Hom,+Samantha

I debated extensively on the national circuit for Stuyvesant High School for four years, reached elimination rounds at nearly every bid tournament I attended, and qualified to the TOC my senior year. I have also worked as a debate camp instructor at VBI, CDI and NSD, and have coached TOC-qualifying students. I am a fourth year at the University of Chicago and am double majoring in philosophy and political science.

Now for my paradigm -

__**Short Version:**__

I believe that what makes debate so great is that is an infinitely open ended game, and as such, I will try to intervene as little as possible, since the beauty of the game of debate is that the debaters get to create the game for themselves. I will vote on nearly any argument so long as it is justified and won. That being said, everyone has personal preferences, and while I won't consciously try to insert them into my decision making calculus, I can't promise that it won't subconsciously happen. So, below are some of my preferences/defaults/things to keep in mind (Note: I only defer to them absent any arguments made to the contrary in the round. There are very few hard and fast rules I paradigmatically stick to - debate is your game, so play it the way you want to - just try to play it well)

__**Long Version:**__


 * __I. Framework/Philosophy:__** As a debater, I probably almost exclusively ran positions and went for strategies that were framework/philosophy oriented, largely because I love framework and philosophy. As such, framework debates are the ones that interest me most and are the sort of debates that I'm probably best at evaluating. A good, strategic, well executed framework debate is very likely to earn high speaks from me. Keep in mind that the philosophy I'm familiar with (and the philosophy I tend to like/find argumentatively compelling) is largely in the analytic tradition, and if the philosophy you read is more continental, you should probably jump down to the section of my paradigm on critical arguments.

__**Things I don't like (but won't hack against):**__ Unoriginal util (every time I hear someone read Woller, I die a little inside), "ought is defined as util" (lolno), when people try to use Bostrum to turn frameworks, AFC (I laugh a little in my head every time a debater reads AFC and tries to claim this is actually somehow better for philosophical debate), vague or impact justified standards (e.g. "societal welfare"), when debaters don't do comparison between competing framework preclusion arguments, when someone says their standard is x but then over the course of the round it functionally turns into standard y (e.g. if someone says their standard is deontological but then lets their opponent turn it by reading arguments about "maximizing freedom")
 * __Things I like (but won't hack for):__** Kant, Korsgaard, Ripstein, (really most neo-Kantians), Aristotle, virtue ethics, contemporary analytic philosophy (but really most analytic philosophy), doing actual comparison between competing framework preclusion arguments, developed standards analysis about what does and does not link and why, nuanced takes on otherwise canon frameworks

If you like the things I like, I'll probably be a particularly good judge for you! That being said (as noted), I'm not going to hack for these things - although for the record, I personally think util is probably false, but that doesn't matter - if you win util or any other ethical theory that I personally think is dumb, obviously I'll still vote on it. I'd much rather hear good util than a bastardized version of deontology.

__**II. Policy Arguments:**__ I rarely (if ever) read policy-esque positions - I don't have a problem with them (even if I do find them a bit boring), but I'm probably not the best judge to evaluate a really complicated larp round. If you go for these positions in front of me, just make sure you explain them well, and don't assume that I know all the technical policy jargon.

__**III. Critical Arguments:**__ I am not very familiar at all with most critical literature/continental philosophy, and what little of it I am familiar with I think is typically pretty poorly warranted. That being said, I have nothing against voting for a critical position (albeit it's probably harder to get me to vote for one than most), so if you explain it well and win it I have no problem giving you my ballot. However, there is a __**CAVEAT:**__ I find it exceedingly annoying when debaters use critical positions as a way to regularly justify making undeserved ad hominem attacks about the characters of their opponents/judges/etc. If you do this in front of me it will be nearly impossible to get me to vote for you (Of course, if someone is actually being racist/sexist/ableist/etc. feel free to call that out. What annoys me are arguments like "She wants to have a framework debate so she's a racist oppressor!").

