I - Refutation and Rebuilding Arguments

The first debate course covered the creation of arguments and their use in various resolutions and propositions. This course will cover how to attack and refute arguments put forth by others in a debate setting. Debates do not take place in isolation, and as such involve two hostile parties who disagree over whether a claim should be adopted. By hostile parties, we do not mean that the two parties dislike each other; it simply means that the two parties have opposing views on an issue.

Since debates involve a hostile party, debaters will be introduced to arguments with which they disagree. The process of confronting these arguments is known as refutation, which is defined as the process of responding to opposing arguments in order to eliminate or weaken them. Refutation is a necessary part of any debate. As was discussed in the basic Argumentation course, silence means consent in a debate. Therefore, it is vital that debaters have a solid understanding of the various refutation techniques available.

The first step in the refutation process is to be prepared to engage in refutation, which means that the debater must have a comprehensive understanding of the issues both for and against the resolution. The more knowledge a debater has about the resolution, the more effective refutation will be. Obviously, one cannot anticipate every argument that might be raised. However, in almost every debate there are obvious areas of attack that one can anticipate their opponent raising. The more prepared one is prior to the debate, the easier the refutation will be during the debate.

II - The Three D’s of Refutation

There are three strategies of refutation. There are Deny the argument, Diminish the argument, and Disbar the argument. They are presented in order of their effectiveness. In other words, it is best to deny an argument. If that cannot be done, then the next best is to diminish the argument. Finally, one can attempt to disbar the argument.

Deny the Argument: The most effective refutation technique is to deny the truth of the argument. There are three steps involved in this strategy. First, deny the argument’s truth. Second, provide evidence, proof, or analysis for the counterclaim. In some cases, the opposing party will also have evidence to back up their claim. This situation is where the third step comes in. The third step is to provide a reason why your support should be preferred over your opponent’s support. Perhaps your source is more qualified, your evidence more recent, or summarizes the consensus of opinion about a subject. Whatever the reason, you should be prepared to show why your support is superior to that of your opponent.

Diminish the Argument: What if denial of the argument is not possible? If an argument cannot be directly denied, it might still be diminished. This simply means that while the argument is not denied, it is shown to have little if any effect on the debate. There are many ways to diminish an argument:

• The Turn: The Turnaround argument is taking what seems to be an opponent’s argument and using it to support your position. If the opponent is making arguments involving his plan leading to good things, you could instead argue how those things are in fact harmful in and of themselves.
• Irrelevance: An argument that doesn’t directly impact the resolution at hand should be diminished in this way.
• Mitigation: One way to mitigate is to bring in facts that weaken the argument. Another way is to show that the argument is being overly impacted; for instance, an argument that states that “some members of the Dark Brotherhood” agree with something. You could point out that there is implied disagreement, and that we don’t even know how many “some” is. Finally, you can mitigate quantitatively. Should your opponent argue that the rate of inactive members in a Clan or House is ten percent, you may be able to show that the true figure is only three percent. While you would still be granting the fact that the problem exists, you would show that it is not nearly as bad as is being portrayed.
• Contradictions: Often, debaters contradict themselves in the course of their case. If you detect an apparent contradiction you ought to point it out and ask your opponent to resolve it. In addition, ask the critic to discount both sides of the contradiction until it is resolved.
• Impacts: A very powerful means of diminishing an argument is to demonstrate a lack of impact. An advocate may argue something is true, but give no reason why we should care. If there is no reason to care, or no impact, that will often make the argument far less important or damaging.
• Links: You should always look for weak causal links in your opponent’s presentation. Be especially wary of a case that argues the world will end if we act or believe a certain way. An example from the Brotherhood would be the closure of one unit leading to the downfall of the Brotherhood as a whole. Often such drastic argumentation includes faulty reasoning. You simply need to point out where the weak links are and offer some possible alternative explanations.

Disbar the Argument: A third strategy of refutation is to disbar the argument, which involves showing that the support for the argument is defective or of questionable integrity. Using this strategy, the advocate maintains that his or her opponent’s claim should not be accepted because of the suspect evidence on which it is based. Notice that the advocate is not saying that the argument is not true or that even if it is true that there is little importance. Rather, they are maintaining the burden of proof for acceptance of the argument has not been met. There are many ways to disbar an argument. They include denying the connection between the claim and the evidence, questioning the authority of the evidence, and questioning the logic the opponent uses.

III - Four Step Refutation

In order to refute successfully, the advocate should follow a clear organizational format. Regardless of how good the refutation is, it will be wasted if it is presented in a disorganized manner. Four step refutation asks the debaters to use the following four steps: first, to briefly identify the opponent’s argument; second, to briefly introduce your argument; third, to give evidence or analysis; and, finally, to offer an impact or summary statement. Throughout the debate, it is necessary to state clearly what point you are arguing.

Preparing for Counter Refutation

When you engage in a debate, whether as an affirmative or negative, you must not only anticipate what arguments your opponent will likely bring up so that you may prepare for your refutation, but you must also expect that your arguments will be refuted by your opponents. In other words, you must prepare for counter refutation. The process of refutation and counter-refutation is continuous throughout a debate. You must not only be aware of what you are refuting, but you must also pay close attention to what your opponents are refuting and then counter-refute accordingly. As you prepare for the debate, you should also be preparing for what you will say in response to your opponent’s refutation. This is somewhat analogous to chess. In chess, you must look into the future and anticipate your opponent’s moves. You must not only try to attack your opponent, but you must also defend from counter attacks he or she may make. When you construct your arguments, you need to keep in mind you plan on defending them for the remainder of the debate.

