Tournament: Harvard Westlake | Round: 2 | Opponent: Rowland Hall-St Marks KO | Judge: Shackleford, Melanie

JF 2017 Libertarianism AC

I affirm

Part 1: Framework

Practical reflection is an inescapable aspect of agency.

Ferrero Luca Ferrero (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee) "Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency" Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. IV January 12th 2009 pp. 6-8 JW
3.2 Agency is special under two respects. First, agency is the
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agencyʼs own distinctive operation: Agency is closed under itself.15

A~ Justifying a normative claim requires adherence to the norm of the constitutive rules of the activity. Answering the question of why an agent ought to take an action is impossible without practice rules since each link can be taken out with a "why" question-proving the aff framework collapses to infinite regress. Constitutivism solves because the answer to the question can just refer to the aim of the activity.

B~ NC framework devolves to the AC—to even reflect about the legitimacy of your standard concedes the authority of agency since it’s in every action.

Next, rational reflection requires that the maxims we act upon be universalizable. Any reasoner would know that two plus two equals four because there is no a priori distinction between agents so norms must be universally valid. And- willing coercion is a contradiction in conception because you extend your own freedom while simultaneously undermining your ability to act in the first place.

Additionally:

1. All frameworks presuppose liberty. People can only be held responsible for unethical actions if they chose to do them, but choice itself requires that people can pick which actions to take without threat of force. For example, if someone holds a gun to my head and makes me steal someone’s apple, I am not truly culpable because I wasn’t free.

2. Moral uncertainty means you default to my framework - since things like physics have been consistently disproven intellectually, we can’t impose our conceptions of the good on people when we’re not sure we’re correct because absolute knowledge claims are often false.

3. Argumentative ethics – liberty is a priori justified by engaging in debate.

Kinsella Stephen (Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom) "New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory" Journal of Libertarian Studies Vol. 12 No. 2 pp. 313-26 Fall 1996 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=1018797
The first rationalist argument that I will discuss is Hans- Hermann Hoppe's path-
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liberty undercut their own position as soon as they begin to state it.

4. Universalizability recognizes that we can’t ignore other people- this is essential to inclusion of other agents.

Farr 02 Arnold Farr (prof of phil @ UKentucky, focusing on German idealism, philosophy of race, postmodernism, psychoanalysis, and liberation philosophy). "Can a Philosophy of Race Afford to Abandon the Kantian Categorical Imperative?" JOURNAL of SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, Vol. 33 No. 1, Spring 2002, 17–32.
One of the most popular criticisms of Kant’s moral philosophy is that it is too
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choosing my maxims I attempt to include the perspective of other moral agents.

Impact analysis:

Only freedom violations intrinsic to the structure of the action are relevant as in free speech causes X is insufficient. A) Freedom is a property of agency, not a consequence. Adding two circles doesn’t make anything more circular than it was before, just like two humans aren’t more free than one human. B) We can’t be culpable for consequences—they’re determined by external forces.

Hegel 20 George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The Philosophy of Right 1820
The will has before it an outer reality, upon which it operates. But
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adopt only the first consequences, since they alone lie in the purpose.

Thus the standard is consistency with libertarian self ownership: Prefer additionally because

All goods stem from liberty; It’s impossible to value without liberty; Fried 

I would say that what is important about us, what makes us moral human beings, is our individual capacities to think, reason, choose, and value. It is what Kant called our freedom and rationality.2 Individuals, therefore, are the elementary particles of moral discourse. Our value is our taking individual responsibility for our lives, and our choices. And if a person is to count as a person and here we have the difficult questions about the beginning and the end of life then we are all equally valuable in this same way. It is from that base of our equal responsibility for ourselves that we choose our goods: that we choose what to make of the only life we will ever have. My liberty, then, is my ability to choose that life. No one has the right to interfere with that choice, except as it is to further his own good. But that good of the other is worth no more than mine because he is not worth any more than I am. There is, therefore, a right of mutual noninterference: an equal right. By the same token, nobody can interfere with or draft another person to help him achieve his own good if the other person has not chosen voluntarily to enlist in that campaign. 

