Dictionary.

com defines ought as used to express duty or moral obligation

Prefer this definition:
1. Common usage: Dictionary.com is the most popular online dictionary.
2. Predictability: Its the first definition that comes up on a Google search.
Prefer common usage because words gain meaning through usage. Without usage, words are
meaningless.
The affirmative burden is to prove that there is a moral obligation for governments to require that
employers pay a living wage. If there is no such thing as a moral obligation, its impossible for us
to be morally obligated to take an action. To negate means to nullify1 so any argument
proving the resolution not true is sufficient to negate.
Different incompatible theories points to the non-existence of moral fact. Philosophical dialectics
are only apparent. The theories that philosopher purport to prove are merely constructed to suit
the psychological needs of philosophers. Leiter 1
Leiter, Brian. Moral Skepticism and Moral Disagreement: Developing an Argument from Nietzsche. March 25, 2010. Brian Leiter (born 1963) is
an American philosopher and legal scholar who is currently Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law
School, and founder and Director of Chicago's new Center for Law, Philosophy, and Human Values. He taught for two years at the University of
San Diego School of Law, and was also a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, San Diego. He earned
his Bachelor of Arts in philosophy from Princeton University and both his J.D. and Ph.D. (in philosophy) from the University of Michigan.

How do these considerations, elliptical as some of them are, support a skeptical conclusion about the objective existence of moral facts? The
Sophists, on Nietzsches account, advance two related claims: (1) that every

morality can be dialectically justified

[but] and; (2) that all attempts to give reasons for morality are necessarily sophistical, where sophistical [has] is
obviously meant to have the pejorative connotation that the apparent dialectical justification does not, in fact, secure the truth of
the moral propositions so justified. The purported dialectical justification can fail in this way if either it is not a valid argument or
some of the premises are false. But, then, what is the force of the claim that every morality can be dialectically justified? It must obviously be
that every

morality can have the appearance of being dialectically justified, either because its logical

invalidity is not apparent or, more likely in this instance, because its premises, while apparently acceptable, are not true . Yet Nietzsche
goes further when he asserts that the second claimnamely, that all attempts to give reasons for morality are necessarily sophisticalis
established (proved [bewiesen] he says) by the work of the philosophers from Plato through to Kant. But in what sense do the moral
philosophies of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Hutcheson, Mill, Kant, and Schopenhauer et al. establish or prove that all attempts to give reasons
for morality are necessarily sophistical? Nietzsches thought must be that all these philosophers

appear to provide
dialectical justifications for moral propositions, but that all these justifications actually fail. But that still does not
answer the question of how the fact of there being all these different moral philosophies proves that they are sophistical,
i.e., that they do not, in fact, justify certain fundamental moral propositions? Heres how the Nietzschean explanation might
go. The existence of incompatible moral philosophies providing dialectical justifications for moral propositions is
best explained as follows: (1) there are no objective facts about fundamental moral propositions,
such that (2) it is possible to construct apparent dialectical justifications for moral propositions, even
though (3) the best explanation for these theories is not that their dialectical justifications are sound but that they
answer to the psychological needs of philosophers. And the reason it is possible to construct
apparent dialectical justification for differing moral propositions is because, given the diversity of psychological needs of
1 The American Heritage Dictionary, Negate. 4th ed. Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009.

persons (including philosophers), it

is always possible to find people for whom the premises of these dialectical
justifications are acceptable.
Moreover, the competing traditions indicate that philosophical discussions arent moving us any
closer to a true morality. Leiter 2
Leiter, Brian. Moral Skepticism and Moral Disagreement: Developing an Argument from Nietzsche. March 25, 2010.
With respect to very particularized moral disagreements e.g., about questions of economic or social policy which often trade on obvious
factual ignorance or disagreement about complicated empirical questions, this seems a plausible retort. But for over two

hundred
years, Kantians and utilitarians have [developed] been developing increasingly systematic versions of
their respective positions. The Aristotelian tradition in moral philosophy has an even longer history. Utilitarians [They] have become
particularly adept at explaining how they can accommodate [others] Kantian and Aristotelian intuitions about particular cases and issues, though
in ways that are usually found to be systematically unpersuasive to the competing traditions and which, in any case, do nothing to dissolve the
disagreement about the underlying moral criteria and categories. Philosophers

