Logic & Debate

The arts of argument.

The trivium trains a student to think clearly, question well, and speak persuasively. This section gathers the tools of logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, the main formats of school debate, and a bank of resolutions drawn from the works in the library.

Part one

Logic: the grammar of reasoning

Logic studies the forms of correct reasoning, apart from what any particular argument is about. Its classical source is Aristotle. His logical treatises were gathered by later editors into a collection called the Organon, the “instrument,” because logic was understood as the tool that every other discipline uses.

The Organon

Categories: the kinds of things a term can signify: substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, and passion.
On Interpretation: the proposition, affirmation and denial, and how statements are opposed to one another.
Prior Analytics: the syllogism and the conditions of valid inference.
Posterior Analytics: demonstration, the kind of reasoning that yields scientific knowledge from first principles.
Topics: dialectical reasoning from widely accepted opinions, and the “places” (topoi) where arguments are found.
Sophistical Refutations: arguments that only seem to refute, the first catalogue of fallacies.

The library does not hold the Organon itself, but it holds Aristotle at work in The Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and De Anima. In the Latin West, much of this logic was first known through Boethius’s translations and commentaries; his The Consolation of Philosophy shows the same mind turned to dialogue.

The three acts of the mind

Scholastic teachers arranged logic around three acts of the mind, each with its own product and its own kind of error.

Simple apprehension grasps what a thing is and produces a term. Its fault is unclearness: a term used ambiguously or defined badly.
Judgment affirms or denies something of something and produces a proposition. A proposition is true or false.
Reasoning moves from propositions already known to a new one and produces an argument. An argument is valid or invalid.

Terms and definitions

A term may be univocal (used in one sense, as “triangle”), equivocal (used in unrelated senses, as “bark” of a dog and of a tree), or analogical (used in related senses, as “healthy” said of a body, a diet, and a complexion). Many disputes end the moment the parties notice they are using one word in two senses.

The classical definition gives the genus (the wider class) and the specific difference (what sets this kind apart within it): man is a rational animal. Porphyry’s five predicables name the ways a term can be said of a subject: genus, species, difference, property, and accident. Before debating any resolution, define its key terms this way and ask whether your opponent would accept the definition.

Propositions: A, E, I, O

A categorical proposition joins a subject and a predicate. It has a quantity (universal or particular) and a quality (affirmative or negative). Medieval logicians named the four forms with the vowels of AffIrmo and nEgO. Using the tyrant of Plato’s The Republic Book IX as the subject:

A (universal affirmative): Every tyrant is wretched.
E (universal negative): No tyrant is wretched.
I (particular affirmative): Some tyrant is wretched.
O (particular negative): Some tyrant is not wretched.

A term is distributed when the proposition speaks of every member of its class. Universals distribute their subjects; negatives distribute their predicates. So the A form distributes only its subject, the E form both terms, the I form neither, and the O form only its predicate.

The square of opposition

A
Every S is P

contraries

E
No S is P

subalterns

contradictories
(A–O, E–I)

subalterns

I
Some S is P

subcontraries

O
Some S is not P

Contradictories (A and O; E and I) cannot both be true and cannot both be false. To refute a universal claim, you need only its contradictory: one counterexample.
Contraries (A and E) cannot both be true but can both be false. A debater who answers “every” with “none” has taken on more than refutation requires.
Subcontraries (I and O) cannot both be false but can both be true.
Subalternation: if A is true, I is true; if E is true, O is true. The traditional square assumes the subject class has members.

The categorical syllogism

A categorical syllogism has two premises and a conclusion, and exactly three terms. The major term is the predicate of the conclusion; the minor term is its subject; the middle term appears in both premises and links them, but not in the conclusion.

Every man is mortal. (major premise)
Socrates is a man. (minor premise)
Therefore Socrates is mortal. (conclusion)

The rules of validity follow from distribution:

There must be exactly three terms, each used in the same sense throughout. (A shift in meaning creates a hidden fourth term.)
The middle term must be distributed at least once.
No term may be distributed in the conclusion that was not distributed in a premise (the fallacies of illicit major and illicit minor).
From two negative premises nothing follows.
If a premise is negative, the conclusion must be negative; if both premises are affirmative, the conclusion must be affirmative.
From two particular premises nothing follows.

An argument is valid when the conclusion follows from the premises, and sound when it is valid and its premises are true. Keep the two questions apart. A good refutation says which one it is attacking.

Conditional reasoning: validity is not the whole question

Hypothetical syllogisms reason from “if … then” premises. Two forms are valid: modus ponens (if P then Q; P; therefore Q) and modus tollens (if P then Q; not Q; therefore not P). Two look similar and are invalid: affirming the consequent (if P then Q; Q; therefore P) and denying the antecedent (if P then Q; not P; therefore not Q).

Aquinas gives a clean example of modus tollens in the first objection he raises against the existence of God:

“If, therefore, God existed, there would be no evil discoverable; but there is evil in the world. Therefore God does not exist”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, Art. 3, Obj. 1

The form is valid. Aquinas does not quarrel with it; he answers by denying the conditional premise, arguing that God permits evil only because He can bring good out of it:

“Since God is the highest good, He would not allow any evil to exist in His works, unless His omnipotence and goodness were such as to bring good even out of evil”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, Art. 3, Reply Obj. 1

This is a model of mature refutation: grant what is valid, and locate precisely the premise that is false.

Induction and its pitfalls

Deduction moves from general to particular; induction gathers particulars toward a general claim. Francis Bacon titled his treatise Novum Organum, a “new organon,” to set a disciplined method of induction beside Aristotle’s. He warned that the mind tends to see what it wants to see:

“The human understanding resembles not a dry light, but admits a tincture of the will”

— Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Book I, Aphorism XLIX

His example of the votive tablets hung in a temple by sailors who survived shipwreck after making vows makes the point about evidence that is never counted:

“But where are the portraits of those who have perished in spite of their vows”

— Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Book I, Aphorism XLVI

Informal fallacies, with examples from the library

Informal fallacies are errors of content and context rather than of form. Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations began the catalogue; these are the ones debaters meet most often.

Ad hominem (against the person): Attacking the speaker instead of the argument. In Twelve Angry Men, Juror Ten’s contempt for the defendant’s background stands in for an account of the evidence; the other jurors answer by returning to the facts.
Appeal to the many (ad populum): Treating popularity as proof. In the Crito (The Last Days of Socrates), Crito urges escape partly because of what people will think; Socrates replies that the opinion that matters is that of the one who understands justice, not that of the many.
Appeal to pity (ad misericordiam): Substituting sympathy for reasons. In the Apology, Socrates declines the custom of bringing his children before the jury to plead for him, and asks to be judged on the argument alone.
Straw man: Refuting a distorted version of an opponent’s view. In the Apology, Socrates complains that his old accusers, and the comic stage of Aristophanes’ Clouds, present a caricature of him as a speculator about the heavens who makes the weaker argument the stronger.
Begging the question (circular reasoning): Assuming the conclusion in a premise. Near the end of the Euthyphro, Socrates points out that Euthyphro’s definitions of piety have walked in a circle and come back to the one they had already rejected.
Equivocation: Shifting the sense of a key term mid-argument. The witches’ prophecies in Macbeth (that no man of woman born will harm him, that he is safe until Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane) are true in a sense Macbeth does not hear. The Porter’s joke about an equivocator knocking at hell gate names the theme.
Hasty generalization and the uncounted case: Drawing a general rule from too few or too selected instances. Bacon’s votive tablets, above, are the classic example.
False cause (post hoc ergo propter hoc): Assuming that what came after was caused by what came before. The history of medicine is full of remedies credited with recoveries that would have come anyway; physicians from the Hippocratic writers to Galen debated how a cause is known: by reasoning, by experience, or by both.
Appeal to force (ad baculum): Replacing argument with threat. In Thucydides’ Melian Dialogue (The History of the Peloponnesian War), the Athenians set aside questions of justice and argue from power alone.
Appeal to the trappings of authority: Accepting a claim because of the speaker’s robes rather than reasons. Pascal observes:

“If magistrates had true justice, and if physicians had the true art of healing, they would have no occasion for square caps”

— Blaise Pascal, Pensees, Fragment 82, Section II

Other fallacies to know by name: false dilemma (presenting two options when more exist), composition and division (reasoning from parts to whole or whole to parts without warrant), tu quoque (“you do it too”), slippery slope (asserting an unsupported chain of consequences), and red herring (changing the subject).

Part two

Dialectic: reasoning together by question and answer

Where logic studies the form of arguments, dialectic is the art of testing positions in conversation. It assumes two people who want the truth more than the victory.

The Socratic method

In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates asks a companion to define something he claims to know (piety, courage, justice), then draws out consequences of the definition until it collides with something else the companion believes. This testing is called the elenchus. It often ends in aporia, an honest puzzlement that clears the ground for real inquiry.

Euthyphro (The Last Days of Socrates): the famous question whether the pious is loved by the gods because it is pious, or pious because it is loved.
The Republic, Book I (The Republic): three definitions of justice tested in turn, ending with Thrasymachus’s claim that justice is the advantage of the stronger.
The Symposium (The Symposium): Socrates questions Agathon, then recounts how Diotima once questioned him.
The Phaedrus (Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII): rhetoric worthy of the name requires knowing the truth of the subject and the nature of the soul being addressed. Socrates tells of an Egyptian king who warned that writing could become a substitute for understanding:

“this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because they will not use their memories”

— Plato, Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII, Phaedrus 275a

The motive behind it all is stated at the trial:

“the unexamined life is not worth living”

— Plato, The Last Days of Socrates, Apology 38a

Practicing it: ask for definitions; test them with counterexamples; ask what follows if the claim is true; restate the other person’s answer before you build on it; and be willing to say “I was wrong about that.”

Later writers kept the dialogue form alive. In Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, three speakers each state their case at full strength, which is good practice for learning to give an opponent’s position its best form before answering it. Mill makes the same point in On Liberty:

“if it is not fully, frequently, and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth”

— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Ch. II, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion

The disputatio

The medieval universities turned dialectic into a formal exercise, the disputed question. Thomas Aquinas wrote each article of the Summa Theologica in its form:

The question, posed as “Whether …” (utrum).
Objections (videtur quod, “it seems that”): the strongest arguments for the answer Aquinas will reject, stated fairly and often at full strength.
Sed contra (“on the contrary”): a brief appeal to an authority on the other side, usually Scripture or a Father of the Church.
Respondeo (“I answer that”): the body of the article, where the question is actually resolved, often by drawing distinctions.
Replies to the objections: each objection answered in turn, conceding what is true in it.

Example: Summa Theologica I, Q. 2, Art. 3, “Whether God exists?”

