Jan/Feb 2011 LD Topic

My opponent seems to be lazy and doesn't want to find a way to refute skepticism, and instead has resorted to calling it abusive because it means his case is wrong. But since I have the room to, I'll go line-by-line through his last post. "The problem rests in the fact that my opponent's argument explains that the affirmative requires some sort of objective morality in order to make a basis in the case. This would mean that my case would require a concept that my opponent argues doesn't exist, and in this scenario, the affirmative would have no way to be able to win this debate."Yes, this is a concept called metaethics. Whereas standard stock arguments and frameworks, such as your utilitarianism argument, function on the normative level, arguments that question the assumptions made by normative arguments, such as skepticism does to normative ethical theories, operate on a higher level, i.e. a metaethical argument. My opponent is simply crying abuse because he simply doesn't want to have to go through my case and refute the three warrants proving skepticism (i.e. Koons, Nietzsche 1 and Nietzsche 2). Since he's failing to do the work necessary to actually defeat my case, and the work is definetely do-able, then he cannot call the argument abusive. If anything, his argument that my case is abusive is abusive, simply because he refuses to even address it before dismissing it entirely. If this concept were fair, then I could look at his case and, after seeing it not say a word about actually using lethal force to respond to domestic violence, call it abusive because it doesn't address the topic. All my opponent literally has to do is prove that morality is objective in order to be able to gain offense off of his case. That is what I meant when I said my case precludes his, as my case acts as a gateway to affirming. In order to be able to affirm, he has to first disprove my case. Since he hasn't done that, he cannot affirm. "The entirety of my opponent's case attempts to lead toward the conclusion that because morality is subjective, nothing can really be called "morally permissible" solidly."Correct, coming from the Joyce evidence. "This arguments rests on the idea that morality was not meant to achieve some objective purpose, and if I can prove this, there is some way to evaluate moral contexts in order to determine their validity and objectivity."This is where you're incorrect, as my arguments don't question the intended purpose of moral thought, but the nature of morality as a whole. Whether morality is objective or subjective, it's purpose is still to guide us in what is morally permissible and what is morally prohibited. How it does that is what determines objectivity or subjectivity. My opponent is attacking the wrong thing entirely. As none of the actual warrants in my case were touched, you can cleanly extend the negative case across the flow as dropped. Also, as my opponent's last round was cut off before he could respond to the arguments made against my opponent's case, I ask the voters not to consider them dropped so he has a fair chance to respond to them. Overall, though, everything discussed so far still stands. 1) My case still precludes him from affirming, as he has yet to prove that morality is objective. 2) My responses against his framework prove that, even if he proves morality to be objective, that his framework fails and he thusly can't affirm.3) My responses against his contentions still prove that, even if his framework stands, that he still can't affirm because he isn't discussing the actual topic.So overall, you still negate.