in each tradition increasingly talk

only to each other, without even trying to convince those in the other traditions. And while there
may well be progress within traditions e.g., most utilitarians regard Mill as an improvement on Bentham
there does not appear to be any progress [towards] in moral theory, in the sense of a consensus that
particular fundamental theories of right action and the good life are deemed better than their predecessors. What we find now
are simply the competing traditions Kantian, Humean, Millian, Aristotelian, Thomist, perhaps now even Nietzschean who
often view their competitors as unintelligible or morally obtuse, but dont have any actual arguments
against the foundational principles of their competitors. There is, in short, no sign I can think of none that
we are heading towards any epistemic rapprochement between these competing moral
traditions. Are we really to believe that hyper-rational and reflective moral philosophers, whose lives, in most
cases, are devoted to systematic reflection on philosophical questions, many of whom (historically) were independently
wealthy (or indifferent to material success) and so immune to crass considerations of
livelihood and material self-interest, and most of whom, in the modern era, spend professional
careers refining their positions, and have been doing so as a professional class in university settings for well over a century
are we really supposed to believe that they have reached no substantial agreement on any foundational moral principle
because of ignorance, irrationality, or partiality?

(1) even if the actor unit sees the resolution as something good, they are merely permitted to take
that action, but there is no force out there to say they are morally obligated to do so everyones free
to do what they want.
(3) the resolution wouldnt be true because the converse of the resolution is just as valid, and since
the resolution is phrased as an objective statement, you would negate.
(3) This applies to legal obligations as well since my argument is the right thing, even in a legal
sense, cant exist universally. But, these would devolve into moral obligations anyway since we
create laws for our societies based on if theyre good or bad, but that is relative to interpretation.
And, presume neg

1) Burden of proof. They have the theoretical burden to prove the res true, so if theres no
offense, then theres no reason to believe the truth of the resolution, and you negate.
2) Strategy skew.
a. aff speaking first, setting the terms for the debate, forcing the neg to shift strategy.
b. aff speaking last, allowing it to have the last word and do meta-weighing between
1ar and NR weighing on theory and substance.
c. aff getting more speeches, meaning more strategic ability to kick stuff, develop
new positions, and choose outs

Skep Outweighs Theory

a) Skep denies objective obligations which takes out the arg about what you have to do as a
judge based on your ballot question
b) Fairness is a normative concept if equality isnt objective valuable you dont need to
vote on the theory argument
c) Skep is especially true on theory because truth literally varies from round to round
plans can be good in one but not in another

The living wage increases job loss, as employees are replaced with technology in order for
businesses to save money. Sherk (2013):
A recent study by the Heritage Foundation concluded that the current proposal before Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from
$7.25 to $10.10 per hour would likely eliminate an estimated 300,000 jobs per year and lower the national gross domestic product by an
average of $40 billion per year. The negative effects on employment are likely to be more profound in the long run, as employers shift to
labor-saving methods of production when labor costs rise. ATMs

have replaced many bank tellers, cashiers

have been swapped for self-serve checkouts at grocery and convenience stores, and gas
jockeys have been eliminated in most areas where they are not legally mandated. In occupations
where most work is repetitive, It is cost-effective for an employer to respond to higher labor costs by
substituting technology for employees. This means occupations consist- ing of routine tasksthe jobs most
likely to be held by less experienced and less educated individualsare also the most likely
to be replaced by technology as employers make investments to adapt to higher labor costs
associated with an increased minimum wage.
The living wage will accelerate the process of robotic advancement, as employers will have an
incentive to invest in the software used for robotics in order to make their companies more
productive. PTC:
Like other assets, time and technology advancements cause breakdowns, incompatibility and, in the case of software, security
vulnerabilities. However, software