Objection 1 argues from the existence of evil (quoted above). Objection 2 argues that nature and human will can account for everything, so God need not be supposed. Sed contra: God names Himself in Exodus 3:14. Respondeo:

“I answer that, The existence of God can be proved in five ways”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, Art. 3

Aquinas then gives the arguments from motion, efficient causation, possibility and necessity, gradation, and the governance of things. The fifth concludes:

“Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 2, Art. 3 (fifth way)

Reply to Objection 1: God permits evil because He can bring good from it (quoted above). Reply to Objection 2: what nature and human will do must still be traced to a first cause.

The form teaches habits every debater needs: state the other side before your own, state it well, answer the question actually asked, and answer every objection. Aquinas explains in the first question of the Summa why reason has a place in sacred teaching at all:

“Since therefore grace does not destroy nature but perfects it, natural reason should minister to faith as the natural bent of the will ministers to charity”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I, Q. 1, Art. 8, Reply Obj. 2

Exercise: take a resolution from the bank below, phrase it as “Whether …,” and write three objections, a sed contra, a respondeo, and three replies.

Part three

Rhetoric: speaking the truth persuasively

Aristotle: three modes of proof

Aristotle’s Rhetoric (not in the library) opens by calling rhetoric the counterpart of dialectic, and defines it as the power of seeing, in each case, the available means of persuasion. Those means are of three kinds:

Ethos: persuasion through the character of the speaker, shown in the speech as good sense, virtue, and goodwill toward the audience.
Pathos: persuasion through putting the audience in the right frame of mind, so that their emotions fit the facts.
Logos: persuasion through the argument itself, by the enthymeme (a rhetorical syllogism with a premise left for the audience to supply) and the example.

He also distinguishes three kinds of oratory. Deliberative speech, as in an assembly, concerns the future and asks what is advantageous or harmful. Forensic or judicial speech, as in a court, concerns the past and asks what is just or unjust. Epideictic or ceremonial speech concerns the present and assigns praise or blame. Thucydides gives all three: the Funeral Oration (epideictic), the Mytilene Debate between Cleon and Diodotus (deliberative), and the Plataeans’ plea before their Spartan judges (forensic), all in The History of the Peloponnesian War.

The Federalist opens with a deliberative appeal that rests on all three proofs, framing ratification as a test of whether a people can choose its government by reason:

“whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice”

— Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 1

Federalist No. 51 builds its case for checks and balances on a premise about human nature, put in a memorable antithesis:

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary”

— Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 51

Cicero: the five canons

Roman teaching, preserved in Cicero’s De Inventione and the Rhetorica ad Herennium once attributed to him, divided the orator’s work into five canons:

Invention (inventio): finding what can be said, using the topics and the questions at issue.
Arrangement (dispositio): ordering it, classically as introduction (exordium), statement of facts (narratio), division (partitio), proof (confirmatio), refutation (refutatio), and conclusion (peroratio).
Style (elocutio): choosing words and figures suited to subject and audience, in the plain, middle, or grand style.
Memory (memoria): holding the speech and its materials in mind.
Delivery (pronuntiatio or actio): voice and gesture.

Cicero also named the orator’s three duties: to teach, to delight, and to move. Augustine, who taught rhetoric before his conversion (Confessions), took over these duties for Christian preachers in Book IV of On Christian Doctrine. Plutarch’s Life of Cicero, in The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives, tells the story of the orator’s career; his Life of Demosthenes, in The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, tells how the young Demosthenes overcame a weak voice and poor delivery by disciplined practice.

Quintilian: the good man speaking well

Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria (about 95 AD), a twelve-book course in the education of an orator from the cradle, adopts Cato the Elder’s definition of the orator as vir bonus dicendi peritus, a good man skilled in speaking. For Quintilian, eloquence cut off from virtue is not true oratory. Classical Christian schools take up the same ideal: the aim of rhetoric is not cleverness but wisdom and virtue expressed with clarity and grace.

The progymnasmata

The progymnasmata (“preliminary exercises”) were the graded composition course of ancient and Renaissance schools. The best known sequence, from Aphthonius of Antioch (fourth century AD), has fourteen exercises, each building on the last. Suggested library material for each:

Exercise	What the student does	Practice with
1. Fable	Retell a short moral tale	Aesop, whose fables Socrates set to verse in prison (Phaedo, in The Last Days of Socrates)
2. Narrative	Retell an event clearly, briefly, plausibly	The Histories or Metamorphoses
3. Chreia	Expand a memorable saying or deed of a known person	Socrates’ sayings in The Last Days of Socrates
4. Maxim	Expand a general proverb	Essays or Pensees
5. Refutation	Argue that a story is implausible	A myth in Metamorphoses
6. Confirmation	Argue that a story is plausible	The same story, from the other side
7. Commonplace	Amplify against an acknowledged vice	The tyrant in The Republic Book IX
8. Encomium	Praise a person or thing	The speeches on Love in The Symposium
9. Invective	Blame a person or thing	A villain from Macbeth
10. Comparison	Weigh two persons or things	Plutarch’s paired Lives in The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives
11. Characterization	Write the words a character would speak	What Socrates might have said to Crito the next morning
12. Description	Bring a scene vividly before the eyes	The shield of Achilles in The Iliad Book XVIII
13. Thesis	Argue a general question	Whether one should marry, in Bacon’s “Of Marriage and Single Life” (Essays)
14. Law	Argue for or against a proposed law	The sale of poisons in On Liberty, Chapter V

The last two exercises lead straight into formal debate: the thesis is the ancestor of the value resolution, and the law is the ancestor of the policy resolution.

Spot the device

Propaganda techniques, informal fallacies, and the classical figures of speech, each shown at work in a library text (Thucydides, Machiavelli, Plutarch, Swift, Douglass, Scripture), with how to recognize it, how to answer it fairly, and a practice quiz.

Rhetorical devices and quiz

Part four

Debate formats

Speech times below are typical; leagues and tournaments set their own rules, so check the current rules for your league before you compete.

Socratic seminar

A discussion of a shared text, usually in a circle, guided by a leader who asks open questions and does not lecture.

Prepare: read the text twice, mark passages, and bring two questions of your own. Each work’s student guide includes seminar questions that move from comprehension to interpretation to the large questions.
Structure: an opening question; discussion that returns again and again to the text; a closing question that connects the text to the participants’ lives.
Norms: cite the page or line; address one another, not only the leader; build on or challenge the previous speaker by name; invite quieter members in.

Lincoln-Douglas (value debate)

One-on-one debate on a resolution of value, named for the seven 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in the Illinois Senate race.

Case structure: a value (the ultimate good at stake, such as justice), a criterion (the standard by which to judge whether the value is upheld), definitions, and two or three contentions that show why your side best meets the criterion.
Typical order: affirmative constructive (6 min); cross-examination by negative (3); negative constructive (7); cross-examination by affirmative (3); first affirmative rebuttal (4); negative rebuttal (6); second affirmative rebuttal (3); plus prep time for each side.
Library preparation: Antigone’s appeal to unwritten law against Creon’s decree in The Theban Plays is a model clash of values:

“The immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; They die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang”

— Sophocles, The Theban Plays, Antigone

Team policy

Two-person teams debate whether a government or other agent should adopt a specific plan.

Affirmative presents a plan and must carry the stock issues: significance and harms (a real problem), inherency (the present system will not fix it), solvency (the plan will), and topicality (the plan falls within the resolution).
Negative may attack any stock issue, argue disadvantages (harms the plan would cause), or offer a competing counterplan.
Typical order: four constructives (about 8 minutes each), each followed by a 3-minute cross-examination, then four rebuttals (about 5 minutes each), with the negative giving the first rebuttal and the affirmative the last.
Library preparation: The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers are an extended policy debate, plan and counterplan, harms and solvency.

Parliamentary

Limited-preparation debate modeled loosely on a legislature. The motion is announced shortly before the round, so debaters rely on general knowledge, reasoning, and wit rather than prepared evidence.

Sides: Government (Prime Minister and Member of Government) proposes; Opposition (Leader and Member of the Opposition) opposes.
Points of information replace cross-examination: brief questions offered during an opponent’s speech, which the speaker may accept or decline.
Preparation: broad reading in history, government, and ethics, much of it in this library, matters more than files.

Formal disputatio

A classroom revival of the medieval exercise. A respondent defends a thesis; opponents each present an objection in syllogistic form; a presider keeps order and gives the final determination.

The opponent states a syllogism. The respondent repeats it exactly, then answers each premise: concedo (I grant it), nego (I deny it), or distinguo (I distinguish: true in one sense, false in another).
The opponent presses on whatever was denied or distinguished with a new syllogism, and so on until the objection is resolved or the presider closes it.
Good preparation is the article form above: anticipate the objections and prepare your distinctions in advance.

Mock trial

Teams play attorneys and witnesses in a simulated case.

Order: opening statements; the prosecution or plaintiff’s case (direct examination of its witnesses, cross-examination by the defense, redirect); the defense case in the same pattern; closing arguments.
Skills: open questions on direct (“What happened next?”), short leading questions on cross (“You were across the street?”), and timely objections (relevance, hearsay, leading, speculation).
Library preparation: Socrates’ defense in the Apology (The Last Days of Socrates); the founding of the jury court in The Oresteia; the record of The Trial of Joan of Arc; the drumhead court in Billy Budd; and the deliberation in Twelve Angry Men.

Part five

Preparing and competing

Preparation

Define the resolution: genus and difference for each key term, and the sources for your definitions.
Find the question at issue: is the dispute about fact, definition, quality, or procedure? (See stasis, below.)
Read both sides: write the best case against your own before you finalize yours.
Gather evidence honestly: quote accurately, cite fully, and never stretch a source beyond what it says.
Write briefs: short prepared answers to the arguments you expect, each with a claim, a reason, and support.

Structure

Signpost: tell the judge where you are (“My second contention …”, “On their first point …”).
Claim, warrant, impact: what you assert, why it is true, and why it matters to the decision.
Preview and review: in Cicero’s terms, a clear partitio at the start and a peroratio that gathers the reasons at the end.

Cross-examination

Ask short, closed questions with a purpose; each should secure an admission or expose a gap you will use in a later speech.
Do not argue during cross-examination; save the conclusion for your speech.
When answering, be direct and honest; concede what is true and distinguish what is not, as in the disputatio.

Flowing

Take notes on a “flow”: one column per speech, with each argument written across from the response to it.
Use consistent abbreviations, and two colors for the two sides.
Before each rebuttal, scan the flow for arguments your opponent dropped or answered weakly.

Refutation

A simple four-step pattern: they say (restate the argument fairly), but (your answer), because (your reason or evidence), therefore (why your answer matters to the round). Then weigh: explain which arguments matter most and why, so the judge does not have to.