Part 2: Offense

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Contention 1: Government legitimacy

Free speech is necessary to critique and develop a legitimate government

Varden ’10 Explains Kant Helga Varden: Associate Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Illinois; "A Kantian Conception of Free Speech"; 2010; https://www.academia.edu/2006079/A'Kantian'Conception'of'Free'Speech
It is in part for this reason that the resulting Kantian position will defend~
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free speech is constitutive of the rightful relation between citizens and their state. 

Citizens cannot consent to restrictions of free speech, which makes it impossible

Varden 2 Helga Varden: Associate Professor of Philosophy Associate Professor of Gender and Women's Studies, University of Illinois; "A Kantian Conception of Free Speech"; 2010; https://www.academia.edu/2006079/A'Kantian'Conception'of'Free'Speech
Free speech is seen as the ultimate safeguard or protection of the people’s rights.
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tool the state has to ensure that public institutions operate in this way. 

Contention 2: Means to an end

Justifications for restriction treat the speaker as a means to an end

Ingber 84 Ingber, Stanley~{Professor of Law at the University of Florida~}"Marketplace of Ideas: A Legitimizing Myth" February 1984 JS http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2867andcontext=dlj**
This focus on a marketplace seeking truth and promoting an informed citizenry has had a
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audience, rather than the inherent value in that speaker exercising their individual rights 

Underview

1. Solutions to critical issues must be discussed through pragmatic approaches within hegemonic power structures.

Kapoor  2008 (Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, "The Postcolonial Politics of Development," p. 138-139)
There are perhaps several other social movement campaigns that could be cited as examples of
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high-stakes games of public policymaking makes other decision-making easier.

3)Critique is useless without a concrete policy option that solves for your harms.

Bryant 12 Levi Bryant (Professor of Philosophy at Collin College) "A Critique of the Academic Left" 2012 https://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/underpants-gnomes-a-critique-of-the-academic-left/ JW
Unfortunately, the academic left falls prey to its own form of abstraction.  It’s
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of shelters, the distribution of medicines, etc., etc., etc.

Tournament: Blake | Round: 2 | Opponent: Appleton East JV | Judge: Jalan, Akhil

JF17 Constitution AC LB

Part 1: Framework

Ought is defined as functionally being obligated to do something based off the factual nature of the agent in question

MacIntyre 81 Alasdair MacinTyre 1981 "After Virtue – A study in Moral Theory" University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana http://epistemh.pbworks.com/f/4.+Macintyre.pdf LB
Some later moral philosophers have gone so far as to describe the thesis that from
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to and apart from all roles that 'man' ceases to be a functional concept

Public universities are Government institutions

Douglas 06 M. Douglas, 3-6-2006, "Public and Private: What's the Difference?," , https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/03/06/lombardi LB
American colleges and universities, especially those that define themselves as public institutions because they
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and friends about the distribution of benefits and costs between private and public entities

The function of action based of the factual nature of the United States is consistency with the consitution

Madison et Al. 1787 James Madison "United States Constitution" Sep 17, 1787 Article VI https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi LB
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in
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anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Thus the standard is consistency with the US Constitution. Prefer the standard

1) Even if you win that ought generates a moral obligation, morality must be based on the constitutive aim of an action.

Katsafanas Paul Katsafanas. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Vol. LXXXIII No. 3, November 2011, Deriving Ethics from Action: A Nietzschean Version of Constitutivism. Boston University.
So what’s special about constitutive aims? The constitutive aim’s standard of success differs from
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avoids the disadvantages of externalism, namely the problems of practicality and queerness.

And, the constitution is constitutive of all US government agents

Madison et Al. 2 James Madison "United States Constitution" Sep 17, 1787 Article VI https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlevi LB
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures
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America the Twelfth. In Witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names.  

2) Moral theories that impose absolute rules fail because there is nothing inherent neither to the rule nor in the interpretation of the rule that can determine how to follow the rule.

LANGSETH: Langesth, Jonathan. "Wittengenstein’s Account of Rule-Following and Its Implications".
This section shows that rules themselves do not determine how they are to be followed
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be posited to apply this same idea to any rule-governed activity.

