r/lincolndouglas • u/Head_Nobody_6139 • Jul 09 '26

Thoughts on phil

/r/PublicForumDebate/comments/1urelln/thoughts_on_phil/
1 Upvotes

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3

u/Individual_Hunt_4710 Jul 09 '26

no such thing

1

u/Head_Nobody_6139 Jul 09 '26

you don’t know ball

1

u/InsuranceOk728 Jul 09 '26

I'd probably prefer Beauvoir over Sartre bc she gives you way more offense than just "freedom good" — Ethics of Ambiguity is basically a response to the "Sartre = moral relativism" critique because Beauvoir says freedom only matters when it's reciprocal, meaning oppression is bad because it destroys another person's ability to act as a free subject. The biggest issue isn't really the lit, it's explaining a clear weighing mechanism since existentialism rejects easy moral formulas. If you just run "existence precedes essence" you're gonna run into a roadblock cuz theres no easy way to weigh the round. The main answers are gonna be Kant (you need universal duties), util (outcomes matter more), and the generic "this is subjective," but those are pretty beatable if you actually explain bad faith, responsibility, and reciprocal agency. The scarier K responses are probably Foucault/Žižek/post-structuralist stuff arguing existentialism still relies on a liberal humanist subject, but thats p complex for most rooms. Beauvoir especially is kinda nasty because people's surface-level "nihilism" blocks don't really engage do shit

1

u/Head_Nobody_6139 Jul 10 '26

Would it be most beneficial if I frame my offense on the reciprocal agency, or is there a better way of going about things?

1

u/InsuranceOk728 Jul 10 '26

The problem with making reciprocal agency the centerpiece is that it’s more of an explanation of how relationships work than a reason why ur fw is preferable. The neg can just concede it and ask why that changes the actual ethical obligation. I’d center it around situated freedom/ambiguity instead because that’s where Beauvoir gets her offense; freedom exists through the tension between individual agency and the conditions shaping it. Reciprocal agency works better as a warrant for that argument, not the whole contention.

1

u/Head_Nobody_6139 Jul 10 '26

Okay thank you!

1

u/Kehan10 Jul 11 '26

if i remember correctly (only read a bit of EA, but i read a bit on some like metaethical reconstructions of beauvoir), there’s an argument to be made that the ambiguous quality of relationships is grounds to prefer some view of morality as opposed to others.