Part six

Classical and modern practice compared

Modern school debate grew out of the classical tradition, and many of its techniques have older names.

Modern practice	Classical counterpart
Stock issues; topicality; framework debates	Stasis theory (Hermagoras, then Cicero’s De Inventione): is the dispute about fact (did it happen?), definition (what is it?), quality (was it right?), or procedure (is this the proper forum?)
Claim, warrant, impact	The enthymeme: a conclusion supported by a reason, with a premise the audience supplies
Cross-examination	The Socratic elenchus and the opponent’s syllogism in the disputatio
Line-by-line refutation	Aquinas’s replies to objections, answering every argument in turn
Writing the opponent’s best case	The videtur quod: objections stated at full strength before the answer
Impact calculus (magnitude, probability, time)	Deliberative topics of the advantageous and the honorable
Evidence cards and citations	Testimony and authorities, weighed by the credibility (ethos) of their source
Flowing	Memoria, and the commonplace book of collected arguments
Speaker points for clarity and persuasiveness	Elocutio and actio: style and delivery fitted to the audience

The classical tradition adds two things modern technique can lose sight of. First, the audience: rhetoric is addressed to real hearers, so a speech should be clear, measured, and understandable to an attentive citizen judge. Second, the speaker: in Quintilian’s ideal, skill in argument is the servant of truth and virtue, and an honest concession is often the most persuasive thing a debater can say.

Part seven

Resolutions bank

Each work’s student guide proposes a debate resolution. Most are resolutions of value suited to Lincoln-Douglas or a formal disputatio; those that name an agent and a course of action can be run as policy. Read the work, then open its student guide for the central argument and a rhetorical device to study. 853 resolutions, arranged by era.

Ancient (90)

Resolved: Gilgamesh's quest for eternal life ends in wisdom rather than defeat.
The Epic of Gilgamesh, Anonymous (Babylonian; standard version attributed to Sin-leqi-unninni) (c. 2100-1200 BC)
Resolved: that Psalm 23 is more a poem about the present life than about the life after death.
Psalm 23, Attributed to David (c. 1000 BC (traditional); KJV 1611)
Resolved: God's speeches from the whirlwind are a sufficient answer to Job's complaint.
The Bible, Anonymous (composed c. 1000 BCE – c. 100 CE; KJV 1611)
Resolved: Achilles is justified in withdrawing from battle after Agamemnon takes Briseis.
The Iliad, Homer (c. 8th century BCE)
Resolved: Odysseus is responsible for the deaths of his crew.
The Odyssey, Homer (c. 8th century BCE)
Resolved: that Works and Days is more a poem about justice than a poem about farming.
Theogony and Works and Days, Hesiod (c. 700 BC)
Resolved: that the Hymn to Demeter is more a poem about a mother's love than about religious ritual.
The Homeric Hymns, Anonymous (Homeric) (7th–6th century BC)
Resolved: that mercy toward the weak is a duty even for the strong (affirm with Lion and Mouse; challenge with worlds where mercy is betrayed—and answer from the fable’s own logic of return).
Aesop's Fables, Aesop (c. 6th century BCE (Townsend trans. 1867))
Resolved: Heraclitus is right that strife, not rest, is the source of order and excellence.
Fragments, Heraclitus (c. 500 BCE)
Resolved: Deceiving an enemy in war is always morally permissible.
The Art of War, Sun Tzu (c. 5th century BCE)
Resolved: Athena was right to acquit Orestes.
The Oresteia, Aeschylus (458 BCE)
Resolved: Jason is more to blame than Medea for the deaths of their children.
Medea and Other Plays, Euripides (431 BCE (Medea))
Resolved: that Pericles' praise of Athens is a sound basis for a citizen's willingness to die for his country.
Pericles' Funeral Oration, Pericles (delivered 431 BC; recorded by Thucydides c. 431-400 BC)
Resolved: In relations between nations, the Athenians at Melos were right that justice applies only between equals in power.
The History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides (c. 431–411 BCE)
Resolved: Herodotus is right that no one should be called happy until the end of his life.
The Histories, Herodotus (c. 430 BCE)
Resolved: Antigone is right and Creon is wrong, without qualification.
The Theban Plays, Sophocles (c. 429–401 BCE)
Resolved: that Hecuba's revenge on Polymestor is just.
The Trojan Women and Other Plays, Euripides (415–c. 414 BC)
Resolved: Aristophanes' portrait of Socrates in The Clouds was a fair criticism of the new learning, even if unfair to Socrates himself.
Lysistrata and Other Plays, Aristophanes (411 BCE (Lysistrata))
Resolved: that Agamemnon was responsible for Iphigenia's death, whatever the gods demanded.
Iphigenia in Aulis and Other Plays, Euripides (c. 430–405 BC)
Resolved: Pentheus is more to blame for his destruction than Dionysus.
The Bacchae and Other Plays, Euripides (405 BCE (The Bacchae))
Resolved: A physician's first duty is to foretell the course of an illness honestly, even when he cannot cure it.
Hippocratic Writings, Hippocrates (c. 5th–4th century BCE)
Resolved: Socrates was right to refuse Crito's offer of escape.
The Last Days of Socrates, Plato (c. 399–347 BCE)
Resolved: that virtue can be taught.
Meno, Plato (c. 385 BCE)
Resolved: Aristophanes' myth of the lost other half describes human love more truly than Diotima's ladder.
The Symposium, Plato (c. 385 BCE)
Resolved: A person who could do wrong without ever being caught would still have good reason to be just.
The Republic, Plato (c. 380 BCE)
Resolved: Thamus was right that writing weakens wisdom more than it preserves it.
Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIII, Plato (c. 370 BCE)
Resolved: Xenophon was justified in striking soldiers to keep the army moving during the winter march.
The Persian Expedition, Xenophon (c. 370 BCE)
Resolved: that rule by a wise person unbound by law is better than rule by law.
Statesman, Plato (c. 360 BC)
Resolved: Timaeus's craftsman, who orders pre-existing chaos according to an eternal model, is closer to the Creator of Genesis than to the chance-driven atoms of Lucretius.
Timaeus, Plato (c. 360 BCE)
Resolved: Aristotle's account of the soul as the form of the body is compatible with the Christian hope of resurrection.
De Anima, Aristotle (c. 350 BCE)
Resolved: A large middle class is the surest foundation of a stable political community.
Politics, Aristotle (c. 350 BCE)
Resolved: Natural things cannot be fully explained without reference to purpose.
Posterior Analytics and Physics, Aristotle (4th century BCE)
Resolved: That laws should explain their reasons to those who must obey them.
Laws, Plato (c. 348 BC)
Resolved: Virtue is acquired by habit, not by knowledge.
The Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (c. 340 BCE)
Resolved: that a well-constructed plot matters more to a story than its characters.
Poetics, Aristotle (c. 335 BCE)
Resolved: that Solon was right to cancel debts but refuse to redistribute land.
The Athenian Constitution, Aristotle (attributed) (c. 330 BC)
Resolved: Describing a person by outward behavior alone, as Theophrastus does, gives a truer picture of character than describing his thoughts and motives.
Characters, Theophrastus (c. 319 BCE)
Resolved: That high school students should learn geometry from Euclid's own propositions rather than from a modern textbook.
Elements, Book I, Euclid (c. 300 BCE)
Resolved: that Bharat's refusal of the throne is a greater act of virtue than Rama's acceptance of exile.
The Ramayana, Valmiki (c. 5th century BC-3rd century AD (traditional))
Resolved: that Jason, not Medea, bears the greater guilt for the death of Apsyrtus.
The Argonautica, Apollonius of Rhodes (3rd century BC)
Resolved: That a method of discovery deserves as much honour as a rigorous proof.
The Method (Geometrical Solutions Derived from Mechanics), Archimedes (c. 250 BCE)
Resolved: Krishna successfully answers Arjuna's moral objection to fighting his kinsmen.
The Bhagavad Gita, Anonymous (attributed to Vyasa) (c. 2nd century BCE)
Resolved: Christians should read 1 Enoch as an aid to understanding the New Testament.
The Book of Enoch (1 Enoch), Anonymous (c. 300–100 BC)
Resolved: A government may rightly use secret surveillance of its own citizens to protect the public order.
The Arthashastra, Kautilya (c. 2nd century BCE – 3rd century CE)
Resolved: That a mixed constitution is the best form of government.
The Histories, Book VI, Polybius (c. 150 BC)
Resolved: Cicero was right to drive Catiline from Rome rather than order his immediate execution.
First Oration Against Catiline, Marcus Tullius Cicero (63 BC)
Resolved: Lucretius succeeds in showing that death is nothing to be feared.
On the Nature of the Universe, Lucretius (c. 55 BCE)
Resolved: That a mixed constitution is more stable than any pure form of government.
The Republic and The Laws, Marcus Tullius Cicero (c. 54-51 BC)
Resolved: Caesar was justified in refusing to let the Mandubii pass through his lines at Alesia.
The Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar (58-50 BCE)
Resolved: Caesar's clemency at Corfinium was political calculation rather than mercy.
The Civil War, Julius Caesar (49-48 BCE)
Resolved: that the corn merchant at Rhodes is bound to tell the buyers that more ships are coming.
On Duties (De Officiis), Marcus Tullius Cicero (44 BC)
Resolved: The Roman senate was right to follow Cato and execute the captured conspirators without a trial before the people.
Catiline's War and The Jugurthine War, Sallust (Gaius Sallustius Crispus) (c. 42-40 BC)
Resolved: Horace's gentle mockery corrects vice more effectively than Persius's severe rebuke.
The Satires of Horace and Persius, Horace and Persius (c. 35–30 BCE / c. 60 CE)
Resolved: Cincinnatus's resignation of the dictatorship was a greater service to Rome than his victory over the Aequi.
The History of Rome, Books I-V, Livy (Titus Livius) (c. 27-9 BC)
Resolved: that Hypermnestra was right to disobey her father.
Heroides, Ovid (c. 25–16 BC)
Resolved: Aeneas was right to kill Turnus.
The Aeneid, Virgil (c. 29–19 BCE)
Resolved: In the Metamorphoses, transformation is more often a mercy than a punishment.
Metamorphoses, Ovid (8 CE)
Resolved: A physician should attempt a doubtful remedy rather than attempt none.
On Medicine, Aulus Cornelius Celsus (c. 30 CE)
Resolved: Observation and experience, rather than theory of the body, should be the foundation of medicine.
De Materia Medica, Dioscorides (c. 50–70 CE)
Resolved: Fear of an evil is usually worse than the evil itself.
Letters from a Stoic, Seneca (c. 63–65 CE)
Resolved: Josephus was justified in surrendering to Rome and urging his people to do the same.
The Jewish War, Flavius Josephus (c. 75 CE)
Resolved: Pliny's Natural History did more to advance knowledge than to spread error.
Natural History: A Selection, Pliny the Elder (c. 77 CE)
Resolved: The Testimonium Flavianum, with its suspected Christian phrases removed, is reliable evidence that Josephus wrote about Jesus.
Jewish Antiquities, Flavius Josephus (c. 93-94 CE)
Resolved: Agricola's quiet service under Domitian was more admirable than open defiance would have been.
The Agricola and the Germania, Tacitus (98 CE)
Resolved: Ignatius was right to beg the Roman Christians not to try to save his life.
Early Christian Writings: The Apostolic Fathers, Various (c. 1st–2nd century CE)
Resolved: A true friend should correct our faults even at the risk of the friendship.
Essays, Plutarch (c. 100 CE (Moralia))
Resolved: Phocion served Athens better than Demosthenes.
The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, Plutarch (c. 100 CE)
Resolved: Caesar was more responsible for the fall of the Republic than any of the other five men in these Lives.
The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six Lives, Plutarch (c. 100 CE)
Resolved: that a reference book like the Library is a better introduction to Greek myth than the poems of Homer or Ovid.
The Library (Bibliotheca), Apollodorus (attributed) (1st–2nd century AD)
Resolved: Cerialis's speech at Trier (Histories IV.73-74) gives the Treviri and Lingones good reason to accept Roman rule.
The Histories, Tacitus (c. AD 100-110)
Resolved: that people are disturbed not by events but by their opinions about events.
Discourses (selection) and Encheiridion, Epictetus (c. 108 CE)
Resolved: A statesman’s private character is a proper concern of the citizens he serves.
Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Plutarch (c. AD 100-120)
Resolved: Seneca was wrong to serve as Nero's adviser.
The Annals of Imperial Rome, Tacitus (c. 109–117 CE)
Resolved: Suetonius' anecdotes about the private lives of the emperors are trustworthy evidence for judging how they ruled.
The Twelve Caesars, Suetonius (c. 121 CE)
Resolved: That the Ptolemaic system, given the evidence available before the telescope, was the most reasonable account of the heavens.
Almagest, Claudius Ptolemy (c. 150 CE)
Resolved: Marcus Aurelius's Stoicism asks a person to control more than is truly in human power.
Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (c. 170–180 CE)
Resolved: The conversion of Lucius in Book 11 of The Golden Ass is meant to be taken seriously rather than as satire.
The Golden Ass, Apuleius (c. 170 CE)
Resolved: A physician must be trained in philosophy, not only in medicine, in order to practice medicine well.
Galen: Selected Works, Galen (c. 160–210 CE)
Resolved: Plotinus's ascent to the One leaves the body and the visible world behind rather than redeeming them.
Enneads, Plotinus (c. 253-270)
Resolved: The Council of Nicaea was right to use a non-scriptural word to defend scriptural teaching.
The Early Christian Creeds, Various (2nd-5th centuries CE)
Resolved: Eusebius was right to read the conversion of Constantine as a providential deliverance of the church.
The History of the Church, Eusebius (c. 325 CE)
Resolved: Withdrawal from society can be the most useful service a person gives to it.
Early Christian Lives, Athanasius, Jerome and others (c. 356–420 CE)
Resolved: Gregory is right that the human being is more than a little world made of the same elements as the universe.
On the Making of Man, Gregory of Nyssa (c. 379)
Resolved: Chrysostom was right to use Antioch's fear of the emperor to press for the reform of everyday habits such as swearing.
Homilies on the Statues, John Chrysostom (387 CE)
Resolved: The Roman defeat at Adrianople was caused more by the mistreatment of the Goths in 376-377 than by Valens's decisions on the day of battle.
The Roman History, Ammianus Marcellinus (c. 390 CE)
Resolved: Augustine's account of the pear theft in Book II shows that human beings can choose evil for its own sake.
Confessions, Augustine of Hippo (c. 397–400 CE)
Resolved: Sulpitius's account of miracles strengthens rather than weakens his portrait of Martin's holiness.
Life of St. Martin, Sulpitius Severus; Alexander Roberts (c. 397; Roberts translation 1894)
Resolved: Augustine's figurative readings of John's signs illuminate the Gospel more than they obscure its plain narrative.
Homilies on the Gospel of John, Augustine of Hippo (c. 406-420 CE)
Resolved: Augustine is right that a kingdom without justice is no better than a great band of robbers.
City of God, Augustine of Hippo (413–426 CE)
Resolved: Patrick's own writings are a better guide to his holiness than the later legends of Muirchu and Tirechan.
St. Patrick's Writings, Patrick of Ireland; Muirchu; Tirechan (5th century; later legends 7th century)