Preempting Potential Arguments

One way to refute your opponent is to build refutation into your original argument. This is known as preempting an argument. Either the affirmative or negative can do this.

Is it a good idea to preempt arguments? There is no clear answer. However, a good rule of thumb is as follows: if you are sure that your opponent will raise a particular argument, then preempting might be a good strategy. Similarly, if you are sure that the audience or critic will be raising this argument subjectively, even if your opponent doesn’t raise it, then it is probably a good idea to preempt it. However, if you are not sure that your opponent will raise the issue nor sure that the audience will think of it, then you are probably better off not preempting the argument. No need to plant seeds of doubt where none existed before. Of course, you cannot preempt every argument. Even if you could, it doesn’t mean that your opponent would not raise the argument anyway.

Five-Step Counter Refutation

You should always begin refutation by briefly restating the original argument. This should be done by referring to any number of points used by the previous speakers. After reminding the audience of your original argument, tell us what your opponents argued on that point, then give us your claim, proof and summary of the proof. Using this format, you are performing five-step counter refutation. Debaters should always do the same thing for every single point making up their original position, even where an opponent missed a point or sub-point. In that case, you should simply note that you’re winning that point due to your opposition dropping the argument. You should also tell the critic why that dropped argument is important to the debate.

The job of the following speakers is two-fold, however. Not only must one rebuild their own case, but you must also refute all attacks. You must remember to do both refuting and rebuilding. A common error is doing one but not the other. A rule of thumb to follow is to argue one point at a time and refute their attacks first, then rebuild with new proof last. Often, re-explaining your original evidence can be an effective way of refuting negative attacks. Then, when offering further proof, you will make your argument look even stronger. Remember, you must be sure to extend your original arguments; Do not simply repeat the argument, but give some new insights or new analysis as to why your position is best.

Point Out Errors in Opposing Refutation

One good way to help you counter-refute is to remember a few tricks of the trade. Remember the three D’s of refutation: Deny, Diminish, and Disbar can be used in counter refutation.

Arguing that there is no threshold when the negative makes an argument can be a good way of defeating their argument. Let’s say that the negative argues that the affirmative value of equality is going to move us towards a tyrannous government and society. You could simply argue that the negative did not provide a threshold: once society passes that threshold, tyranny results. In other words, ask the judge how much equality we need before tyranny occurs. You could point out that the negative never proved what the threshold would be.

You may also argue that your opponent’s refutation is non-unique. If the cause of whatever harm is being claimed is already present in the status quo, it is non-unique. This means that if the harm is already there, then the cause is not your proposal. Also, if the cause is already there and the harm isn’t, it is also non-unique.

In addition, you could show that your arguments are of a conditional nature. This means that you are arguing an either/or position. This argument would state that even if one thing is true, which is not being granted, the harm wouldn’t be caused by it. This way you are not only denying the argument, but saying that even if the argument were true, it wouldn’t have any impact.

You can also turn arguments and demonstrate lack of impact as discussed previously.

IV - Policy Refutation

When debating a resolution of policy, refutation becomes far more strategic. Unlike in arguments supporting value or fact resolutions, some arguments in policy are easier to refute than others. Refutation in a policy round focuses primarily on the stock issues: Harms, Inherency, Plan, Solvency. By taking out only one of these, the negative can win the debate. Most refutation in a policy round will often focus on Plan and Solvency issues as opposed to Harms and Inherency.

This is most often the case because the harms, or bad things that are going on, are rarely able to be denied. For example: A case involves problems with the Dark Brotherhood’s website and the harms is that the website being down makes it difficult for members to co-ordinate their activities. It is nearly impossible to deny that this harm exists. Given that you are left at most with solely arguments focusing on diminishing the harms or disbarment, it is difficult to take out an opponent's harms – but not impossible.

Inherency issues focus solely on why the harms are not being solved already, and are second only to harms in the difficulty to refute. In the above example, the inherency might be the limited number of members of the Brotherhood with the expertise in web coding to fix the harms. If the harms exist, it is highly unlikely that one would be able to successfully attack the case’s inherency.

Given these two realities, some of the most effective arguments to make to refute a policy case is to focus on solvency. The negative can easily attempt to deny that the plan itself will actually lead to the harms being remedied. No matter how much of an impact the harms have, there is no reason to implement a policy that has no chance of fixing them. In addition, arguments to diminish solvency are also highly effective. If the plan only solves for 5 people out of the 100 that are being harmed, it isn’t a very good plan to implement.

The second most effective place to refute a resolution of policy is directly refuting the plan itself. Instead of attacking the plan’s ability to solve, the plan might have problems with implementation. With the website example, the plan might be to hire a full time employee to service the Dark Brotherhood’s website and fix any problems. However, this might not be workable given the costs of such a proposal. If the plan is problematic, the policy case would not meet the burdens of the affirmative.

V - Conclusion

The techniques discussed in this course apply to all forms of debate, whether it be factual, value, or policy in nature. There are many other approaches that you can take. The lines of argument discussed in this course are merely suggestive of the ways that an advocate can refute and counter-refute the arguments made by their opponents.