Lincoln-Douglas: the resolutions still in the pool
The NSDA published these potential 2026-27 topics alongside the September/October winner. Voting assigns them to later periods. Two will be the November/December candidates; the rest come back in later votes. Start reading now and release day is a head start, not a scramble.
Resolved: Keeping wild animals in zoos is immoral.
Likely clash: Animal welfare and rights against conservation, education, and species survival.
Questions to settle first
- Does captivity harm animals in ways that outweigh conservation benefits?
- Do animals have rights, or only welfare interests?
- Is a modern accredited zoo the relevant example, or the average one?
Start reading: Singer, Animal Liberation; Regan, The Case for Animal Rights; Association of Zoos and Aquariums conservation reports; Peer-reviewed welfare studies via Google Scholar.
Resolved: De-extinction is unethical.
Likely clash: Restoration and reversing human harm against hubris, welfare of created animals, and resource diversion.
Questions to settle first
- Is bringing back a species restitution or a new creation?
- Who bears the welfare costs of the first generations?
- Does de-extinction divert conservation funding?
Start reading: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, environmental ethics; IUCN guidelines on creating proxies of extinct species; Revive & Restore and its critics.
Resolved: The United States ought to vest ecosystems with legal rights.
Likely clash: Rights of nature against anthropocentric law and enforceability.
Questions to settle first
- What does it mean for a river to hold a right, and who speaks for it?
- Do existing environmental laws already do the work?
- What happened where it was tried (Ecuador, New Zealand, U.S. localities)?
Start reading: Stone, Should Trees Have Standing? (1972); Peer-reviewed law review articles via Google Scholar; Congressional Research Service on environmental law.
Resolved: The use of artificial intelligence for offensive military operations is immoral.
Likely clash: Precision and force protection against accountability gaps, escalation, and the ethics of delegating killing.
Questions to settle first
- Is the objection to autonomy or to AI assistance?
- Who is responsible when an autonomous system errs?
- Does AI lower the threshold for war?
Start reading: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, war and ethics of technology; UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons discussions; Congressional Research Service on autonomous weapons.
Resolved: The United States ought to substantially increase subsidies for renewable energy.
Likely clash: Emissions and energy independence against cost, market distortion, and grid reliability.
Questions to settle first
- Subsidies compared to what alternative: carbon pricing, regulation, nothing?
- Who pays and who benefits?
- What do existing subsidies show about effectiveness?
Start reading: U.S. Energy Information Administration; Congressional Budget Office on energy subsidies; Our World in Data, energy.
Resolved: The United States ought to provide a universal basic income.
Likely clash: Poverty reduction and freedom against cost, work incentives, and alternatives such as targeted programs.
Questions to settle first
- What is the amount, and what does it replace?
- What did the pilot programs find?
- Is the objection moral or fiscal?
Start reading: Peer-reviewed pilot evaluations via Google Scholar; Congressional Budget Office; Pew Research Center on attitudes.
Resolved: In a democracy, a candidate for public office's right to privacy ought to be valued above the public's right to know.
Likely clash: Privacy and the pool of willing candidates against accountability and informed voting.
Questions to settle first
- Which information: health, finances, family, past conduct?
- Does the public's right to know have limits already?
- What does a democracy need to function?
Start reading: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, privacy; Pew Research Center on voter information; Law review articles on candidate disclosure via Google Scholar.