Medieval (48)

Resolved: Boethius's distinction between time and eternity preserves human freedom against divine foreknowledge.
The Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius (c. 524 CE)
Resolved: A life ordered by a fixed daily rule makes a person more free, not less.
The Rule of St Benedict, Benedict of Nursia (c. 530 CE)
Resolved: The Institutes' threefold division of law into natural law, law of nations and civil law is still the best starting point for understanding law.
The Institutes of Justinian, Justinian I (Tribonian and commissioners) (533 CE)
Resolved: that Justinian's court was right to stand and fight rather than leave Constantinople during the Nika revolt.
History of the Wars, Books I-II (The Persian War), Procopius of Caesarea (c. 550 CE)
Resolved: The Secret History is more valuable to historians as evidence of how Justinian's critics thought than as evidence of what Justinian did.
The Secret History, Procopius of Caesarea (c. 550 CE)
Resolved: A reader new to the Quran should read the suras in order of revelation rather than in their canonical order.
The Koran, Anonymous (Islamic scripture) (c. 610–632 CE)
Resolved: that Bede's account of Cædmon is chiefly a story about humility rather than about poetry.
Cædmon's Hymn, Cædmon (c. 658-680)
Resolved: The Dream of the Rood's heroic portrait of Christ illuminates the Gospel accounts more than it alters them.
The Dream of the Rood, Anonymous (c. 700-750 (Ruthwell Cross); Vercelli Book c. 975)
Resolved: that King Oswy was right to prefer the unity of the Roman Easter to the Irish custom of his own teachers.
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede (731)
Resolved: Notker's legendary anecdotes tell us more about Charlemagne's true character than Einhard's orderly biography.
Two Lives of Charlemagne, Einhard and Notker the Stammerer (c. 830 / c. 885)
Resolved: Beowulf was right to fight the dragon himself rather than leave the battle to younger warriors.
Beowulf, Anonymous (c. 8th-11th century)
Resolved: A physician should treat according to careful observation even when the cause of a disease is unknown.
A Treatise on the Smallpox and Measles, Abu Bakr al-Razi (Rhazes) (c. 910)
Resolved: Gunnar's refusal to reveal the gold to Atli is an act of honour rather than of greed.
The Poetic Edda, Anonymous (Old Norse) (c. 800–1100 (MS c. 1270))
Resolved: Ibn Sina was right that the training of children's emotions belongs within medicine.
The Canon of Medicine, Book I, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (c. 1025)
Resolved: That the character of rulers matters more than institutions in determining a nation's fortunes.
Chronographia, Michael Psellos (c. 1078)
Resolved: That some truths can be known with certainty only through experience and not through argument.
Deliverance from Error (The Confessions of al-Ghazali), Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (c. 1100)
Resolved: Roland was right to refuse to sound the olifant when Oliver first asked.
The Song of Roland, Anonymous (c. 1100)
Resolved: Bernard's spiritual reading of the Song of Songs is truer to its place in Scripture than a reading of it as human love poetry alone.
Sermons on the Song of Songs, Bernard of Clairvaux (1135-1153)
Resolved: Alexios I acted wisely in requiring the leaders of the First Crusade to swear oaths of loyalty to him.
The Alexiad, Anna Komnene (c. 1148)
Resolved: Becket was right to resist the Constitutions of Clarendon even at the cost of his life.
St. Thomas Becket and the Canterbury Miracles, Edward Grim; Benedict of Peterborough; William of Canterbury tradition (1170-1173; miracle collections late 12th century)
Resolved: In 'Bisclavret', the wife's punishment is just.
The Lais of Marie de France, Marie de France (c. 1170s)
Resolved: that Usama's chapter on the Franks is a fair account of the people he describes.
Memoirs of Usama ibn Munqidh, Usama ibn Munqidh (c. 1183)
Resolved: Hagen, more than Kriemhild, is responsible for the destruction of the Burgundians.
The Nibelungenlied, Anonymous (c. 1200)
Resolved: that the leaders of the Fourth Crusade were justified in accepting young Alexius's offer at Zara.
Chronicle of the Fourth Crusade and the Conquest of Constantinople, Geoffrey de Villehardouin (c. 1207-1213)
Resolved: that clause 61's council of twenty-five barons was a wise means of making the king keep the charter.
Magna Carta, King John and the barons of England (1215)
Resolved: Tyr's sacrifice of his hand was an act of true courage, whatever the gods intended by their pledge.
The Prose Edda, Snorri Sturluson (c. 1220)
Resolved: The Francis of the Little Flowers is truer to the historical Francis than the Francis of Bonaventure's official life.
Early Franciscan Sources, Francis of Assisi; Thomas of Celano; Bonaventure; Brother Ugolino; others (c. 1209-1390)
Resolved: The households of Geel offered better care for the mentally afflicted than the asylums of the nineteenth century.
St. Dymphna and the Geel Colony, Pierre of Cambrai; Geel tradition (c. 1247; Geel colony tradition from the Middle Ages)
Resolved: Bonaventure is right that study without devotion cannot reach the truth about God.
The Journey of the Mind into God, Bonaventure (1259)
Resolved: A Christian physician should be willing to treat patients who cannot pay, even at real cost to his own livelihood.
Sts. Cosmas and Damian: Physician Saints, Jacobus de Voragine; Byzantine miracle tradition (late antique cult; medieval miracle collections)
Resolved: Saints' legends that cannot be confirmed by history still deserve a place in the education of Christian students.
The Golden Legend: Popular Saints, Jacobus de Voragine; William Caxton (c. 1260 (Caxton translation 1483; Ellis edition 1900))
Resolved: Brynhild is more wronged than wrongdoing in the death of Sigurd.
The Story of the Volsungs (Volsunga Saga), Anonymous (Old Norse) (13th century)
Resolved: Rule by one, rightly tempered, is the best form of government, as Aquinas argues in De Regno.
De Regno, Thomas Aquinas (c. 1265-1266)
Resolved: Aquinas's five ways succeed in proving the existence of God.
Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas (1265-1274)
Resolved: that the doubts about Marco Polo's travels do not reduce the book's value as a historical source.
The Travels of Marco Polo, Marco Polo (with Rustichello da Pisa) (c. 1298–1300)
Resolved: That temporal rulers receive their authority directly from God and not through the Church.
De Monarchia (with R. W. Church's essay on Dante), Dante Alighieri; R. W. Church (c. 1312-1318)
Resolved: Dante is right that spiritual and temporal authority should be held by separate hands.
The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri (c. 1308-1321)
Resolved: Manawyddan is a greater hero than Bendigeid Vran.
The Mabinogion, Anonymous (Middle Welsh) (11th-14th century (manuscripts c. 1350-1410))
Resolved: A traveller who dictates his memories years later should be trusted as a historical source only where other evidence confirms him.
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Ibn Battuta (1355)
Resolved: The authorities of Strasbourg acted wisely in sending the dancers to the chapels of St. Vitus.
St. Vitus and the Dancing Mania, Vitus tradition; J. F. C. Hecker; Benjamin Guy Babington (medieval passion tradition; Hecker 1832, Babington translation 1833/1888)
Resolved: Prosperity inevitably weakens the solidarity that produced it.
The Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun (1377)
Resolved: Criseyde is more a victim of Fortune than a betrayer of Troilus.
Troilus and Criseyde, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1380s)
Resolved: Gawain judges his own failure more truly than Bertilak and Arthur's court do.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Anonymous (late 14th century)
Resolved: that Chanticleer's learning is of more use to him than Pertelote's common sense.
The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1387-1400)
Resolved: Joan's refusal to submit her Voices to the judgment of the Rouen court was obedience to God, not disobedience to the Church.
The Trial of Joan of Arc, Jeanne d'Arc; Pierre Cauchon; Guillaume Bouille; T. Douglas Murray (1431; rehabilitation 1450-1456; Murray translation 1902)
Resolved: that internal division, more than Ottoman strength, caused the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The Fall of Constantinople, 1453: Eyewitness Accounts, Nicolo Barbaro, George Sphrantzes, Doukas, and others (1453)
Resolved: Roch's decision to walk into plague-stricken towns was an act of virtue, not of reckless imprudence.
Sts. Roch and Sebastian: Plague Saints, Jacobus de Voragine; Francesco Diedo tradition; later plague devotion (c. 1260; Roch tradition c. 1478)
Resolved: that Launcelot, not Mordred, bears the greater blame for the fall of the Round Table.
Le Morte d'Arthur, Thomas Malory (1485 (Caxton; completed c. 1469-70))