Three Impacts: A) Social practices are only interpreted through laws. Langseth 2

Over time and in the context of a society, repetition of action becomes a custom, instituted as communal regularity. Rules and rule-following are only possible in the context of a community because what constitutes correct application is determined by agreement. "The word ‘agreement’ and the word ‘rule’ are related to one another, they are cousins."13 The justification for correctly following a rule is found in agreement and practice, by acting in such a way that appears in accordance with what is expected (and such agreement may be reached by either consensus, force or authority). What mental processes occur in an act have no explanatory value in justifying correct rule-following. It was shown in Wittgenstein’s critique of what constitutes correct rule-following that it is pos- sible to follow any number of rules and still act in accordance with expectation, and this may be exactly what we do.14 In this sense: "I (we) obey the rule blindly," for it is never known, beyond the recognition of agreement and acceptance of action, whether or not we adhere to some strict, set-in- stone, definitive rule; for there is no such thing.15 Rules are placeholders for an expected path of action. We "catch on" to what is expected because by continued approval of a specific action given a specific rule, we reach the belief that such an action is right or correct. Language is a practice with correct and incorrect usage. Therefore, it is a rule-governed behavior. Prior to Wittgenstein, most philosophers believed that meaning is what justifies correct language use and that it is something which stands outside of actual practice as arbiter of that practice. For example, Platonists argue that the meaning of words such as "justice," "good," and "truth" are defined by some standard independent of experience, by some form "projected," as it were, into the world of experience. The philosopher need only discover the form of justice, good or truth in order to determine whether use of these terms is correct or not. But Wittgenstein argues language is a tool, an instrument (like a hammer or money), which enables us to get things done.16 And it is only in what we do with words, how they are used as tools, that we can get a sense of what they mean. The rules that allow effective use of language have been shown to consist of the customary and habitual nature of practice itself. If meaning is said to be what justifies correct language use, then meaning is grounded in practice. Wittgenstein calls attempts to locate meaning in some antecedent, prescriptive formulation "entanglement~s~ in our rules."17 Such attempts mistake the nature of meaning. Wittgenstein wants to show that philosophical problems rest on this mistaken assumption of the nature of meaning. The error of philosophers, says Wittgenstein, is in their belief that some words such as "truth," "re- ality," "justice" and the "good" have a meaning beyond their use in practice.18 By pointing out this mistake, Wittgenstein wants to cure philosophers of the belief that there are purely philosophical problems. Traditional philosophic questions such as "What is the nature of truth?" or "What is the good?" etc., cannot be given an answer resting on anything outside of the practices in which these words are used. There is nothing outside of use that can justify correct use. The task of phi- losophy, says Wittgenstein, should turn to investigating how language is used

B) Grounding morality in inviolable contracts is the only way to avoid skepticism since it spells out the exact permissible and prohibited aspects of a moral rule and removes the abstractness that the rule could have.

IMPACT CALCULUS:

To say something is permitted is not to say that there is no possibility of a prohibition; rather it just matters that it is permitted under one locus of duty. A) This is true of obligations because the existence of an obligation doesn’t mean that there can’t be another obligation to do something else, as an obligation is just a locus of duty. B) Proving the resolution true under a specific index is sufficient to affirm regardless of any other type of index that negates. Rödl :

This view is untenable for reasons ~this is~ analogous to those we mounted against the corresponding account of instrumental reasoning. Suppose the normative order of the question what to believe, on an occasion of its being asked, is a set of propositions Σ. In order to indicate this, we give the imperative an index specifying that set; we write, not "It is right to believe p because Σ~of an index~" but "It is right ~given an index~Σ to believe p". Now, nothing we said about Σ~an index~ excludes that it may be right Σ ~given an index~ to believe p and right Σ ~given an index~ to believe non p. Thinking it is right Σ to believe p peacefully coexists with thinking it is right Σ to believe non p. This shows that, thinking it is right ~given an index~Σ to believe p, I have not determined what to believe. For, thinking this is not having affixed myself to p in a manner that excludes affixing myself in the same way to non p. But thinking it right to believe p—thinking is true—is so affixing myself to p.

Proving a legal obligation exists is sufficient to affirm independent of moral considerations. Legal obligations are a separate locus of duty. Glos 

The mutual relation of law and ethics can profitably be investigated only if ethics is understood as a normative science.31 If we compare legal norms with ethical norms, it appears that the contents of ethical norms are in agreement with a given concept or principle, whereas legal norms originate from a certain lawgiver regardless of contents. It follows that legal and ethical norms may be likened to two circles which cover the same area: legal and ethical norms may coincide, and the same norm~s~ may at the same time be both a legal and an ethical norm; but there are legal norms the contents of which have no relevance in ethics (norms regulating highway traffic), and there are legal norms which may contradict ethical norms (norms according to which a soldier is bound to fight and kill).

