A debate is a dispute between advocates of competing viewpoints or
policies. They "compete" in that the audience or judge is forced to choose
between them; to choose one approach or point of view is to reject the
other. Unless we are forced to choose between them, there is really no
ground for disagreement. A good debate, furthermore, depends on the
existence of two or more viewpoints that are not only mutually exclusive,
but attractive. As ethicist William Henry Roberts ( 1941) has observed:

We never choose between what we want and what we do not want. When the
issue becomes clear between happiness and misery, satisfaction and disap-
pointment, we do not hesitate or debate. Nothing occurs that we can fairly
call choosing. (pp. 7-8)

In a true debate, each side has merit, the question is: Which side has
more? It therefore behooves each side, the opposition as well as the
affirmative, to make clear what its position is and what there is to
commend it.

The opposition in a debate should provide more than simple refutation of
the adversary's individual arguments. Just as the affirmative (or govern-
ment) side in a debate offers a case in support of the resolution, the
opposition should ideally present a counterease to the resolution, a co-
herent explanation of what position the audience should hold if not that
promoted by the affirmative. In a murder trial, the counsel for the defense

-150-