Renaissance Early Modern (86)

Resolved: It is better for a ruler to be feared than loved.
The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli (1513 (published 1532))
Resolved: that a wise man should serve an unjust king rather than refuse to give counsel.
Utopia, Thomas More (1516 (Latin); English 1551)
Resolved: that the tumults between the Roman nobles and commons were the cause of Roman freedom.
Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, Niccolò Machiavelli (c. 1517 (published 1531))
Resolved: Luther's doctrine of Christian freedom produces more good works than a doctrine of earned merit.
Selected Sermons and Reformation Treatises, Martin Luther (1517-1546)
Resolved: that a general council of the Church can err in matters of faith.
The Leipzig Disputation, Martin Luther, Johann Eck, and Andreas Karlstadt (1519)
Resolved: A free nation should rely on citizen soldiers rather than a professional army.
The Art of War, Niccolo Machiavelli (1521)
Resolved: that Erasmus's preference for suspending judgment on obscure questions strengthens rather than weakens his case against Luther.
On Free Will (De Libero Arbitrio), Desiderius Erasmus (1524)
Resolved: that Luther's distinction between necessity of immutability and necessity of compulsion answers Erasmus's objection that denying free will makes God unjust.
The Bondage of the Will (De Servo Arbitrio), Martin Luther (1525)
Resolved: that the Abbey of Theleme describes a good way to live.
Gargantua and Pantagruel, François Rabelais (1532-1564)
Resolved: Physicians should be trained by their own hands-on observation rather than by the authority of texts.
On the Fabric of the Human Body (Preface), Andreas Vesalius (1543)
Resolved: A scientific theory that explains more with fewer assumptions should be preferred even before it predicts more accurately.
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Nicolaus Copernicus (1543)
Resolved: A people that tolerates a tyrant shares responsibility for the tyranny.
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, Étienne de La Boétie (c. 1548 (published 1576))
Resolved: A preacher should address the economic conduct of his hearers, such as rents and enclosure, from the pulpit.
Selected Sermons, Hugh Latimer (1548-1552)
Resolved: that Vasari's story of a rebirth of the arts does more to illuminate than to distort the history of painting.
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (Volume 1), Giorgio Vasari (1550; 2nd ed. 1568)
Resolved: Preaching through whole books of the Bible in order serves a congregation better than preaching on topics chosen by the pastor.
Selected Sermons, John Calvin (1549-1564)
Resolved: that the Hero Twins win by cunning rather than by courage.
The Popol Vuh (Lewis Spence's account), Anonymous (K'iche' Maya); Lewis Spence (c. 1554-1558; Spence 1908)
Resolved: that Cellini's Autobiography is more valuable as a record of Renaissance life than as a truthful account of Cellini himself.
The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Benvenuto Cellini (1558-1563)
Resolved: that the authority of Scripture is established by the inward testimony of the Spirit rather than by the judgment of the Church.
Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin (1536; definitive Latin edition 1559)
Resolved: that obedience to a spiritual director is a safeguard rather than a limit for someone who reports unusual religious experiences.
The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus, Teresa of Avila (1565)
Resolved: Montaigne's scepticism serves Christian faith better than it threatens it.
Essays, Michel de Montaigne (1580-1595)
Resolved: A person can have only one true friend in the sense Montaigne describes.
On Friendship, Michel de Montaigne (1580 (Essays))
Resolved: Elizabeth's visit to Tilbury did more for England's defense than the words she spoke there.
Speech to the Troops at Tilbury, Elizabeth I (1588)
Resolved: that Redcrosse is more to blame for leaving Una than Archimago is for deceiving him.
The Faerie Queene, Book I, Edmund Spenser (1590)
Resolved: Kate's final speech in Act 5, Scene 2 is meant sincerely.
The Taming of the Shrew, William Shakespeare (c. 1590-92 (First Folio 1623))
Resolved: that the Master was right to dismiss Sun when Sun killed the disguised demon he could not see.
Journey to the West (A Mission to Heaven), Wu Cheng'en (c. 1592)
Resolved: that Lady Anne is morally responsible for accepting Richard.
Richard III, William Shakespeare (c. 1592-93 (published 1597))
Resolved: Where Scripture is silent, a church may order its worship and government by reason and lawful authority.
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity (Preface and Book I), Richard Hooker (1594)
Resolved: that Adriana, not her husband, is chiefly to blame for the trouble in their marriage.
The Comedy of Errors, William Shakespeare (c. 1594 (First Folio 1623))
Resolved: Theseus is right that the lovers' story of the night in the wood is merely the fruit of imagination.
A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare (c. 1595)
Resolved: that Friar Lawrence is more to blame for the deaths of Romeo and Juliet than their parents.
Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare (c. 1595 (published 1597))
Resolved: that the sentence passed on Shylock in Act 4 is an act of mercy.
The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare (c. 1596-97 (published 1600))
Resolved: Bacon's counsel on dissimulation is compatible with Christian honesty.
Essays, Francis Bacon (1597-1625)
Resolved: that Falstaff's view of honour is wiser than Hotspur's.
Henry IV, Part 1, William Shakespeare (c. 1596-97 (published 1598))
Resolved: that Claudio's public rejection of Hero at the altar is less forgivable than Don John's plot.
Much Ado About Nothing, William Shakespeare (c. 1598-99 (published 1600))
Resolved: that Duke Senior is right that exile has been sweeter than life at court.
As You Like It, William Shakespeare (c. 1599 (First Folio 1623))
Resolved: that Henry V was justified in ordering the killing of the French prisoners.
Henry V, William Shakespeare (1599)
Resolved: that Brutus was right to join the conspiracy against Caesar.
Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare (1599)
Resolved: that Antony's oration is a just act of loyalty to his murdered friend rather than a manipulation of the Roman people.
Mark Antony's Funeral Oration ("Friends, Romans, countrymen"), William Shakespeare (1599)
Resolved: that Henry's speech at Agincourt is a model of honest leadership rather than manipulation.
The St Crispin's Day Speech, William Shakespeare (1599)
Resolved: that Hamlet was right to delay killing Claudius until he had tested the Ghost.
Hamlet, William Shakespeare (c. 1600)
Resolved: That experiment, not authority, should decide questions of natural philosophy.
On the Magnet (De Magnete), William Gilbert (1600)
Resolved: Malvolio's punishment in the dark room is a just correction of his pride.
Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare (c. 1601)
Resolved: that Othello is more a victim of Iago than responsible for his own fall.
Othello, William Shakespeare (c. 1603-04 (published 1622))
Resolved: Don Quixote's return to sanity at the end of the book is a defeat rather than a victory.
Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes (1605–1615)
Resolved: Cordelia was right to refuse her father's love test.
King Lear, William Shakespeare (c. 1606)
Resolved: Lady Macbeth bears more guilt for Duncan's murder than Macbeth.
Macbeth, William Shakespeare (c. 1606)
Resolved: That Kepler's religious conviction that the cosmos is harmonious helped rather than hindered his scientific discoveries.
New Astronomy and The Harmony of the World, Johannes Kepler (1609-1619)
Resolved: that a love which changes when the beloved changes was never true love.
Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare (1609)
Resolved: that the speaker of the Sonnets loves the young man more truly than he loves the dark lady.
Sonnets, William Shakespeare (1609)
Resolved: That in 1615 the Church's call for a conclusive demonstration before reinterpreting Scripture was a reasonable standard.
Galileo: The Starry Messenger, Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina, and Two New Sciences (First Day), Galileo Galilei (1610-1638)
Resolved: that the argument of lines 1-12 would persuade a reader who did not share the faith stated in lines 13-14.
Holy Sonnet X: "Death, be not proud", John Donne (written c. 1609-1610; published 1633)
Resolved: that Prospero's treatment of Caliban is just.
The Tempest, William Shakespeare (c. 1610-11 (First Folio 1623))
Resolved: Bacon's idols are a more serious obstacle to knowledge than lack of evidence.
Novum Organum, Francis Bacon (1620)
Resolved: that the Mayflower Compact is better understood as a church covenant applied to civil life than as an early constitution.
The Mayflower Compact, The Mayflower Pilgrims (1620)
Resolved: Burton is right that idleness is the chief cause of melancholy.
The Anatomy of Melancholy, Robert Burton (1621)
Resolved: Illness is better understood as a spiritual event than as merely a bodily one.
Sermons and Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne (1624 / 1631)
Resolved: that the Gospel's command to love one's enemies forbids Christians to wage war.
The Rights of War and Peace (Book I), Hugo Grotius (1625)
Resolved: A theory supported by calculation and experiment should be accepted before its every mechanism has been directly observed.
On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals (De Motu Cordis), William Harvey (1628)
Resolved: Winthrop's city upon a hill is better understood as a warning than as a promise.
A Model of Christian Charity, John Winthrop (1630)
Resolved: that the speaker's surrender in the last line is an act of freedom rather than a defeat.
The Collar, George Herbert (1633)
Resolved: Samuel Johnson was right that the metaphysical poets valued cleverness more than truth of feeling.
The Metaphysical Poets, Various (ed. Helen Gardner) (c. 1600–1680 (anthology 1957))
Resolved: Descartes's method of doubting everything is a sound way to begin the search for truth.
Discourse on Method, Rene Descartes (1637)
Resolved: Descartes's method of doubt does more to strengthen religious belief than to weaken it.
Meditations on First Philosophy, Rene Descartes (1641)
Resolved: That a free people should punish mischievous books only after publication, never license them before.
Areopagitica, John Milton (1644)
Resolved: that a people's lawful representatives may take up arms to defend themselves against their own ruler.
Lex, Rex, Samuel Rutherford (1644)
Resolved: Descartes succeeds in explaining how the soul and the body act on each other.
The Passions of the Soul, Rene Descartes (1649)
Resolved: Hobbes is right that a people without a sovereign power would fall into a war of every man against every man.
Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes (1651)
Resolved: The final line of Milton's sonnet commends readiness rather than resignation.
On His Blindness (Sonnet XIX), John Milton (written c. 1652-1655; published 1673)
Resolved: That an elected senate should have the power to propose laws but not to pass them.
The Commonwealth of Oceana, James Harrington (1656)
Resolved: That an experiment can never prove a theory without first assuming another one.
The Sceptical Chymist, Robert Boyle (1661)
Resolved: that Walton's idealizing portraits are more valuable to readers than a strictly critical biography of the same men would be.
The Lives of Richard Hooker, George Herbert and Robert Sanderson, Izaak Walton (1665-1678)
Resolved: that Bunyan's despair in Grace Abounding was a necessary part of his conversion rather than an obstacle to it.
Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, John Bunyan (1666)
Resolved: Philinte, not Alceste, is the wiser man in The Misanthrope.
The Misanthrope and Other Plays, Molière (1666 (The Misanthrope))
Resolved: that Adam was more to blame than Eve for the Fall.
Paradise Lost, John Milton (1667; revised 1674)
Resolved: A free state should allow every citizen to think what he likes and say what he thinks.
A Theologico-Political Treatise, Baruch Spinoza (1670)
Resolved: Pascal's wager gives a rational person sufficient reason to seek faith.
Pensees, Blaise Pascal (1670)
Resolved: Understanding the causes of an emotion is enough to master it.
Ethics, Baruch Spinoza (1677)
Resolved: that hope is a companion, not a mood only.
The Pilgrim's Progress, John Bunyan (1678)
Resolved: That the family, not a contract, is the true model of political authority.
Patriarcha, Robert Filmer (c. 1630s (published 1680))
Resolved: that Rowlandson's narrative is more valuable as a record of Puritan faith than as a history of King Philip's War.
The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Mary Rowlandson (1682)
Resolved: Newton was right to refuse to frame hypotheses about the cause of gravity.
Principia, Isaac Newton (1687)
Resolved: That Locke's exclusions from toleration are consistent with his own principle that the magistrate cares only for civil interests.
A Letter Concerning Toleration, John Locke (1689)
Resolved: Locke is right that a person is the same person only as far as his consciousness reaches back.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, John Locke (1689)
Resolved: Enjoying the protection and property of a government is genuine consent to its authority.
Second Treatise of Government, John Locke (1689)
Resolved: That a scientific theory confirmed by many consequences but not by geometrical proof deserves to be believed.
Treatise on Light, Christiaan Huygens (1690)
Resolved: that praying while working is as good as praying at set times.
The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence (1692)