Part 2: Offense

I contend that the constitution affirms

====The supreme court has consistently rule against speech codes at public universities====
FIRE ND Foundation for Individual Rights in Education "State of the Law: Speech Codes" https://www.thefire.org/in-court/state-of-the-law-speech-codes/ LB
That the First Amendment applies on the public university campus is settled law. Public
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of the First Amendment apply on public campuses is well-settled law.

Part 3: ROTB

The role of the judge and ballot is to vote for the debater who best defends the truth or falsity of the resolution. The aff burden is to prove the resolution true or the quality or state of being true; the neg burden is to prove its falsity not according with truth. Prefer this"

1) Text: Dictionary.com  define to negate as to deny the truth of which means the sole judge obligation is to vote on the resolution’s truth or falsity. This outweighs on common usage – it is abundantly clear that our roles are verified.

2) We can only follow the constitutive rules of an activity, even if they interfere with the pragmatic or ultimate rules of the activity i.e truth or falsity.

Terry 92 Nardin, Terry. "International Ethics and International Law". Review of International Studies 18.1 (1992): 19–30. Web. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20097279 Oakwood AW Terry Nardin 2. 1992 3. ". Review of International Studies 4. International Ethics and International Law 5. 1/30/2016 6. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20097279 7. Professor of Political Science at the University of Singapore ~and~ 8. 19-30
The first thing to observe in considering this objection is that the 'purposes' of a
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, Cross apply Katsafanas from the framework as another warrant for following constitutive rules

3) Any other role of the ballot devolves to mine. Truth is constitutive of warrants. Frege 

 "It may nevertheless be thought that ~W~e cannot recognize a property of a thing without at the same time realizing the thought that this thing has this property to be true. So with every property of a thing is joined a property of a thought, namely, that of truth. It is also worthy of notice that the sentence "I smell the scent of violets " has just the same content as the sentence "it is true that I smell the scent of violets ". So it seems, then, that ~N~othing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth. And yet is it not a great result when the scientist after much hesitation and careful inquiry, can finally say " what I supposed is true " The meaning of the word " true " seems to be altogether unique. May we not be dealing here with something which cannot, in the ordinary sense, be called a quality at all? In spite of this doubt I want first to express myself in accordance with ordinary usage, as if truth were a quality, until something more to the point is found."

Part 4: Underview

1. Frameworks that put an emphasis on criticism liberation or emancipation from violence are self defeating Hägglund 08’

Martin Hägglund: Radical Atheism: Derrida and the Time of Life, Stanford: Stanford University Press, Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics, 2008. 
Emancipatory politics does not aspire to a telos of absolute liberation, but must always
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since it may be negated by the coming of other futures).

Tournament: Blake | Round: 5 | Opponent: Newark BA | Judge: Trevor Martinez

JF 2017 Libertarianism AC

I affirm

I will defend and spec whatever you want in CX but its not relevant to the aff
I reserve the right to clarify
There is an acceptable interp under which the aff lies so if topicality is an
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say that I can’t cross apply something because something else is indicting it. 

Part 1: Framework

Practical reflection is an inescapable aspect of agency.

Ferrero Luca Ferrero (University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee) "Constitutivism and the Inescapability of Agency" Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. IV January 12th 2009 pp. 6-8 JW
3.2 Agency is special under two respects. First, agency is the
AND
agencyʼs own distinctive operation: Agency is closed under itself.15

Impacts:

A~ Justifying a normative claim requires adherence to the norm of the constitutive rules of the activity. Answering the question of why an agent ought to take an action is impossible without practice rules since each link can be taken out with a "why" question-proving the aff framework collapses to infinite regress. Constitutivism solves because the answer to the question can just refer to the aim of the activity.

B~ Neg framework devolves to the AC—to even reflect about the legitimacy of your standard concedes the authority of agency since it’s in every action.

