APDA's format allows for an enormous variety of cases. This list is
not comprehensive, but should be treated as a general sketch of the case climate.
Public policy Cases about public policy are among the most common cases on APDA. They include common public policy debates (
school vouchers,
term limits,
euthanasia,
capital punishment, race-based
affirmative action) as well as more unconventional ideas (mandatory
organ donation,
proxy voting for children, private criminal prosecution, and innumerable others).
Libertarian policy proposals, such as abolishing the
minimum wage or abolishing
paternalistic laws, are particularly popular. Cases involving the policies of particular organizations are popular as well, such as debates surrounding university speech codes. Additionally, broad social questions can be discussed without centering the case around a government actor; “Are
trade unions, all things considered, a good thing for society?” is a perfectly acceptable opp-choice debate case.
Political theory Abstract questions about political philosophy are also popular topics of debate. Cases about the relative benefits of the
Rawlsian “
veil of ignorance” versus the
Hobbesian “
state of nature”, for instance, are commonplace. These rounds will generally be folded into moral hypotheticals; for instance, rather than a team actually proposing that the
veil of ignorance is a worthwhile political theory, a team might argue that economic human rights should be included in constitutions, and use the veil of ignorance as a justification.
Law and legal theory All aspects of law are fair game on APDA, including constitutional law (e.g. whether a Supreme Court case was wrongly decided), procedural law (e.g. whether standards of proof should differ for criminal and civil law) and abstract legal theory (e.g. whether
retributive justice is a moral justification for the
criminal justice system).
Foreign policy Many aspects of American and international foreign policy make for excellent debate rounds. Various aspects of policy related to
Iraq,
Israel,
North Korea, and
Cuba are frequent debate topics.
Moral hypotheticals Hypothetical moral dilemmas are popular topics for debate, given that they can be discussed with a minimum of specific knowledge and a maximum of argumentation. They can range from completely fantastical situations (“If you had definitive proof that one particular
religion was the true
religion, should you reveal it to society?”) to unlikely occurrences (“Should you kill one person to save five other people?”) to dilemmas we face every day (“You see a
homeless person on the street, should you give him money you have in your pocket?”) The infinite number of hypothetical situations that can give rise to moral dilemmas make many moral hypothetical cases unique.
Abstract philosophy Although somewhat less common than tangible moral hypotheticals, all aspects of philosophy make their way into debate rounds. Ethics is probably the most debated field of philosophy, including both abstract
metaethics and modern ethical problems like the
trolley problem. However,
philosophy of religion (“Is it rational to be an
atheist?”),
philosophy of mind (“Can a computer have mental states?”) and even
philosophy of language (“Does love result from appreciation of someone’s properties, or does appreciation of someone’s properties result from love?”) can result in excellent rounds.
Time-space One type of case, common on APDA but rare on other circuits, is the time-space case. This places the speaker in the position of some real-life, fictional, or historical figure. Only information accessible to a person in that position is legal in this type of round. For instance, “You are
Socrates. Don’t commit suicide” could not reference events that took place after
Socrates’ death. The speaker can be a fictional character (“You are
Homer Simpson. Do not
sell your soul”), a historical character (“You are
Abraham Lincoln. Do not sign the
emancipation proclamation”) or virtually any other sentient individual. One notable type of time-space case is the historical hypothetical case, in which decisions made by particular historical figures are debated from their historical context. Debates surrounding, for instance,
Civil War strategy or
World War I alliances are commonplace. These types of debates often require a detailed knowledge of history. Time-space cases are a particularly sensitive type of case for the government, because their setting must leave room for the opposition to defeat the case even if that would go against the historical outcome already known to everyone in the room. == History ==