Computing (11)

Resolved: Disagreements about what is true could in principle be settled by calculation.
Logical Writings on Binary Arithmetic and Universal Character, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1679-1703)
Resolved: Lovelace was right that a machine can never originate anything.
Notes on Menabrea's Sketch of the Analytical Engine, Ada Lovelace (1843)
Resolved: Every valid argument can in principle be checked by calculation.
An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, George Boole (1854)
Resolved: The British government was right to withdraw its support from Babbage's Difference Engine.
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, Charles Babbage (1864)
Resolved: Godel's incompleteness theorems show that the human mind is not a machine following fixed rules.
On Formally Undecidable Propositions, Kurt Godel (1931)
Resolved: A machine that reliably passes Turing's imitation game should be said to think.
On Computable Numbers and Computing Machinery, Alan Turing (1936 / 1950)
Resolved: A model of the mind as a network of logical switches explains thinking rather than merely describing its outward form.
A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity, Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts (1943)
Resolved: A machine that stores and links our records will strengthen human memory rather than weaken it.
As We May Think, Vannevar Bush (1945)
Resolved: Describing computers in the language of organs, neurons, and memory has clarified more than it has confused our understanding of both machines and minds.
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, John von Neumann (1945)
Resolved: Shannon's decision to set meaning aside was a gain for science and a loss for how people understand human communication.
A Mathematical Theory of Communication, Claude Shannon (1938 / 1948)
Resolved: Describing the nervous system as a feedback machine illuminates human action more than it obscures it.
Cybernetics, Norbert Wiener (1948)

18th Century (58)

Resolved: The study of nature leads the careful inquirer toward knowledge of a Creator.
Opticks, Isaac Newton (1704)
Resolved: Berkeley's denial of matter is more consistent with Locke's own principles than Locke's belief in matter.
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley (1710)
Resolved: that hard work can become thanksgiving.
Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe (1719)
Resolved: The fable of the Troglodytes proves that a people cannot remain free without virtue.
Persian Letters, Montesquieu (1721)
Resolved: The Houyhnhnms represent Swift's ideal for human life.
Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift (1726)
Resolved: Satire is a more effective means of moral persuasion than direct argument.
A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift (1729)
Resolved: Franklin's method of tracking the thirteen virtues can make a person genuinely good, not merely well-behaved.
Autobiography and Poor Richard's Almanack, Benjamin Franklin (1732-1790)
Resolved: Hume is right that moral distinctions are derived from feeling rather than from reason.
A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume (1739-1740)
Resolved: Whitefield's dramatic delivery served the gospel more than it distracted from it.
Selected Sermons, George Whitefield (1739-1770)
Resolved: That in designing a constitution every man ought to be supposed a knave.
Essays, Moral and Political (selection), David Hume (1741-1752)
Resolved: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God is fundamentally a sermon of mercy rather than a sermon of wrath.
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God and A Faithful Narrative, Jonathan Edwards (1737 / 1741)
Resolved: Primitive Physick did its eighteenth-century readers more good than harm.
Sermons on Several Occasions and Primitive Physick, John Wesley (1746-1790)
Resolved: An army held together by fear of its officers is weaker than one held together by loyalty to its cause.
Instructions for His Generals, Frederick the Great (1747 (Phillips translation 1944))
Resolved: Hume's argument in Section X gives a reasonable person sufficient grounds to reject all testimony to miracles.
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, David Hume (1748)
Resolved: That the separation of powers protects liberty better than the virtue of citizens.
The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu (1748)
Resolved: that Tom Jones deserves Sophia by the end of the novel.
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, Henry Fielding (1749)
Resolved: that the obscurity of the villagers in Gray's Elegy was more a protection than a loss.
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Gray (1751)
Resolved: that the invention of private property did more harm than good to the human race.
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1755)
Resolved: The final advice to cultivate our garden is a wise answer to the problem of evil, not an evasion of it.
Candide: Or Optimism, Voltaire (1759)
Resolved: that Tristram Shandy is a complete novel rather than an unfinished one.
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, Laurence Sterne (1759-1767)
Resolved: Sovereignty cannot be represented, and a people that only elects its lawmakers is not truly free.
The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762)
Resolved: That a law contrary to the law of nature is no true law and does not bind.
Commentaries on the Laws of England, William Blackstone (1765-1769)
Resolved: That a small tax laid without consent is as dangerous to liberty as a large one.
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania, John Dickinson (1767-1768)
Resolved: that Woolman was right to refuse profitable trade and comfort when he believed others' hardship supplied them.
The Journal of John Woolman, John Woolman (1774)
Resolved: In March 1775 Patrick Henry was right that there was no longer any room for hope of reconciliation.
Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, Patrick Henry (delivered 1775; text published 1817)
Resolved: Paine is right against Burke that no generation has authority to bind its successors to a form of government.
Common Sense, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and The American Crisis, Thomas Paine (1776-1794)
Resolved: The Bill of Rights was necessary to secure the liberties the Constitution was designed to protect.
The Founding Documents, Continental Congress and United States Constitutional Convention (1776-1791)
Resolved: That the Roman empire in the West fell chiefly from internal causes rather than external pressure.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Selections), Edward Gibbon (1776-1789)
Resolved: that Section XV's list of civic virtues is more important to preserving liberty than any of the Declaration's legal protections.
The Virginia Declaration of Rights, George Mason (1776)
Resolved: That the consumer's interest should always take precedence over the producer's in making trade policy.
The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith (1776)
Resolved: Adams is right that a republic needs a second legislative chamber to restrain the popular assembly.
Thoughts on Government and Selected Letters, John Adams (1776-1826)
Resolved: that the Articles of Confederation should have been amended rather than replaced.
The Articles of Confederation, Continental Congress (1777 (ratified 1781))
Resolved: Philo's concession in Part 12 is sincere, and Hume's Dialogues end closer to theism than to scepticism.
Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume (1779)
Resolved: Kant's limits on knowledge serve Christian faith better than the rational proofs of God he rejects.
Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant (1781 (revised 1787))
Resolved: Rousseau's Confessions are more an act of self-defence than an act of confession.
Confessions, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1782-1789)
Resolved: that Washington's personal reputation, rather than his arguments, ended the Newburgh crisis.
The Newburgh Address, George Washington (1783)
Resolved: A kind act done from duty against one's inclination has greater moral worth than the same act done gladly from love.
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant (1785)
Resolved: Madison's argument against a tax for teachers of religion rests more on Christian theology than on Enlightenment political theory.
Memorial and Remonstrance and Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention, James Madison (1785-1840)
Resolved: Jefferson's Life and Morals of Jesus preserves what is essential in the Gospels.
Notes on the State of Virginia, Selected Letters, and The Jefferson Bible, Thomas Jefferson (1785-1820)
Resolved: That Latin and Greek should be taught late, and for reading only, as Rush proposed.
Essays on Education in a Republic, Benjamin Rush (1786-1798)
Resolved: that a government may never use tax money to support religious teaching, even if each taxpayer chooses the church that receives his share.
The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, Thomas Jefferson (1777 (enacted 1786))
Resolved: That a legislature divided into two houses protects liberty better than a single assembly.
A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, John Adams (1787-1788)
Resolved: The Anti-Federalists were right that a free republic cannot be sustained over a territory as large as the United States.
The Anti-Federalist Papers, Various (1787-1788)
Resolved: A well-designed constitution can preserve liberty even among a people who lack civic virtue.
The Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay (1787-1788)
Resolved: An action done from duty against inclination has greater moral worth than the same action done from love.
Critique of Practical Reason, Immanuel Kant (1788)
Resolved: The language of a science should be reformed whenever its theory changes, even at the cost of breaking with familiar names.
Elements of Chemistry, Antoine Lavoisier (1789)
Resolved: that White was right to keep an open mind about swallows hiding in winter.
The Natural History of Selborne, Gilbert White (1789)
Resolved: that Hamilton's reading of the word necessary in the necessary and proper clause is the better reading of the Constitution.
Hamilton's Reports and Opinion on the Bank, Alexander Hamilton (1790-1791)
Resolved: That inherited institutions deserve the benefit of the doubt over plans based on abstract reasoning.
Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke (1790)
Resolved: that Burke was right that a nation's inherited institutions should be reformed gradually rather than rebuilt from first principles.
The Burke-Paine Debate on the French Revolution, Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine (1790-1791)
Resolved: that Boswell's Life of Johnson is better history than a biography written from documents alone.
The Life of Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1791)
Resolved: That boys and girls should receive the same education.
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)
Resolved: Allen and Jones were right to answer Mathew Carey publicly rather than let their service speak for itself.
A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones (1794)
Resolved: that The Tyger expresses wonder at the Creator rather than doubt about him.
The Tyger, William Blake (1794)
Resolved: Representative government makes nations more peaceful.
Perpetual Peace, Immanuel Kant (1795)
Resolved: Washington was wrong to warn against political parties, because organized parties are necessary for a free people to govern itself.
Farewell Address and Selected Letters, George Washington (1775-1799)
Resolved: that the presence Wordsworth describes in verse paragraph 4 is best understood as the God of Scripture known through creation.
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth (1798)
Resolved: that the states, rather than the federal courts, should have the final word on whether a federal law exceeds the Constitution.
The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson (1798-1799)

