My 99th Debate: Kids and Corporal Punishment

Thanks again to Garbanza for joining me in this debate. As per the agreed upon structure, I will use this round to rebut Pro's case, i.e., her round one comments.PRO's CASE-- Parental Ignorance Theory --Pro essentially uses this portion of her argument to set up the following argument: P1. Most Parents Use Corporal PunishmentP2. Parents Know what is Best for Their ChildC1. Corporal Punishment is Best for Their Child I have no objection to P1, but I do have several objections to P2, which I would now like to discuss. In particular, I have three objections to raise: (1) that this line of reasoning employs a logical fallacy, (2) that there are valid psychological reasons for why parent's may not know what is actually best for their child, and (3) that expert opinion has greater validity than lay opinion.To begin, Pro's argument employs two logical fallacies that I can see. First, it is ad populum fallacy. Such a fallacy assume that because most people believe X, X must, by virtue of this common acceptance, be true. [9] When Galileo first posited that the solar system was heliocentric vice geocentric, he was challenging a commonly held belief. [10] Were we to employ ad populum reasoning to Galileo's situation, we would conclude that because most people believed in geocentrism, that geocentrism must be valid. Clearly, science has proven just the opposite: geocentrism is false, and heliocentrism is accurate. [10] So, despite going against the majority, Galileo was right. Pro falls into this logical abyss when she claims that because most parents use or support corporal punishment, that if follows that corporal punishment must be beneficial to the child. It's a textbook fallacy, and should not be accepted as a valid argument within the debate.Secondly, P2 rests on the faulty assumption that parents will necessarily know what is in their child's best interests. This argument really is just barely asserted, and thus false under the Ipse Dixit fallacy. [11] Pro writes, "in general, people act in their own best interests and in the best interests of their children." Pro offers no underlying reasoning to back this up, she simply assumes it's validity. Perhaps I can grant that people act in what they think is there best interest, but that is different from actually acting in there best interest. Consider, when I wake up on a cold, wet, rainy day feeling tired, I have two options: (1) miss class, and (2) stay in bed. I am not ill, and I am awake enough to function proficiently. Logically, action (2) is in my best interests in the long term, but many people still choose to do action (1) because it feels better in the moment. Why? Because the harms of not doing (2) are temporally distant, while the benefits of (1) are temporally immediate it makes it hard for us to judge clearly the costs and benefits of that choice. [12] Similarly, parents might see a child's short-term correction in behavior when spanked as a good thing, but they may not properly weigh that short-term benefit against the long-term harms, because those harms are temporally distant and, thus, do not feel as urgent or as potent. My point here is simple: we can say that parents generally act in ways that they believe are best, but their beliefs may not be substantiated; their beliefs may not be what are actually best. Next, there are real psychological reasons why parents may deceive themselves into buying into the efficacy of corporal punishment. Those beliefs are grounded in the psychological concept of cognitive dissonance. "In countries such as the US and UK, spanking is legal but overt child abuse is both illegal and highly stigmatized socially. Because of this, any parent who has ever spanked a child would find it extremely difficult to accept the research findings. If they did acknowledge, even in the smallest way, that spanking was harmful, they would likely feel they are admitting they harmed their own child and thus are a child abuser. Similarly, adults who were spanked as children often face similar cognitive dissonance, because admitting it is harmful might be perceived as accusing their parents of abuse and might also be admitting to having been victimized in a situation where they were helpless to stop it. Such feelings would cause...them to dismiss the scientific evidence in favor of weak anecdotal evidence." [4]Finally, we should prefer expert opinions, such as those of psychologists, statisticians, educational experts, etc. over the lay opinions offered by parents. We should prefer the former for three reasons: (1) parents are not objective observers of their own behaviors, and so while they can report on some objective facts (e.g. whether they use corporal punishment or not), they are not qualified to make statements regarding subjective conclusions (e.g. whether their disciplinary practices were effective); (2) parents, unlike experts, have not received the training to be able to effectively make credible claims of this nature or to evaluate statistical data; and (3) parent's only have a limited set of data to evaluate, whereas researchers can tap into much larger numbers to more accurately gauge trends. I will talk more about what precisely experts think as the round goes on.For these reasons, Pro's syllogism can be rejected. It relies on ad populum logic; falsely assumes that parent's are not ignorant or self-deceptive regarding corporal punishment; and it assumes that parent's know best, when they are not the experts in the field.