Next, rational reflection requires that the maxims we act upon be universalizable. Any reasoner would know that two plus two equals four because there is no a priori distinction between agents so norms must be universally valid. And- willing coercion is a contradiction in conception because you extend your own freedom while simultaneously undermining your ability to act in the first place.

Thus, the standard is respecting freedom. Prefer the standard: all frameworks presuppose liberty. People can only be held responsible for unethical actions if they chose to do them, but choice itself requires that people can pick which actions to take without threat of force. For example, if someone holds a gun to my head and makes me steal someone’s apple, I am not truly culpable because I wasn’t free.

Impact analysis: only freedom violations intrinsic to the structure of the action are relevant. A) Freedom is a property of agency, not a consequence. Adding two circles doesn’t make anything more circular than it was before, just like two humans aren’t more free than one human. B) We can’t be culpable for consequences—they’re determined by external forces.

Hegel 20 George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The Philosophy of Right 1820
The will has before it an outer reality, upon which it operates. But
AND
adopt only the first consequences, since they alone lie in the purpose.

Prefer additionally because

1. All goods stem from liberty; It’s impossible to value without liberty; Fried 

I would say that what is important about us, what makes us moral human beings, is our individual capacities to think, reason, choose, and value. It is what Kant called our freedom and rationality.2 Individuals, therefore, are the elementary particles of moral discourse. Our value is our taking individual responsibility for our lives, and our choices. And if a person is to count as a person and here we have the difficult questions about the beginning and the end of life then we are all equally valuable in this same way. It is from that base of our equal responsibility for ourselves that we choose our goods: that we choose what to make of the only life we will ever have. My liberty, then, is my ability to choose that life. No one has the right to interfere with that choice, except as it is to further his own good. But that good of the other is worth no more than mine because he is not worth any more than I am. There is, therefore, a right of mutual noninterference: an equal right. By the same token, nobody can interfere with or draft another person to help him achieve his own good if the other person has not chosen voluntarily to enlist in that campaign. 

2. Argumentative ethics – liberty is a priori justified by engaging in debate.

Kinsella Stephen (Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom) "New Rationalist Directions in Libertarian Rights Theory" Journal of Libertarian Studies Vol. 12 No. 2 pp. 313-26 Fall 1996 http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract'id=1018797
The first rationalist argument that I will discuss is Hans- Hermann Hoppe's path-
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undercut their own position as soon as they begin to state it.

Part 2: Offense

Contention: Freedom Violations

1. Removing restrictions prevents prohibiting speech which is an essential freedom—restrictions in the status quo prevent people from acting on their agency no matter how miniscule the restrictions is.

Lambert 16 (Saber, writer @ being libertarian, "The Degradation of Free Speech and Personal Liberty," April 9, 2016, https://beinglibertarian.com/the-degradation-of-free-speech-and-personal-liberty///LADI)
Many individuals in society claim that they live in a free nation full of individual
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is often paralleled to a form of dictatorship – no matter how miniscule.

2. Turns social justice arguments—lack of free speech re-create the majority/minority divide that means the minority loses out on having their voice heard.

Cartwright 3 (Will, "Mill on Freedom of Discussion," Richmond Journal of Philosophy 5 (Autumn 2003), http://www.richmond-philosophy.net/rjp/back'issues/rjp5'cartwright.pdf//LADI)
Though freedom of discussion was widely accepted even in Mill’s own day, he thinks
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balance of risks here makes this argument less persuasive than the other two.

3. Debate and discourse isn’t intrinsically violent so affirmation is easy.

Anderson 6 — Amanda Anderson, Caroline Donovan Professor of English Literature and Department Chair at Johns Hopkins University, Senior Fellow at the School of Criticism and Theory at Cornell University, holds a Ph.D. in English from Cornell University, 2006 ("Reply to My Critic(s)," Criticism, Volume 48, Number 2, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via Project MUSE, p. 285-287)
Let's first examine the claim that my book is "unwittingly" inviting a resurrection
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is clearly, and indeed necessarily, significant room for further elaboration here.

Underview

1. I meets and counter-interps trigger an RVI for the aff since a) RVIs check the neg from running trivial shells. If theory is a check on abuse, it must not be unfair itself or running theory would be self-defeating b) I speak in the dark and choose burdens and interps while the NC is reactive and c) the neg has the ability to out spread the aff on multiple no risk issues and then collapse to substance.