented can be new material or a reconstruction of previously introduced material.
4. WHY THIS IS RIGHT
Finally, it is important to make a persuasive argument for why your side of the clash has the bigger probability of reaching a desired outcome (or being true) as the opposing side. Here it is again important to link not only the explanation and the example to the argument in itself, but to provide a justification for why the material provided by your team is right in the context of this clash.
What To Refute?
Finally, let's take a look at some of the common mistakes that happen in arguments and that can offer a great opportunity for refutation.
LOGICAL IRRELEVANCE - Sometimes, the argument of the opposing team will be flawless in itself, but it will not be relevant in the context of particular debate. In the context of the debate about increasing the tax on alcohol and cigarettes, the proposition will probably make a claim that both substances significantly harm the health and endanger lives of the people that ingest them. Even if the explanation of why this is so and why this is bad is superb, this argument alone does not yet prove why taxation is either a justified or an effective mechanism in this case.
FACTUAL INACCURACY - substantiating arguments with data is very important in debate, and the ability to spot factual inaccuracies can also drastically improve the credibility of a speaker. However, it is important not to simply correct the facts, but to also show, why specifically this factual inaccuracy renders the whole argument pointless.
UNPROVEN ASSUMPTION - We all live with preconceptions of the world that we are not used to question and we utilise them as axiomatically true. In debateland, these are usually the notions of what is good, what is democratic, which are our basic rights, and similar fundamental questions. It does not make sense to always question all unproven assumptions of the opposing team, but sometimes attacking the fundamentals is crucial to casting doubt on opposing team's case. In such instances, it is important to remember that is not enough to point out that the assumption is unproven, but is necessary to take this opportunity to show it is a wrong assumption and how this defeats the opposing team's case.
CAUSALITY - It can easily happen that debaters overstate the correlation between two factors when it suits their case in a debate. When a team makes a claim to causality, it is important to always consider if two correlating factors indeed have a causal relationship or are there other possible outcomes of the cause. Sometimes, even correlation is a step too far - refutation can be built simply by considering whether events that occur at the same time are necessarily horizontally correlated, or could they simply be two separate and distinct products of common circumstances.
There are of course many more - subtle and less subtle - faults in arguments that can be addressed by refutation, those listed above are simply some of the more obvious and common.
References
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Quinn, S. Debating. Published electronically by author. Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. 2005
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Ericson, J.M. Murphy, J.J. Zeuschner, R.B. The Debater's Guide. Fourth Edition. Southern Illinois University Press. United States of America. 2011
only 2nd and 3rd proposition speech. However, refutation can also be a part of constructive case (in a form of preemptive rebuttal), as well as present in the reply speeches (as indirect rebuttal of the general principles of the opposing case). Therefore, it is important for all speakers in the debate to understand refutation and to be able to construct and deliver points of refutation.
PROJECT VIDEO: Serban Pitic talks about Opposition Strategies to the participants of WSDA 2012
the aspects of team's work, but the opposing team's primary job should be to find the flaw in the argumentation, not in the presentation of the argument. Even if attacks on opposition's execution are style-wise beneficial (and they are not always!), they should only come second after "real" refutations that address the actual arguments.
EXAMPLE
In a debate about legalising euthanasia, the team arguing against legalisation might make the following argument: "Euthanasia is an irreversible procedure, by definition used on very vulnerable members of our society. Legalisation offers a big possibility of abuse - either by emotional manipulation of the terminally ill patients by their family members, or by direct falsification of their expressed wishes and therefore murder. This risk will cost lives of people, and therefore it should not be undertaken." The properly structured opposing team's response would be:
1. The opposing team has made a claim that legalising euthanasia will necessarily cause high risk of abuse of the procedure, which might lead to deaths of innocent people.
2. We believe that this claim is incorrect. Euthanasia is a procedure that is very hard to abuse and therefore it does not prove a significant risk to the society (Statement). Euthanasia is a procedure that is accessible only to a very limited amount of people - terminally ill patients that have no prospect of long-term survival. It is reasonable even to assume that not all terminally ill patients will opt for the procedure. The number of patients that will is therefore small enough for the state to be able to institute reliable safety and control mechanisms that would prevent any abuse. Patients, as well as their closest relatives, would have to undergo psychological examination, and relatives making a choice on patient's behalf could be outlawed completely. (Explanation) Even now, patients that are in a terminally ill state can opt in and out of experimental treatments, and the hospitals with the cooperation of the state are able to control and monitor these decisions to protect them from abuse. Also, currently available data from countries that have legalised euthanasia shows that there have been virtually no cases of abuse where proper regulations have been installed. (Example) Therefore, there is no reason to believe that if euthanasia is legal, the risk of abuse would be high. (Impact) This means that opposing team is wrong when they claim that there would be an increased risk, which would lead to deaths of innocent people. (Link to the opposition's argument)
3. On the other hand, we have shown you that the real risk of abuse happens when euthanasia is not legal, and the only way people in need can access it is through black market.
4. As we have seen above, the risk of abuse is reduced with proper governmental regulations over the procedure. Even if euthanasia is not legal, people will still be terminally ill and they will still want to die. They will look for help on the black market. However, the government has no control over the black market, and therefore it cannot prevent abuse from happening. In the world where euthanasia is not legal, there would be more undesired suffering - either through botched procedures or because there would be insufficient regulation of consent. (Impact) Both sides in this debate desire world with less unnecessary suffering. Our side can better achieve it by providing people the access to the safe and regulated procedure that would end their pain. (Link to why our side has shown bigger possibility of desired outcome)
Conclusion
Many debaters think of refutation as "something that the 3rd speaker thinks of during the debate and then says it". Refutation is much more than that - it is an essential building block of every team's case and it is a necessary ingredient to winning a debate. Refutation can be either direct or indirect, it can be delivered during the deconstructive part of the speech or it can be incorporated into the constructive part of the case. It is important to learn how to find and deliver refutations in order to be able to attack the opposing team's case, to test your own case and most importantly, to create clash in a debate.