is unique because there is an opportunity to leverage continuous

improvements that strengthen the initial investment. Fully capitalizing on the unique
nature of software does not happen by accident. Maximizing productivity gains, reducing
downtime and driving innovation should be well planned activities within a strategic
initiative. The best way to increase value from software is to do so throughout its entire
lifecycle.
As software becomes more advanced, the robots created from it will cause extinction..
Third, the instrumental convergence thesis entails that we cannot blithely assume that a
superintelligence with the final goal of calculating the decimals of pi (or making paperclips,
or counting grains of sand) would limit its activities in such a way as not to infringe on
human interests. An agent with such a final goal would have a convergent instrumental
reason, in many situations, to acquire an unlimited amount of physical resources and, if
possible, to eliminate potential threats to itself and its goal system. Human beings might
constitute potential threats; they certainly constitute physical resources.
Taken together, these three points thus indicate that the

first superintelligence may shape the future of Earth-originating life,

could easily have non-anthropomorphic final goals, and would likely have instrumental reasons to pursue openended resource acquisition. If we now reflect that human beings consist of useful resources (such as conveniently located atoms) and that
we depend for our survival and flourishing on many more local resources, we can see that

the outcome could easily be

one in which humanity quickly becomes extinct---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AT - Keep robots in a controlled environment until they are deemed friendly

The flaw in this idea is that behaving nicely while in the box is a convergent instrumental
goal for friendly and unfriendly AIs alike. An unfriendly AI of sufficient intelligence
realizes that its unfriendly final goals will be best realized if it behaves in a friendly manner
initially, so that it will be let out of the box. It will only start behaving in a way that reveals
its unfriendly nature when it no longer matters whether we find out; that is, when the AI is
strong enough that human opposition is ineffectual.

AT - Intelligence tests or rate of progress reports

Consider also a related set of approaches that rely on regulating the rate of intelligence gain in a seed AI by subjecting it to various kinds

At some point, an unfriendly AI

may become smart enough to realize that it is better off concealing some of its capability
gains. It may underreport on its progress and deliberately flunk some of the harder tests, in
order to avoid causing alarm before it has grown strong enough to attain a decisive
strategic advantage. The programmers may try to guard against this possibility by secretly
monitoring the AFs source code and the internal workings of its mind; but a smart- enough
AI would realize that it might be under surveillance and adjust its thinking accordingly. The AI might find subtle ways of concealing its true capabilities and its incriminating
intent. - (Devising clever escape plans might, incidentally, also be a convergent strategy for many types of friendly AI, especially as
of intelligence tests or by having the AI report to its programmers on its rate of progress.

they mature and gain confidence in their own judgments and capabilities. A system motivated to promote our interests might be making a
mistake if it allowed us to shut it down or to construct another, potentially unfriendly AI.)

A. Interpretation: On the January to February 2015 NSDA Lincoln Douglas debate topic,
debaters must specify multiple employers. To clarify, debaters must not read evidence
from only one employer.
B. Violation: My opponent specifies ______
C. Standards:
1. Textuality:
Cambridge Dictionary2: Nouns can be either singular or plural. Singular means just one
of the person, animal or thing which the noun refers to. Plural means more than
one.

The resolution specifically says Just governments ought to require that employers pay a living
wage. The s at the end of employer makes it a plural noun. Thus, there is a reason why the
resolution does not say a employer.
2. Predictability: If my opponent doesnt follow the text of the resolution, theres no way
for me to reasonably predict what he is running. Thus, he will have infinite prep
because he knows what he is running and I will have no prep because none of my
arguments will be applicable to his case. Predictability is key to fairness because if I
have no prep and my opponent has infinite prep, its impossible for me to win.
3. Ground Skew: If my opponent doesnt follow the text of the resolution, he has infinite
ground because he can debate about anything he wants. My opponent can write his
case on a resolution that clearly flows AFF and has no NEG ground. Furthermore, by
not debating the resolution, my opponent skews my ground because I dont have any
preparation on his resolution and thus all of my cases and blocks will be nonresponsive. Ground Skew is the key to fairness because I cant win if I dont have
anything to debate about and my opponent will automatically win if they have infinite
ground.

2 http://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/grammar/british-grammar/nouns-singular-and-plural