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RE: opportunity benefits

Okay.  I'll repeat what I see as the justification for opportunity cost 
(which apparently differs from Bob Lechtreck's and may also differ from 
Michael Korcock's justification).

When the judge enters the room to judge a debate, he/she assumes a role. 
 That role may be and commonly is a policy-maker.  The role may also be one 
of intellectual endorsement, as David Rhaesa was kind enough to point out. 
 When fiat is viewed as an act of intellectual endorsement, it is sometimes 
more difficult to see that role because it parallels the current character 
of the judge... a thinking individual (hopefully).  However, the role is 
there.  Otherwise, judges would intervene against a position for objections 
they have that are not raised in a round.  Judges would intervene based on 
their personal feeling about the role.  So a judge viewing fiat as 
intellectual endorsement takes on a role of someone who chooses 
intellectual endorsement from the arguments in the round.  Either way, the 
judge takes a role.

Now let's look at the objection to opp cost.  Basically that is that neg 
would have to prove propensity for the counterplan to make the opportunity 
cost unique.  This basically assumes that the judge has a decision to make, 
after which the power by which that decision is made just isn't there and 
we revert to a status quo that is ignorant of the proceeding that have just 
taken place.  This assumption is unwarranted.  While the judge can't use 
the round to fiat extra-plan action, the role that the judge assumes will 
invariably continue to exercise fiat.  And the fact that the role has just 
rejected a possibility based upon another opportunity gives some legitimacy 
to the belief that the other opportunity has merit in the eyes of this 
empowered role.  The role will then intellectually endorse that other 
opportunity or enact that other opportunity in the future, unless future 
consideration of the option leads to another superior alternative, etc.

I still challenge anyone to provide a role assumed by a judge (or lack 
thereof) which is not continual in nature -- which exists then ceases to 
exist.  The CWC was a good try, but the situation is different in that

Opponents of opportunity cost place a restriction on the judge that this 
judge has only one act of fiat after which we revert to the status quo for 
the future.  Are these sorts of restrictions really the way to discover 
what the resolutional agent *should* do with regards to the affirmative 
plan?  Or do they address politics instead of policy analysis?

Now in light of that, what is your justification for opportunity benefits?

Chris Smith
Woodland Park HS Debate

"Love is apparently killed by time, only because it transcends time; and 
its spiritual and infinite essence cannot be contained with the limitations 
of a material and finite world."
	- Caroline Spurgeon, on Shakespeare's philosophy of love

-----Original Message-----
From:	Domenic M Battistella [SMTP:mattbatt@juno.com]
Sent:	Saturday, May 24, 1997 1:53 PM
To:	cdsmith@BRAIN.UCCS.EDU
Cc:	ndt-l@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU; ceda-l@cornell.edu
Subject:	Re: opportunity benefits


On Fri, 23 May 1997 23:29:18 -0600 Chris Smith <cdsmith@BRAIN.UCCS.EDU>
writes:
>There is definitely a defendable justification for considering
>opportunity
>costs, and I have defended it on the list.

Please, refresh my memory.  I can't seem to recall any justification.

>You really haven't given
>any
>justification for opportunity benefits except some vague concept of
>reciprocity.

Sure.  If you can claim that by stoping the opportunity for a more 
benificial policy to exist is the result of fiating the plan, no mater how
rediculous the odds of this option passing are, is a warrant for
rejecting the plan then why can't I claim that fiating the plan would
stop the opportunity for a detrimental policy to exist, no matter how
rediculous the odds of the status quo passing this option are, is a
warrant for accepting the plan.

>If this is true, I ask you to take my last justification
>for
>considering opp cost and apply it the other direction.

Which is?

>The best you
>get is
>a vague non-unique advantage that one less bad choice exists for
>policy
>makers, but so many bad choices exist anyway that it probably doesn't
>make
>a bit of difference.

Which is all you get with an opportunity cost counterplan.


>Chris Smith
>Woodland Park HS Debate


					Dom Battistella
					ODU Debate
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