First of all: Respect.
If you’ve made it this far, that should mean:
- You’ve prepped 14+ speeches using linear flow argument structure.
- You’ve listened to 14+ speeches on Youtube to learn from experienced debaters.
- You’ve spread this practice out across two weeks, allowing the material to stick to your brain.
- Which means: You’ve probably spent anywhere between 7-14 hours practicing!
Give yourself a pat on the back. This is not easy work! I’m proud of you for investing in your debate performance in the long-term.
What is rebuttal?
The reality is, most debaters know how to make smart, logical arguments. Therefore, even if you master generating arguments, you still need to help a judge decide between your strong arguments and an opponent’s strong arguments. Rebuttal is the key to ‘breaking the deadlock’: rebuttal is an argument which undermines how persuasive an opponents’ argument is to a judge. It is the most important part of debating.
But what makes an argument persuasive? At this point, you will have a sense of it.
- A persuasive argument makes a judge genuinely believe your mechanism will lead to an impact.
- A persuasive argument has an impact that the judge considers is important (maybe you effect the most people, maybe you effect the most vulnerable people, and so on.) (We will talk more about ‘importance’ in Lesson 3.)
As such, there are two types of rebuttal: undermining truthfulness, and undermining importance.
How to undermine importance:
Refutation which undermines importance is commonly known as ‘mitigation,’ because it concedes the opponent’s impact will happen, but it tries to prove that impact is relatively less valuable than your own impacts. It is the simplest way of refuting, and often the most common because you only have to do one thing:
- Point out other overwhelming reasons that an opponent’s impact will happen.
Worked example: THO organized religion
Opp argument: Organized religion is useful for charitable reasons. If you fear something worse than death, then you donate more often.
Gov response (undermining importance): NGOs exist and they are likely to fill in the holes left by organized religious charity, so this is not an important impact even if it is true.
How to undermine truthfulness:
This is the more ‘classic’ form of rebuttal, but it has become less popular recently. (We talk more about the decreasing popularity of rebuttal in this article, but read it after you read this one, ok?). You can do two different things with this type of rebuttal:
- Prove that the opponent’s impact will not happen and/or identify missing logical links that are required to make an argument true.
- Prove that an impact the other side claims is good is actually bad. Also known as a ‘flip’ because a debater is turning an argument against their opponent. “Your argument is right but that is actually a bad thing.”
Confused? Here are examples to help illustrate the differences:
Opponent’s argument:
- We should ban zoos because they trap animals in small environments or even cages, which hurts their physical and mental health.
Refutation undermining importance (mitigation):
- There are strict regulations and standards in place to ensure the well-being of animals in captivity. Zoos provide veterinary care, balanced diets, and enrichment activities to keep animals physically and mentally healthy. Therefore, the claim that zoos inherently hurt the physical and mental health of animals lacks evidence and fails to consider the measures taken by reputable zoos.
Refutation undermining truthfulness:
- Classic refutation: Trapping animals in cages is unlikely to hurt their mental or physical health because animals enjoy small environments and cages. They are less overstimulated and have more time to relax, eat food, and enjoy the weather.
- Flip: In the wild, there are worse factors which also hurt an animals’ physical and mental health: they are less likely to have access to food and shelter (because of global warming drastically affecting weather), medicine, and more likely to be harmed by humans (because humans are willing to hurt animals which they fear/are annoyed by, and humans find some parts of animals valuable or the killing of animals fun). Therefore, the physical and mental health of zoo animals, if they were freed, are likely to be worse on the opponent’s side.
Piper’s Corner
Advanced insights from my cat, Piper, who wins every argument.
The strength of your refutation is based on the language you use.
These three types of refutation are artificial categories which are trying to show you the different options you have. Ultimately, they are similar refutation that are worded differently.
The flip I just wrote above can also just be mitigation!
Take a look: In the wild, there are other factors which also hurt an animals’ physical and mental health: they are less likely to have access to food and shelter (because of global warming drastically affecting weather), medicine, and more likely to be harmed by humans (because humans are willing to hurt animals which they fear/are annoyed by, and humans find some parts of animals valuable or the killing of animals fun). Therefore, the physical and mental health of zoo animals are likely to be quite bad on either side.
Similarly, the mitigation I wrote about regulations could be a flip. Can you think of how to do that?
Which refutation is better?
Depends on how your opponent refutes these examples! The third example seems to be stronger because it is explained in a way that effects ALL animals, seemingly regardless of circumstance. All animals are likely to suffer from global warming or direct human activity (albeit, in different ways). The first example seems a bit weaker because it is contingent upon zoos following regulations perfectly, and the regulations being sufficiently high-quality in the first place. Therefore, the second example is weaker because it seems far more vulnerable to classic refutation undermining its truthfulness.
Pairing refutation.
Oftentimes, pairing multiple types of refutation together is more persuasive than just a single response. In my experience, the top speakers start with undermining truthfulness (classic refutation) and then undermine importance.
Please read Lesson 2-2 for exercises related to refutation. There are no exercises for Lesson 2-1.
Now you are more familiar with, theoretically, how you should refute arguments. We will move onto practical considerations for structuring rebuttal next.
Next Lesson: Lesson 2-2: Identifying and structuring rebuttal
Buildacase 
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