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Opportunity cost (long)
CAVEAT: The following is what I, in my humble opion, believe is the
justification for fiated opportunity cost counterplans. Because this
thread was started by Bryant directed to Korcok, I ask that my opinons not
dilute any future posts by Korcok, since he is the authorative on the
subject.
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I view the Affirmative plan as the first and foremost opportunity test.
It's purpose is to test the default (presumption) policy of embracing the
SQ. The Aff plan world and the real world are competitve, you can't do
nothing and do something at the same time, and the SQ is non topical
because the resolution requires something to be done. Permutations between
the SQ and the Aff plan exist in the form of intrinsticness/inherency
arguments. (i.e., Aff plan creates security alliance with Japan. The
advantage is not inherent b/c US and Japan already have a security
alliance.)
Bryant's main criticism of opportunity cost fiat is that it artificially
severs the propensity aspect of opportunity analysis. My response is that
the opportunity lost is one lost by the judge and not by real world
actors. It seems that the different types of descion makers must first be
realized. The first decision maker is the judge, master of the debate
world, while the others are in the real world, like the United States
Federal government. An opportunity cost is an opportunity lost by the
judge, NOT by other real world actors. So propensity debates should be
over what propensity the judge has in voting for a policy. For instance, a
tabula rasa judge has as much propensity to vote for a plan as she/he does
for a counterplan. But if the Aff wins that the counterplan doesn't solve,
then the counterplan loses some propensity as an opportunity cost.
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The dichotomy:
OPPORTUNITY COST: opportunity lost by the judge. (i.e., Counterplan:
Voting for policy X prevents the judge from voting for the more desirable
policy Y)
DIRECT COST: opportunity lost by the real world. (i.e., Trade-off disad:
Voting for the policy X prevents the USFG from doing the more desirable
policy Y)
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So what is the purpose of fiat? I believe it's purpose is to spike out the
could/would fallacy. Again, there are two types of could/would argments.
On one, it argues that real world actors could/would not do the policy
presented. The other type is where the judge could/would not do the same
policy. For instance, resolutional kritiks argue that the judge should not
vote for the plan because the resolution can not be debated. The
resolution kritik doesn't argue that the plan is undesirable, but rather
that the _resolution_ is undesirable. The story goes that if the negative
wins then the judge could/would not continue the debate round. Therefore,
the judge could/would not vote for the plan. (The negative may be arguing
that the judge SHOULD not vote for the resolution, but since this argument
is a priori, then this argument is either won or loss before the judge
decides the Aff plan. If the negative wins a priori that the round
shouldnt be debated out, then the judge could/would not vote for the
plan.)
I believe that it is the role of fiat to spike out both types of
could/would fallacies. That means fiat circumvents resolutional kritiks.
Severing both types of could/would fallices is desirable because both
destract from the resolutional question. This has parallels to the real
world. For instance I ask you, "Who would you kill?" The resolutional
question. Your immeditae response is a resolutional kritik which says,
"That is a stupid question and should not be answered. You and I would
never kill and to discuss the matter desensitizes killing." My response is
fiat. "But pretend that you had to kill." It doesnt exactly answer the rez
kritik, but fiat overcomes it so that the focus can be over the merits of
the resolution, not over the merits of actually debating the resolution.
This all can be condensed into one resolutional question. "If you had to
kill someone, who would you kill?"
Afirmative fiats utility is in elliminating could/would debates. But if
the Affirmative can argue could/would arguments against the counterplan,
then the Affs fiat has lost its utility. Therefore the negative must have
fiat as well, whether they use opportunity cost or not. (And as I've
already proven, the marrage of fiat and opportunity cost doesnt destroy
the theeoretical justifications for it)
Bryant responds that opportunity cost fiat leads to abuses. This is
non-unique since fiat is abused already without opportunity cost. Further,
as stated earlier, the plan is also an opportunity cost. They have the
potential of abusing their fiat. But that potential is substantially
curtailed by topicality. Likewise, negative fiating ability is curtailed
by a recirocal concept of fiat. And the posible plans that can be fiated
are limited to those that compete and are non-topical.
Bryant gave the example of the Russinan army helping sheepboy rescue his
sheep. Yes, its abusive, but it should be rejected because it is not an
opportunity lost. The Russina army c/plan uses an abusisve non-recirocal
fiat. Further it is non-competitve because the russians can team up with
sheep boy to save the sheep.
I think a spin to Bryants example would be if the Aff plan was to have the
russian army save the sheep. It seems abusive, but what the affirmative
has done is set the limits to what fiat can and cannot do. In response to
the Aff plan, the c/plan can have the US army resue the sheep.
lucius K
George Mason U.
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Archive created by Jonathan Stanton (jonathan@cs.jhu.edu)
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