The Jan-Feb Lincoln Douglas topic

[WildCardJack]

Resolution: Corporations ought to be held to the sme moral standards as individuals.

well, any ideas anyone? seems like its very messy, and a lot of people are going stock issues and definitions, or the "morality doesn't exist" kritik (ew.) so.....anyways, all ive got is basically, is this crappy flow of ideas, no where near in case form...

aff: equality, and crap. corporations are made of individuals. corporations need to be treated the same, seeing as how much of an affect they have ON individuals. individuals set the standards on them anyway through a free market society (but the resolution doesnt say free market....so, that ones screwed over).it helps them get money to appeal to their customers again. (kind of cold hearted, but provides a good practical reason for this to benefit the corporations).

neg: veiw one: unfair to the individuals who are part of the corporation, but did nothing wrong. veiw 2: they should be held to HIGHER standards. have more of an effect, can do more. groups more dangerous that individuals, hold sway in society. people can hide their individual actions in a group.

last thing: wtf is up with the "corporation is defined as any group" thing?  

[TempestRising]

A fellow LD debater on Gaia ::drifts off into dream world::

Anyways I don't find this topic particularly bad considering the others we've had..... (that domestic violence thing got pretty messy at some points)

I'm dithering over a definition of corporation. Since it can be defined so many different ways (barring the legal definition) it makes sense to just define it in the context of your case.

On the neg, I don't think the higher standards argument is a good idea. The affirmative can then say, that by holding them to higher standards, you are still meeting the standards of individuals. Therefore you are affirming, even if you do go above and beyond what is expected.

Hope that helped a bit 3nodding

 

[WildCardJack]

thanx, used my new cases last week, and found that on neg, it was best to use the perspective that definitions didn't matter and stick to stock issues with such a messy resolution (though i do agree domestic violence was pretty bad too, hit a few who claimed yelling was violence stare ) anyways, another thing that worked well with neg was the globilization argument, that it was too hard to hold multinational globalized corporations to ONE society or another's standard. Also the fact that this meant you were looking at the corporation AS an individual, and then you can make the culpability argument about punishing unwilling and unknowing members of the corporation. Then i found i really interesting perspective, that laws and moral standards are based on moral theory created BEFORE corporation's rise, and looked a lot of the time at sitution and motive, and since there are so many, often conflicting, motives and situations within a corporation, a single action, can't be traced to it's source, and judged on the proper basis. However, all of this hinges on the crucial definition of a corporation, like you said,i put mine as an observation rather than just a definition, describing why we have to look to legally chartered businessess for the definition, not say, a group of kids.

Aff was a little more tricky, basically just persuasion, with little matter on WHAT was in the case, stock issues, just basically that a corp IS made of indvuals, with a observation blocking agaisnt the neg culpability argument.

p.s. took your advice on the higher standards issue and watched someone else get crushed on it...heheh smile  

[umi237_v2.0]

I love this topic lol my aff is practically a neg (which gets really annoying when people don't understand what you're trying to say stressed ) I use nihilism as weighed by the individual basically corporations should be allowed to do what they want because there is no standard of moralty for individuals and thus the corporations should decide their own morality and the only way for the neg to come back at that is to say that morality is objective which is a VERY bad negative stance unless well prepared as most negs follow that truth is subjective so that's how I handled my aff it actually made things alot easier lol and as for the argument that a corporation is made up of individuals that isn't really a valid point because the technically the word you're looking for is a nexus because arguing the way I'm asuming you're going to be using it leaves room for your opponent to find issue in the fact that a safeway CEO could have just as much impact as one of the bag-boys but this is just my opinion lol not like it matters though since Feb is almost over ^^  

[WildCardJack]

hahah, you're one of those people who use the "no standard of morality" argument, i really dont like that argument, but i've never seen it in an aff, thats interesting. I have a block for it in my aff, but not my neg, i guess the only thing the neg could say, is that the law imposes a standard of morality, even if one doesnt exist, and that we shold assume the law is what's holding the corporations, because a corporation is a legal body, and if the law is holding the corp, they can't hold them right because, as you say there IS no moral standard. You say they SHOULD hold themselves to standards (just as individuals do), but i think the resolution implies a third party, and since corporations are under the law, the law would be that party. it all depends on how the judge feels the resolution should be interpreted. That is a really cool argument though.

i thought of using a "everything is automatically held to a standard by it's society, whether officially or not, based upon how consumers act toward corps they auto automatically hold them to their own standards...."
but didn't have time to develop it..  

[Buroabenteuer]

Did the fact that in America corporations have the legal rights as an individual come into play at all?  

[WildCardJack]

only a tiny bit. status quo doesnt really matter. just because it happens doesnt mean its right/wrong..... it becomes irrelavent. plus just because America does it doesnt mean its right either. again....becomes irrelavent.  

[Buroabenteuer]

WildCardJack

only a tiny bit. status quo doesnt really matter. just because it happens doesnt mean its right/wrong..... it becomes irrelavent. plus just because America does it doesnt mean its right either. again....becomes irrelavent.

Meh, since morality is so hard to pin down, I figured a debate on standards would have to involve the law to some degree, and legally, corporations have the same rights as individuals without the same restrictions, so to speak, so while winning a debate being the point causes this to be effectively irrevelant, fundamentally I think its at the core of the question itself, and I personally would have brought it up just to see where it was taken.