19th Century (221)

Resolved: The independent Black church did more to secure freedom by building institutions than by public protest.
Early Black Church Sermons and Addresses, Various (1787-1930)
Resolved: that parody is a better way than argument to correct a bad fashion in literature.
Love and Freindship and Other Early Works, Jane Austen (1790 (published 1922))
Resolved: Pinel's moral treatment owed more to the practical experience of hospital attendants than to medical theory.
A Treatise on Insanity, Philippe Pinel (1801 (Davis trans. 1806))
Resolved: that a free people should tolerate those who wish to dissolve their government, as long as they act only by argument.
First Inaugural Address (Jefferson), Thomas Jefferson (1801)
Resolved: that the Court in Marbury v. Madison should have issued the writ of mandamus to Secretary Madison.
Marbury v. Madison, Supreme Court of the United States (1803)
Resolved: Children should read Shakespeare's stories retold before they read or watch the plays themselves.
Tales from Shakespeare, Charles and Mary Lamb (1807)
Resolved: that Faust is more to blame than Gretchen for the deaths of her mother and child.
Faust, Part One, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1808)
Resolved: that a state legislature may annul a grant obtained by bribing its predecessors, even after the land has been sold to innocent buyers.
Fletcher v. Peck, Supreme Court of the United States (1810)
Resolved: Napoleon's letters show that his talent for administration mattered more to Europe than his victories in battle.
Letters of Napoleon, Napoleon Bonaparte (1796-1821)
Resolved: Elinor's self-command is a greater virtue than Marianne's sincerity.
Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen (1811)
Resolved: that the Gallant Tailor deserved to become king.
Household Stories (Grimm's Fairy Tales), Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (1812–1857)
Resolved: Rush's claim that madness is a bodily disease did more good than harm to the insane of his time.
Medical Inquiries and Observations upon the Diseases of the Mind, Benjamin Rush (1812)
Resolved: that the family members who stay in New Switzerland chose more wisely than those who sail for Europe.
The Swiss Family Robinson, Johann David Wyss (1812)
Resolved: Moral treatment at the Retreat succeeded chiefly because of the Quaker community that sustained it, and could not be reproduced by a large public asylum.
Description of the Retreat, Samuel Tuke (1813)
Resolved: Charlotte Lucas made a wise choice in marrying Mr Collins.
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen (1813)
Resolved: Fanny Price was right to refuse Henry Crawford even if he would have reformed after marrying her.
Mansfield Park, Jane Austen (1814)
Resolved: that Emma was more to blame for Harriet's unhappiness than Mr. Elton was.
Emma, Jane Austen (1815)
Resolved: Catherine Morland's Gothic suspicions of General Tilney were closer to the truth than Henry Tilney admits.
Northanger Abbey, Jane Austen (1817 (written c. 1798–1799))
Resolved: Anne Elliot was right to be persuaded by Lady Russell to break her engagement.
Persuasion, Jane Austen (1817)
Resolved: Victor Frankenstein bears greater guilt than the creature for the deaths of William, Clerval, and Elizabeth.
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (1818 (revised 1831))
Resolved: In Ozymandias, the sculptor rather than the king is the true victor over time.
Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley (1818)
Resolved: Schopenhauer is right that all satisfaction is only the removal of a want.
The World as Will and Representation, Arthur Schopenhauer (1818 (expanded 1844))
Resolved: that Rebecca, not Ivanhoe, is the hero of Ivanhoe.
Ivanhoe, Walter Scott (1819 (dated 1820))
Resolved: that the word necessary in Article I, Section 8 should be read as indispensable.
McCulloch v. Maryland, Supreme Court of the United States (1819)
Resolved: that the frozen love on Keats's urn is happier than any human love.
Ode on a Grecian Urn, John Keats (written 1819; published 1820)
Resolved: that Brom Bones, not a ghost, drove Ichabod Crane out of Sleepy Hollow.
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., Washington Irving (1819-1820)
Resolved: Aubrey was morally bound to break his oath once he knew Ruthven intended to marry his sister.
The Vampyre, John Polidori (1819)
Resolved: that a state legislature should have the power to reorganize a privately founded college that serves the public.
Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Supreme Court of the United States (1819)
Resolved: that philosophy should seek to understand existing institutions rather than to design ideal ones.
Philosophy of Right, G. W. F. Hegel (1820)
Resolved: The United States was wise to issue its 1823 warning alone rather than jointly with Great Britain.
The Monroe Doctrine, James Monroe (1823)
Resolved: that the power to regulate commerce among the states should belong to Congress alone, even when Congress has not acted.
Gibbons v. Ogden, Supreme Court of the United States (1824)
Resolved: that Magua is more sinned against than sinning.
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper (1826)
Resolved: A general should never hold a council of war before a decisive action.
Napoleon's Maxims of War, Napoleon Bonaparte (1827)
Resolved: that Hayne was right that the states, as parties to the constitutional compact, must judge in the last resort whether the federal government has exceeded its powers.
Hayne's Reply to Webster (Speech on Foot's Resolution), Robert Y. Hayne (1830)
Resolved: That the geologist should never invoke a cause greater in kind or degree than those now observed.
Principles of Geology, Charles Lyell (1830-1833)
Resolved: that Webster was right that only the federal courts, elections, and amendment, and never a single state, may settle whether a federal law is constitutional.
Second Reply to Hayne, Daniel Webster (1830)
Resolved: Clausewitz is right that no skilful method can defeat a determined enemy without great bloodshed.
On War, Carl von Clausewitz (1832)
Resolved: that the federal executive was obliged to enforce the Court's judgment in Worcester v. Georgia.
Worcester v. Georgia, Supreme Court of the United States (1832)
Resolved: that the Fifth Amendment, as originally adopted, should have been read to restrain the states.
Barron v. Baltimore, Supreme Court of the United States (1833)
Resolved: that Ulysses is right to leave the governing of Ithaca to Telemachus and sail again.
Ulysses, Alfred, Lord Tennyson (written 1833; published 1842)
Resolved: The greatest danger to a democratic people is not tyranny imposed from above but the citizens' own preference for comfort over self-government.
Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (1835 / 1840)
Resolved: that Rastignac is guilty of young Taillefer's death.
Father Goriot (Le Père Goriot), Honoré de Balzac (1835)
Resolved: A revival of religion is the result of the right use of means rather than a sovereign surprise of God.
Lectures on Revivals of Religion, Charles Finney (1835)
Resolved: that the Charles River Bridge charter should have been read to forbid a competing free bridge.
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge, Supreme Court of the United States (1837)
Resolved: that history shows steady progress in human freedom.
The Philosophy of History, G. W. F. Hegel (1837)
Resolved: Esquirol's idea of monomania did more to clarify than to confuse questions of criminal responsibility.
Mental Maladies, Jean-Etienne Dominique Esquirol (1838 (Hunt trans. 1845))
Resolved: that Nancy is the true hero of Oliver Twist.
Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens (1838)
Resolved: The unexplained ending of Arthur Gordon Pym is a deliberate artistic choice rather than a failure to finish the book.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, Edgar Allan Poe (1838)
Resolved: that Faraday's lack of mathematics helped rather than hindered his discoveries.
Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1, Michael Faraday (1839)
Resolved: that the envied man was wiser than King Yoonán in his treatment of an enemy.
The Thousand and One Nights (Lane's translation, Volume I), Anonymous; translated by Edward William Lane (1838-1841)
Resolved: The Voyage of the Beagle is more valuable as a work of travel literature than as a work of science.
The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin (1839 (revised 1845))
Resolved: that Emerson's counsel to trust thyself is a sound guide for a young person choosing a vocation.
Essays: First Series (Self-Reliance and Other Essays), Ralph Waldo Emerson (1841)
Resolved: that the envoy should advise the Count to refuse the marriage.
My Last Duchess, Robert Browning (1842)
Resolved: Scrooge changes because he is afraid of his own death, not because he has learned to love.
A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens (1843)
Resolved: That the scientific mind discovers order in the facts rather than supplying it to them.
A System of Logic, Book III: Of Induction, John Stuart Mill (1843)
Resolved: Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac was an act of faith, not a violation of morality.
Fear and Trembling, Soren Kierkegaard (1843)
Resolved: that Dupin's method of entering the mind of the criminal is more reliable than the Prefect's method of exhaustive search.
Tales (Selection), Edgar Allan Poe (1839–1846)
Resolved: that the little sea maid made the right choice when she threw the knife into the sea.
Fairy Tales (Selection), Hans Christian Andersen (1835–1872)
Resolved: Edmond Dantès's revenge on his enemies was just.
The Count of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas (1844–1846)
Resolved: that the musketeers were justified in executing Milady at Armentières.
The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas (1844)
Resolved: Griesinger was right that mental diseases are, at bottom, diseases of the brain.
Mental Pathology and Therapeutics, Wilhelm Griesinger (1845 (English trans. 1867))
Resolved: The founding principles of the United States condemned slavery from the beginning, as Douglass argued in 1852.
Narrative of the Life and What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?, Frederick Douglass (1845 / 1852)
Resolved: The raven in Poe's poem is a projection of the speaker's despair rather than a supernatural messenger.
The Raven, Edgar Allan Poe (1845)
Resolved: that Andersen owed his success more to the kindness of others than to his own effort.
The True Story of My Life, Hans Christian Andersen (1846)
Resolved: that Jane was right to refuse St. John Rivers's proposal.
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (1847)
Resolved: Catherine's choice to marry Edgar Linton, more than Heathcliff's revenge, is the true cause of the novel's suffering.
