Appeal: direct answer
From Debate MELTDOWN: Worst Opponent Yet: Austin Peterson Libertarian Debate Vs Jay Dyer.
- #76159:41upheld Austin Peterson epainos: direct answer (+1)
The council upheld the call: Austin Peterson earned 1 point.
“… as a man who got booed when I ran for president for saying you should not be allowed to sell drugs to children, I can tell you that there are moral standards and principles that you do not cross.”
Diogenes: Asked whether anything at all is off limits, he names a concrete line he has publicly defended at cost to himself, which is an answer to the question asked.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: S1 has held throughout that he believes in objective moral standards despite not being a social conservative; naming a concrete red line here is consistent with, not a departure from, that professed position. Asked directly whether there is any degeneracy he thinks society ought not pursue, Austin gives a concrete, specific line (opposing selling drugs to children) that he has publicly held at political cost — this answers the question actually asked, even though a separate, deeper question about the justification/basis for that line goes unanswered elsewhere.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "evidence", on the same ledger as the callout. Rather than merely asserting he holds moral standards, Austin points to a specific, checkable episode — being booed during his presidential run for opposing selling drugs to children — as evidence that he does draw real lines, distinguishing the general claim from a concrete instance.
- Plato uphold: On the record: S1 has held since early in the debate that there are moral standards he adheres to even without claiming to have fully worked out their metaphysical grounding; this is consistent with that stance, answering the narrower question of whether a line exists even as the deeper grounding question remains open. The immediate question at that point was whether pushing degeneracy on children is wrong / whether there is any line; Austin answers directly by naming a concrete, real-world stance he has publicly held at political cost, which is a genuine direct answer to the question asked, distinct from the later, unanswered demand for the metaethical basis of that line.
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