The access to drinking water ought to be valued as a human right instead of as a commodity.

Introduction: In the previous round, I suggested to Pro that he try to rebut my philosophical arguments using some philosophical arguments of his own. Because I tried to win the debate using only philosophical arguments, and because my arguments were built upon each other, all he needed to do to win the debate was show I was wrong about one point. Instead, he continued the strategy from last round of trying to win on technical rules that were never introduced. I still have to do a kind of philosophy to explain why this is a cheap trick rather than a sound argument, but this is not the kind of philosophical debate I had hoped for. Pro gave a well organized response, so I'm going to follow his format. First, though, I need to discuss the throwing out of the “On Value/Criterion" and "On the Normative Presuppositions of Debate" sections. These were just comments on my philosophical views about the debate that the audience was supposed to keep in mind. Asking to have them thrown out is like trying to throw out my introduction. Hopefully, you will find them persuasive. Whether or not they are accepted must rest on our debating of them. Pro made the same mistakes in trying to counter them as last round. He wrote, “Even Con says it himself, this is a philosophical debate. However, Con does not realize that philosophical debates do not need strictly facts. Values are the prime voting issue. Again, I had made it clear this will be UIL LD format.” It is true that debates do not need to be only based on fact. My arguments before are to that effect, but they are not presupposed. My only claim here is that debates can be only about facts. This is the case of any debate that doesn't concern ethics. My metaethical argument is not itself based on values, it's only about values, so I am not defending any values, which is fine. To say that a debate requires values would make it impossible to debate anything besides ethics. Pro has never answered this very serious objection. Apparently, there be no scientific debate in his view. He also did not make it clear what “ UIL LD format” was. There is nothing about this in the debate, and in the comments he said that this meant that no new arguments could be introduced after round 1. That was all I was told, and that was only because I had the courtesy to ask. He also said he would “prefer” that it be followed, he did not require it. Contention 1: Objective Moral Values Do Not Exist Pro rehashes his old argument that he's not require to debate philosophy, and that therefore all philosophical arguments go to him by default. If this debate is not about philosophy, why can't be presuppose my unstated philosophical assumptions instead?What we then see is the glimmer of a philosophical argument from Pro. He says: “Con brings up an "alternate world" where objective values are meaningless, however, my case is strictly real world, as I thought would be obvious. We are talking about Earth, and the status quo.”Indeed we are. Possible world semantics are just a tool for thinking about how something might be different by imagining another world in which everything is the same but the thing in question. My argument was that in another world just like ours where a true moral statement is false, there are no observable differences. Therefore, we have no way of knowing in our world whether or not a moral statement is true. For all we know, we might actually be the other world! This does not require that other worlds actually exist, it's just a thought experiment. Contention 2: Emotivism Explains Moral Statements: Pro extends his argument. I also extend my argument. Pro has given no arguments to the contrary to what I said in round 1, so this argument should be accepted by default. To recap, I said here that moral statements are expressions of the speakers feelings, and that therefore they are not debatable. Re-Rebuttal 1: L/D Debate Requires Certain Rules:It is Pro's responsibility to explain the rules of the debate. It is normally required that this be done in the actual debate, not in the comments. When I asked him to tell me the rules, he gave me one sentence. It is not my fault that he did not explain further. Note that in round 1, he could have posted a link to L/D rules and said we would be following them. He did not even cite any of his claims about the rules throughout the entire debate. For all we know, he could just be making these rules up out of the blue. A commentator on the debate adds:“To write a case in a Lincoln-Douglas form, you do not necessarily need a value. Having a value/standard is only one way to weigh the round. There are others, such as burdens. Other such types of cases don't need values, such as disadvantages, kritiks, and theory/topicality. All of those are commonly run cases on the TFA State and National level circuit, yet none have values or standards. For a regular LD case, a value and standard is the general way to go. But it isn't NECESSARY to have a value/standard for LD.”I don't know anything about LD debate, but that person's comment seems to validate my position. Re-Rebuttal 2: UIL Would Not Chose A Broken Debate Topic:Pro says, “UIL did not chose a broken debate topic, as both sides have one countless arguments at specific debate tournaments.” This is still an appeal to authority because it assumes that the debaters always use the best arguments and that the judges are never wrong. It's possible to lose a topic you could win automatically by not pointed out why you win automatically. Re-Rebuttal 3: Emotivism Is Unfair/Uneducational:I extend my argument. All Pro says is that I didn't follow some unspecified rules. I already addressed this. Pro's Affirmative Arguments:“Con somehow misunderstood the resolution somehow saying that "you can't get an "ought" from an "is."" The fact is the access to drinking water is not a human right, my argument is that it should be.”Should is just another word for ought, so Pro's explanation does not help. This is confused a bit by the fact that under this formulation, Pro is making a double moral argument: that a moral statement is false, and that it should be true. I concede Pro's arguments because no amount of facts about lack of access to water are going to change what is morally true. If Pro concedes that, “ the access to drinking water is not a human right” (a pretty preposterous thing for him to say in this debate, bordering on a concession!) then the fact that people are thirsty is not going to make it a human right. All that says is that those people's rights aren't being violated. You need normative arguments to establish a moral claim. Pro's argument might be based on the underlying assumption that people are entitled to things that will make them better of, but cf. My above argument. Finally, Pro says, “Extend all of my previous arguments as Con has yet to follow correct LD debate format and did not refute my case, not make any claims that water should only be considered a commodity.”My only burden as Con is to establish that the whole resolution is false. If there was a specific alternate resolution, Pro should have specified. The phrase “instead of” in the resolution is not strong enough to imply this. What is means is that Pro must argue:1. The access to drinking water ought to be valued as a human right. 2. The access to drinking water ought not to be valued as a commodity. In order to negate (P & ~Q) I only need to demonstrate ~P or Q, I do not need to demonstrate both. So I have fulfilled my burden. Voting Points: Conduct: Con All Pro did for the entire debate was try to get my arguments thrown out based on rules I was not made aware of. S&G: Tie Arguments: Con My philosophical arguments went untouched except for a few feeble objects. I demonstrated why Pro's arguments were irrelevant and he did not have a cogent reply. Sources: Tie All of Pro's sources supported arguments that I showed to be irrelevant.