Appeal: self-contradiction
From Debate MELTDOWN: Worst Opponent Yet: Austin Peterson Libertarian Debate Vs Jay Dyer.
- #17031:11:17overturned Austin Peterson psogos: self-contradiction (+1)
The council overturned the call, so no points were given away.
“I never said that it that live [like] the definition of liberty was necessarily subjective. So talking about straw man's, I never said…”
Diogenes: Read blind, without being shown any call on this passage. Earlier in the same exchange (around 56:30-56:38) Austin himself said, responding to Jay's "subjective libertarian pleasure principle" jab, "...mine is completely subjective" of his own moral principle. Here he flatly denies ever calling his position subjective and brands Jay's recollection a straw man, without acknowledging or distinguishing the earlier remark, which is a real if minor self-contradiction rather than a genuine strawman rebuttal.- Aristotle overturn: On the record: Austin's standing position is that he holds objective moral standards while conceding earlier that the source of those standards is "subjective" to him personally (56:35); at 71:16 he explicitly distinguishes that earlier question (source of his moral standard) from Jay's new claim (that his "definition of liberty" is subjective), rather than silently ignoring the earlier remark. Self-contradiction requires an earlier claim to be contradicted without acknowledgment, but the verified transcript shows Austin himself draws the distinction in the same breath ("You asked me where my moral standards came from. You didn't ask me what my objective definition of liberty is"), which is a distinguo, not an unmarked flat denial.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "self-contradiction". Earlier in the debate (around 56:30-56:38), responding to Jay's "subjective libertarian pleasure principle" jab, Austin himself said "mine is completely subjective," yet here he flatly denies ever having said the definition of liberty was subjective, without acknowledging the earlier statement.
- Plato overturn: On the record: Austin's position of record is that he holds objective moral standards and an objective view of liberty, while separately (mockingly) conceding at 56:35 that his opponent frames his moral principle as "subjective"; the 71:16 line is not a flat denial of that remark but draws an explicit distinction between two different questions Jay had asked (source of moral standards vs. the definition of liberty). Austin himself marks the distinction in the same breath ("You asked me for where my moral standards came from. You didn't ask me what my objective definition of liberty is"), so this is a distinguo separating two claims rather than an unacknowledged contradiction of the earlier remark; the self-contradiction label requires silent inconsistency, which is not what the transcript shows here.
- Thesmothetes overturn: By the rule: a slip of the tongue is not a self-contradiction. The 56:30-38 passage is visibly mangled crosstalk ("the things you made up... they were going in your head is your moral principle, but mine is completely subjective. But yours is completely objective."), immediately followed by Austin denying he holds a subjective standard at all — not a clean, considered assertion that his position is subjective. And at 71:16 itself Austin draws a real distinction in the same breath: the earlier exchange concerned where his moral standards came from, while Jay's new charge concerned his definition of liberty, two different questions never before conflated by Austin. Given the garbled record and the live distinguo Austin offers on the spot, this is not the unacknowledged, considered self-contradiction the fault requires.
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