Knoll,+Aaron

School Affiliation: Hopkins High School

LD Debate is ultimately about morality. The winner of the round is the one who convinces that their view of the resolution is moral and that the opponent's view of the resolution is immoral. Therefore, the criterion is the most important idea in the round and should be the base on which all other arguments are made. In order to prove morality, one must develop contentions that ultimately, weighed morally through the criterion, argure for the morality of his or her view because they meet the criterion's standard of morality, and then finally achieve the value, something intrinsically good. Therefore, it is imperative to engineer your arguments to create a unified argument, your criterion. Contentions that are convincing on their own but that are not related to the criterion are weak, as they only serve to throw the round off course and resolution. So it is important to ultimately prove the morality of your own view, and the immorality of your opponent's, and that is the ultimately the goal of LD Debate. This can be done through philosophy, evidence, or theory, but it must be impacted upon the criterion. Not only in LD but also in life, a strong unified argument, as opposed to four separate but slightly related arguments, will always strengthen your argument and toughen your opponent's attempts to defeat it.