Instigator / Pro
7
1584
rating
29
debates
70.69%
won
Topic
#5813

It is more likely that Harris would have been a better president than Trump will be

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
0
Better sources
2
0
Better legibility
1
1
Better conduct
1
1

After 1 vote and with 5 points ahead, the winner is...

Moozer325
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Rated
Number of rounds
4
Time for argument
One week
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Minimal rating
None
Contender / Con
2
1389
rating
413
debates
44.55%
won
Description

I’m going to define “better” as having resulted in making a better quality of life for all people, not just Americans.

I did this same debate with someone else, and it was just confined to Americans, which made it harder since you couldn’t argue on the basis of foreign policy, so I’m going with this one. Tag me in the comment if you want to have a different one, I’m open to better definitions.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Pro's argument is a lot more focused here, and they start out citing a lot of sources to support their claims, while Con cites none. I also found a lot of Con's argumentation confusing, as he would make references to things like the unemployment rate without defending how Trump's policies affected it. Pro instantly comes to the table with a source and argumentation to dispute this argument.

By the end, Con leaves basically everything on the table except abortion, beyond a few rhetorical questions that don't compare to all the sources Pro is providing. The description states "a better quality of life for all people," so this depends on whether or not the fetus is a person. Both sides are kind of vague here and agree the fetus is a life but not a human. Then Pro calls it a baby, which seems useful to Con's case. There was more room to go into detail here, especially on the latter claim, but that's what I'm left with. Pro compares abortion to not saving someone from a burning building, but the description only talks about better quality of life. So as long as forcing people to save others from burning buildings raises the average quality of life for persons, then I should presumably favor Con on the abortion topic. But Con doesn't argue along these lines beyond stating that abortion destroys life and thus reduces aggregate quality of life. Neither side really weighs all these costs against each other beyond Pro's comparison to "a law mandating all people must become doctors and dedicate their lives to curing cancer."

In the end, I vote Pro. Personhood was the deciding factor for the abortion topic, and Pro makes enough analogies to house plants and non-persons that Con doesn't really dispute. Con's case for the immorality of abortion seems more to hinge on the fetus being a potential person, and regardless of whether we should normally care about potential persons, I can't weigh their interests in this debate. While Pro's analogies could be a lot more in-depth, Con leaves almost every other topic on the table without showing abortion to be more important than those other topics. By the end Pro decisively wins on everything except abortion, and Con doesn't decisively win on abortion (I think Pro even comes out ahead there by a bit.)