JUSTIFICATION IS AN AFFIRMITAVE BURDEN

1. TOPICALITY IS AN INADEQUATE CHECK ON AFFIRMATIVE ABUSE

Empirically, affirmatives are able to meet the topicality burden in some specious or artificial
way, thus getting away with running an obviously non sequitur case. Topicality is too
permissive of a standard, which is why justification should be used as well.
2. RESOLUTIONAL INTEGRITY MANDATES THE AFFRIMITIVE JUSTIFICATION BURDEN
Failure to justify all the words in the r4esolution violates the integrity of the resolutions
focus. The resolution was intended to focus on a specific set of issues. Affirmatives that
dont justify the resolution fail to focus on the issues intended by the resolution.
3. JUSTIFICATION TESTS THE AFFIRMATIVES PROOF OF THE RESOLUTION
J. W Patterson, University of Kentucky and David Zarefsky, Northwestern University,
CONTEMPORARY DEBATE, 1983 p. 115
What is the function of Justification arguments? You should remember that the goal of
debate is to test the probably truth of the resolution. What the justification argument says,
in effect, is Even if we take the affirmative arguments at face value, they will not add up to
support of the particular resolution being discussed.
4. JUSTIFICATION IS A VOTING ISSUE
J. W Patterson, University of Kentucky and David Zarefsky, Northwestern University,
CONTEMPORARY DEBATE, 1983 p. 115
Since presumption is placed against the resolution, as we saw in Chapter 2, the negative
would profit from the argument that an alternative is equally good. This argument
establishes that there is no unique merit to the resolution and hence that presumption has
not been overcome. If affirmative arguments, even taken at face value, do not justify the
resolution, then there is no need to consider the substantive merit of the individual
arguments. Justification like topicality is a basic affirmative requirement.
5. POTENTIAL ABUSE DOES NOT DEJUSTIFY JUSTIFICATION
J. W. Patterson, University of Kentucky and David Zarefsky, Northwestern University,
CONTEMPORARY DEBATE 1983, p. 115
It is possible for the justification arguments (like any form of argument) to be poorly used.
The thorough testing of the resolution is ill served by a scenario in which the negative
mindlessly asks, Why the federal government? Why all citizens? Why in the United
States? Those undeveloped questions usually can be answered satisfactorily in an equally
skimpy way. But note to the potential abuse is not to argue against the Validity of the
justification arguments. It is to say that here, as elsewhere; a question that is not developed
into an argument will not accomplish much.
6. THE NEGATIVE HAS NO BURDEN TO ADVOCATE TESTS OF JUSTIFICATION
J. W. Patterson, University of Kentucky and David Zarefsky, Northwestern University,
CONTEMPORARY DEBATE 1983, p. 115
This criticism of justification arguments, though popular, seems to be based on a significant
confusion. Although the affirmative indeed is required to support the resolution, the
advocacy of a specific negative position is a strategic choice and is not required by the
negatives fundamental duty to oppose the resolution. It is possible to object the resolution
on the grounds that it is bad, without having any other alternatives in mind. One reason
that the resolution may be bad is that the arguments offered to support it can be used
equally well to support alternatives to it. Hence the presumption against the resolution has
yet to be overturned, since there is no unique merit to the resolution.

INTRINSIC JUSTIFICATION IS A LEGITAMATE BURDEN

1. INTRINSICNESS PRODUCES SUPERIOR EDUCATION
Debating about essential properties and necessary relationships is certain to be a more
meaningful educational experience than debating about accidental conditions that are
unlikely to continue to obtain. If nothing else, the learning derived from debating intrinsic
properties will be more durable and will retain utility for a longer period of time than learning
derived from debating accidental conditions.
2. NON INTRINSIC RELATIONSHIPS FAIL TO MEET THE BURDEN OF INHERENCY
J. W. Patterson, University of Kentucky and David Zarefsky, Northwestern University,
CONTEMPORARY DEBATE, 1983, p. 201
The next step in answering the basic inherency question is to see if the affirmative has
indeed established a casual relationship between the core of negative land and the problem.
It may not be necessary to change the core of negative land to correct the problem. For
example, if the federal government cannot or will not act, perhaps the state governments
can. Or, if the federal government is not acting in an affirmative direction under present
policy, perhaps it can act through another nonresolutional policy. Finally, if administrative
agencies cannot surmount the beauraucracy, then perhaps the courts can solve the
problem. All of these arguments are aimed at showing that forces outside the resolution
have the motives and/or means to solve the problem isolated by the affirmative.
3. INTRINSICNESS AS A BURDEN EHNANCES CLASH
Kenneth Bahm, Southern Illinois University, CEDA YEARBOOK, 1988, p. 28
Thus, rather than shifting the debate to a consideration of narrow examples, intrinsic
justification would employ tests which reveal and invalidate an opponents narrow and
contingent claims. In doing so, intrinsic justification arguments would lead to a focus on
those characteristics which are essential to the resolution and would promote clash at the
resolutional level.
4. CONTINGENT JUSTIFICATION AVOIDS CLASH
Kenneth Bahm, Southern Illinois University, ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCACY, Spring,
1991, p. 177
Fundamentally, the argument that contingent justification avoids clash is left intact. Hill and
Leeman do not deny that a team contingently supporting a resolution and a team
contingently denying a resolution may end up advancing arguments which do not clash:
drug testing without due process for the purpose of firing workers is bad, and drug testing
with due process for the purpose of rehabilitating workers is good.
5. EVEN IF ESSENCES CANNOT BE IDENTIFIED, NON-ESSENTIAL TRAITS CAN
Kenneth Bahm, Southern Illinois University, ARGUMENTATION AND ADVOCACY, Spring,
1991, p. 174
Granted, the determination of whether something is or is not an essential quality is not
always easy. But at most this argument means that we cannot give a full accounting of all
that is essential. We can, however, still advance the argument that a given quality is not
essential. This simply means that intrinsic justification (even if one takes the most dismal
view of our ability to articulate definitions) would, like topicality, function in a negative

fashion: focusing on the known violation, rather than on the state intrinsicness itself. To
meet the goal of promoting common ground, we must be able to identify what is contingent,
not what is intrinsic.
6. INTRINSICNESS SHOULD BE A VOTING ISSUE
Kenneth Bahm, Southern Illinois University, CEDA YEARBOOK, 1988, p. 28
Sine intrinsicness relates to the validity of resolutional interpretation, and since matters of
resolutional interpretation often determine what issues will be considered in a decision, it
seems that the issue of intrinsic justification, if developed in rounds, could be a central and
decisive issue.