Basic Philosophy
LD has a reputation of being of philosophy debate. The truth is, it is based
on philosophy, but you don't need to use the exact beliefs of John Stuart Mill
or Immanuel Kant to win a debate round. I am quite impressed if you read and
understood every word of Kant, but it is not necessary and I don't suggest you
do it. First of all, good luck trying to explain things such as the categorical
impairative to your judge and actually have him/her understand it. Second of all,
philosophers often contradict themselves. You might not know about it and if your
opponent does, you'll look pretty stupid.
Now don't get me wrong, you will need to know the basic stuff that you will
run into many times in your rounds. Here is some of the stuff you might you
need to know:
Justice- There are many different interpretations of what the heck this is, but
the most common definitions that you will see are: giving each his or her due,
fairness, and the balance of competing terms.
Social Contract- There are also many versions of this. In general, the social
contract is an agreement for the government to protect its people. Probably
the most widely accepted version is John Locke's, which basically says that
people give up some rights in order for more important rights to be protected.
Rights- I think most of you know what rights are. The conflict in most topics
is which rights are more important. An important concept you might want to know
is natural rights, which are life liberty and property. According to Locke's
social contract, the government's job is to protect these rights.
Harm principle- This is one of JS Mill's creations. It's really simple. You
can do anything you want as long as you don't harm anyone else's rights. It's a
nice little definition for the limitations of liberty.
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