Criteria Choices for LD Debate

Moral development theory that marks the development of stages of social responsibility as graduating from focusing on the self to focusing on the community and being "other oriented"

• Majority Rule
• Kohlberg's Moral Development Hierarchy
• Maslow's Hierarchy
• Pragmatism

Quantifies, weighs,  and compares the cost of selecting a value or action to its respective benefits.

• Pragmatism
• Deontology
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Justice

The idea that every human being is a moral entity, and therefore is entitled to both the freedom and responsibility to develop his/her personality with rights to life, liberty, security of person, political participation, and the fundamental freedoms of opinion, expression, thought, conscience, and religion common to all human beings without discrimination.

• Human Dignity
• Justice
• Individual Autonomy
• Pragmatism

Concept that there are stages of needs that must be met sequentially to motivate, starting with physical needs and graduating to safety, love, self-esteem, and self-actualization.

• Kholberg's Hierarchy
• Teleology
• Future Generations
• Maslow's Hierarchy

Belief that man is the center of the universe and that human values are of utmost importance.

• Pragmatism
• Anthropocentrism
• Biocentrism
• Democracy

The idea that faced with two decisions, an individual ought to choose the action that produces the greatest good for the greatest number of people.

• Minority Rights
• Utilitarianism
• Biocentrism
• Pragmatism

Voluntary agreement in which individuals relinquish some of their individual liberties in return for governmental protection of their natural rights in order to maintain law and order.

• Social Contract
• Democracy
• National Sovereignty
• Teleology

Theory claiming rightness or wrongness must be determined with reference to formal rules of consequences of individual moral actions.

• Cost Benefit Analysis
• Individual Autonomy
• Deontology
• Pragmatism

Belief that all life is important.  Looks at the interdependence of living things as a system.

• Pragmatism
• Biocentrism
• Teleology
• Antropocentrism

Theory that the ends justifies the means even if the means are not always morally justifiable in and of themselves. Under certain conditions and possibly with time constraints, draconian measures may be essential.

• Minority Rights
• Deontology
• Teleology
• Individual Autonomy