-- Parenting Styles --Pro claims that parenting styles are culturally subjective. Let's assume for one second that this is true, and that authoritarian parenting styles work for some cultures. Does it follow that corporal punishment works in some cultures? Actually, it does not follow. Just because a parent is authoritarian does not mean that they employ corporal punishment. It merely means that they are strict, punitive, and restrictive. [13] A parent can be all of these things without employing corporal punishment. So, Pro is drawing a false equivalence (a logical fallacy) to assert that because authoritarian parenting styles work, corporal punishment must work too. It could also be considered a fallacy of division, where one assumes that because something P is true of X (with parts A, B, and C), that P is also true of A. [14]Furthermore, it is not clearly that authoritarian parenting styles really are more effective for some groups. Pro's source 6 only pulls from three countries (cherry-picking), and writes, "academic achievement was negatively related to academic authoritarianism." [Pro's Source 6, R1] Moreover, this source does not show causality, merely it illustrates a relationship. Pro's source 7 talks about how Chinese Americans do better with authoritarian styles than do European Americans. Yet, a study analyzing those same groups of children came to the exact opposite conclusion, noting that kids who underwent authoritarian styles in both groups, suffered "depressive symptoms...similar to those whose parents who are very harsh." [15]Please also note that most of the research I cited in my R2 comments controlled for racial, socioeconomic, and other possible confounding variables to reach highly reliable conclusions. Pro correctly points out that some of my points don't show causality, but her own studies have this same pitfall, and since it she has the BOP, this is more serious for her than for me. But, I'll get to this much more next round. Though, it does make sense that if one sees authority figures act violently, observational learning would lead to more violence. Studies bear this out. [16]-- Outcomes --Pro talks quite a bit about the use of corporal punishment in the African American community. Pro claims that this is a confounding variable that impacts a study's finding because African Americans are more likely to suffer other problems that may result in emotional or delinquency issues later in life. Firstly, unless Pro can prove this problem specifically effects the studies I've cited, it's really a moot point. Secondly, Pro saying that I can't prove that corporal punishment is bad is not the same as Pro proving corporal punishment is beneficial. Unless Pro can do the latter, she cannot win because she bears all of the BOP. In other words, this line of argumentation does not help her directly meet her BOP in any way, and even if it's true, she can still lose.-- My Concluding Thoughts ---Pro's case is based on a series of fallacies, faulty assumptions, and preemptive arguments that do not bolster her own case. Regarding the fallacies, her case is littered with ad populum, bare assertion, cherry-picking, false equivalency, and division logical errors. She also incorrectly assumes that parents know what is best for their children--parents believe they know best, but belief is different from knowledge. Pro needs to show the latter, but, as yet, has really only gotten at the former. Finally, many of her arguments are designed to preemptively rebut what I might've said. That may work strategically when the BOP is shared, but even if my case was totally annihilated at the end of the day, or if I didn't offer a case, I could still win so long as Pro's case wasn't shown to be true "on balance." That is what bearing the sole BOP entails for Pro. Thus, I can see no recourse but to urge a ballot for Con. Thank you. I turn things back over to Garbanza.SOURCES9 - http://en.wikipedia.org...10 - http://en.wikipedia.org...11 - http://en.wikipedia.org...12 - Inspired by Plato's dialogue, "Meno."13 - http://en.wikipedia.org...14 - http://en.wikipedia.org...15 - http://www.slate.com...16 - http://www.apa.org...