Why Policy Debate needs Specification Arguments
In the last few posts, we discussed Trichotomy and Topicality arguments. Today, we tackle one of the more nuanced of the four Presumption arguments in Omni policy theory.
Specification: A Presumption argument claiming that the Plan was not presented in enough detail in the first speech that it can be fully evaluated in subsequent speeches.
Specification (or Spec) can be run against any case for any resolution, on either side. That said, it is rarely viable in contexts outside affirmative policy cases.
Spec arose in response to a shady affirmative tactic. It works like this:
Resolved: The judge should marry someone in the town of Lakewood.
Affirmative: Lakewood is full of wonderful people, and marriage is nice. We reserve the right to clarify our plan as needed.
Negative: Marrying this group of people would be a mistake. Marrying this group of people, too. Now let’s review the judge’s 5 closest friends in Lakewood. None of them are good marriage prospects.
Affirmative: Well, we support the judge marrying their SIXTH closest friend - someone against whom there are currently no arguments.
Negative: The round is half over! You’re just now telling us who you want the judge to marry?
Affirmative: Good luck assembling a negative case in the rebuttals, and thanks for wasting so much time earlier.
This is frustrating enough when it happens unintentionally. But some affirmatives take things further. They deliberately hide the details of their case, or even run cases with multiple possible meanings. They make the negative argue blind for at least a full speech, and then “reveal” the Plan they were advocating all along.
The key to understanding this argument: to the judge, it looks like harmless clarification. But behind the scenes, the affirmative is intentionally wasting everyone’s time. They're cynically undermining the whole process of debate.
There has to be a way to punish/prevent this behavior and force the affirmative to clarify in the first speech. That argument, of course, is Spec.
Come back soon for the full Spec breakdown.