__**Things I like:**__ Critical arguments that are actually warranted and when debaters can actually explain and understand the terms in the literature they're reading, Ks with normative frameworks __**Things I don't like:**__ The aforementioned caveat, when critical debaters ignore the line by line and just re-extend everything in their speeches without answering their opponent's responses and expect that to win them the round, reading "Kant is a racist" (or any other similar position which tries to indict an ethical theory by appeal to the philosopher's character - also just FYI, Kant changed his views later on in life), unwarranted critical arguments where debaters rely on dense terminology to obfuscate the round (à la the postmodernism generator http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo ), Ks without normative frameworks (at the point where you're making claims about the goodness or badness of something, that means you need a normative framework. Even though there are some things which are just intuitively bad (e.g. racism), you still need a normative framework, because depending on which normative framework you ascribe to will determine what the correct solution to said bad thing is (e.g., under util you'd probably want to minimize counts of racist acts or the effects of racism, vs. under deont you'd care about not willing a racist maxim)

__**IV. Theory:**__ I default to drop the debater, competing interpretations, no RVIs, and text > spirit of the interp, but I am willing to buy and am sympathetic towards drop the argument/"no abuse story"/reasonability/RVIs/spirit > text of the interp claims. Although I do prefer substantive debates, if you want to be theory/trigger/tricky happy, go ahead. Note, when reading the text of an interp, slow down a little so I can actually write it down in full.

__**Things I like:**__ Theory read when there's actual abuse, comparison and weighing between theory standards and voters __**Things I don't like:**__ AFC (see above rant), disclosure theory (I think disclosure tends to just feed into the advantage big schools already have), speed theory (lolz), dumb generic binary theory shells (e.g. aff must run a plan/aff must not run a plan), BS "I meets" circa Scarsdale 2012 (e.g. "Her interp says debaters but I'm only one debater so I can't violate!"), not doing comparison or weighing between theory standards/voters/shells and leaving me to sort out a muddled theory shitshow at the end of the round __**Things I WON'T VOTE ON:**__ I've decided to adopt this stipulation from my dear friend Leah Shapiro's paradigm: **I won’t vote on shells if I can’t verify the violation; This is an absolute constraint on theory.** E.g., I won't vote on something like "I asked her before the round to defend position X but then she defended position Y!" I have no idea what you asked her before the round and what she agreed to (although if a concession happens prior to the round but it's in the room and I'm there and I witness it, then that's fine)

__**V. Miscellaneous:**__ - I default to truth testing. I don't think competing worlds makes a whole lot of sense, (I think it pretty clearly just collapses back to truth testing) but as always, if you make arguments to the contrary and win them, then I'll evaluate the round that way. - In a situation in which debater A is definitively winning their framework but is not definitively winning offense back to it, and debater B is definitively losing framework but is definitively winning a piece of offense, I default to presuming for debater A. Even if A isn't winning any offense, if A is definitively winning framework, that means only offense that links back to that framework can be evaluated, in which case neither A nor B actually has any offense, since B's offense doesn't matter as per A's framework, in which case the only thing left in the round is A's framework, so I'd presume for A. - I think terminal defense exists, i.e., if debater A reads a util AC, and debater B wins reasons why even if util is true, it's impossible to evaluate offense under it (i.e. infinite consequences, etc.), then I view that as terminal defense on the AC. - Pet peeve of mine: when LDers act like they're policy debaters and refer to themselves as our/we and call the AC the 1AC. This is LD, you don't have a partner, there is no "our argument"/we, and there's only one AC to begin with so artificially tacking on a number and calling it the 1AC looks stupid. This won't impact speaks or anything, but it just kind of annoys me. - I enjoy it when debaters are a little snarky TBH. If you are adept at using snark/wit/etc. to be perceptually dominant in round, I will most likely be entertained and you will be rewarded with high speaks. Of course, there's a line between that and outright rudeness, and try not to cross that line (Debate is a community, we should all be nice to each other (or at least civil), etc. etc.) - Speed is good. I'll say clear as many times as necessary, and will differentiate between clear/slow/loud