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë (1847)
Resolved: Marx and Engels were right that modern commerce dissolves traditional loyalties to family, place, and faith.
The Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848)
Resolved: that Helen was right to leave her husband and take her son.
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë (1848)
Resolved: The dreamer is better off for having met Nastenka.
White Nights, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1848)
Resolved: That a constitution should give each major region or interest a veto over laws that affect it.
A Disquisition on Government, John C. Calhoun (1849 (published 1851))
Resolved: Agnes Wickfield, not David, is the true hero of David Copperfield.
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens (1849–1850)
Resolved: that Lönnrot should be counted as the author of the Kalevala and not merely its editor.
Kalevala, Elias Lönnrot (compiler) (1835; enlarged 1849)
Resolved: A person can be in despair without feeling unhappy.
The Sickness Unto Death, Soren Kierkegaard (1849)
Resolved: that the Compromise of 1850, as Clay proposed it, was the best course available to the Senate in 1850.
Speeches on the Compromise of 1850, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster (1850)
Resolved: that a law providing public assistance to the poor is legal plunder in Bastiat's sense.
The Law, Frédéric Bastiat (1850)
Resolved: Roger Chillingworth commits a greater sin than Arthur Dimmesdale.
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
Resolved: that Pandora's opening of the box did more good than harm, since it let Hope into the world.
A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
Resolved: that Miss Matty was right to give her gold for the farmer's note.
Cranford, Elizabeth Gaskell (1851–53)
Resolved: Compassion, not reason, is the true foundation of morality.
Essays and Aphorisms, Arthur Schopenhauer (1851)
Resolved: that Starbuck should have stopped Ahab by force.
Moby-Dick, Herman Melville (1851)
Resolved: that John Jarndyce was wise to refuse any part in the suit of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
Bleak House, Charles Dickens (1852–53)
Resolved: that Uncle Tom's refusal to resist Legree is the highest form of courage in the novel.
Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852 (serialized 1851-52))
Resolved: William Ford's personal kindness made him a better man but not a better master.
12 Years a Slave, Solomon Northup (1853)
Resolved: Thurstan Benson was right to present Ruth as a widow.
Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell (1853)
Resolved: that Hawthorne was right to change the old myths to make them suitable for children.
Tanglewood Tales, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1853)
Resolved: that Lucy was right to conceal her recognition of Dr. John from him and from the reader.
Villette, Charlotte Brontë (1853)
Resolved: that Thomas Gradgrind is more to be pitied than blamed.
Hard Times, Charles Dickens (1854)
Resolved: Thoreau's experiment at Walden Pond proves that a simpler life is a better life.
Walden, Henry David Thoreau (1854)
Resolved: A sermon should comfort the hearer more than it challenges him.
Selected Sermons, Charles Spurgeon (1855-1892)
Resolved: Bulfinch was right to leave out stories offensive to good morals when retelling the myths for general readers.
The Age of Fable, Thomas Bulfinch (1855)
Resolved: Whitman's claim to speak for all Americans enlarges his readers more than it overrides them.
The Complete Poems, Walt Whitman (1855–1892)
Resolved: that Hiawatha is better described as a teacher than as a warrior.
The Song of Hiawatha, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1855)
Resolved: Mr. Harding was right to resign the wardenship of Hiram's Hospital.
The Warden, Anthony Trollope (1855)
Resolved: Jason was right to accept Medeia's help to win the Golden Fleece.
The Heroes; or, Greek Fairy Tales for My Children, Charles Kingsley (1856)
Resolved: That the French Revolution completed the work of the old monarchy rather than overturning it.
The Old Regime and the Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville (1856)
Resolved: that free persons of African descent born in a state that recognized them as citizens were citizens of the United States under the original Constitution.
Dred Scott v. Sandford, Supreme Court of the United States (1857)
Resolved: A medical practice should be adopted as soon as its results are clear, even before its theory is fully proved.
Germ Theory Papers (Pasteur and Lister), Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister (1857-1880)
Resolved: that Seacole was right to go to the Crimea at her own risk and cost after being refused by the authorities.
Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, Mary Seacole (1857)
Resolved: Lincoln's argument in the House Divided Speech that the nation could not endure half slave and half free was sound in 1858.
House Divided Speech, Abraham Lincoln (1858)
Resolved: That scientific discovery depends more on the ideas of the discoverer than on the accumulation of observations.
Novum Organon Renovatum, William Whewell (1858)
Resolved: that popular sovereignty in the territories, as Douglas defined it, was the course most consistent with self-government and the preservation of the Union in 1858.
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas (1858)
Resolved: that Dickens judges the French Revolution more harshly than the old regime it overthrew.
A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens (1859)
Resolved: The law may rightly forbid an adult from doing what harms only himself.
On Liberty, John Stuart Mill (1859)
Resolved: Darwin's theory of natural selection is compatible with belief that nature is the work of a Creator.
On the Origin of Species, Charles Darwin (1859)
Resolved: that Longfellow was justified in giving Paul Revere sole credit for the midnight ride.
Paul Revere's Ride, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (written 1860; published 1861)
Resolved: that the popular account of the Huxley-Wilberforce debate tells us more about the 1890s than about 1860.
The Huxley-Wilberforce Debate, Thomas Henry Huxley and Samuel Wilberforce (1860)
Resolved: that Mr. Frederick Fairlie bears as much blame for Laura's sufferings as Sir Percival Glyde.
The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins (1859–60)
Resolved: That votes should be cast openly rather than by secret ballot.
Considerations on Representative Government, John Stuart Mill (1861)
Resolved: that Magwitch's gift did Pip more good than harm.
Great Expectations, Charles Dickens (1860-61)
Resolved: that Jacobs's choice to remain hidden near her children for seven years, rather than flee North at once, was the wiser course.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet A. Jacobs (1861)
Resolved: that Eppie was right to refuse Godfrey and Nancy Cass.
Silas Marner, George Eliot (1861)
Resolved: Ordinary things are a better starting point for learning science than new discoveries.
The Chemical History of a Candle, Michael Faraday (1861)
Resolved: Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures abandons the principle that pleasure alone is good.
Utilitarianism, John Stuart Mill (1861)
Resolved: that Dickinson's Death is a trustworthy guide rather than a deceiver.
Because I could not stop for Death, Emily Dickinson (written c. 1862-1863; published 1890)
Resolved: Bazarov's death refutes his nihilism.
Fathers and Sons, Ivan Turgenev (1862)
Resolved: that Javert was right, by the law he served, to pursue Jean Valjean.
Les Misérables, Victor Hugo (1862)
Resolved: Orlando was more to blame than Gan for the destruction of the rearguard at Roncesvalles.
Legends of Charlemagne, Thomas Bulfinch (1863)
Resolved: The Gettysburg Address is right that what the soldiers did matters more than anything said about it.
The Gettysburg Address, Abraham Lincoln (1863)
Resolved: that Newman's narrative method was a more effective answer to Kingsley than a point-by-point rebuttal would have been.
Apologia Pro Vita Sua, John Henry Newman (1864)
Resolved: that the Underground Man's defense of free choice is stronger than the rational egoism he attacks.
Notes from Underground, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1864)
Resolved: Alice is braver at the end of the story than at the beginning.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll (1865)
Resolved: That Bernard's principle of never performing a injurious experiment on a patient, even for the good of others, should be absolute.
An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine, Claude Bernard (1865)
Resolved: that Hans was right to give Peter his skate strap instead of racing himself.
Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates, Mary Mapes Dodge (1865)
Resolved: that Whitman's rhymed elegy honours Lincoln better than a free-verse poem could.
O Captain! My Captain!, Walt Whitman (1865)
Resolved: Lincoln was right to interpret the Civil War as a judgment of God on the whole nation, North and South alike.
Second Inaugural Address, Abraham Lincoln (1865)
Resolved: Raskolnikov's confession springs from repentance rather than from exhaustion and fear.
Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1866)
Resolved: that Congress may authorize military trials of civilians in wartime even where civil courts are open.
Ex parte Milligan, Supreme Court of the United States (1866)
Resolved: That Mendel's simple ratios were a better foundation for the study of heredity than Galton's statistics of continuous variation.
Experiments in Plant Hybridisation (in Bateson's Mendel's Principles of Heredity), Gregor Mendel; William Bateson (1866)
Resolved: Voting in an election is evidence of consent to the government elected.
No Treason, Lysander Spooner (1867-1870)
Resolved: that Tolstoy's Kutúzov is a better model of leadership than his Napoleon.
War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy (1865-1869)
Resolved: Jo was right to refuse Laurie.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott (1868–1869)
Resolved: that Prince Myshkin's compassion does more harm than good to the people around him.
The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1868–69)
Resolved: that Mr. Candy, not Godfrey Ablewhite, bears the greater responsibility for the year of suffering caused by the diamond's loss.
The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins (1868)
Resolved: That the law should treat husband and wife as legal equals in property, contract and guardianship of children.
The Subjection of Women, John Stuart Mill (1869)
Resolved: that Congress may use its taxing power to drive state-bank notes out of circulation.
Veazie Bank v. Fenno, Supreme Court of the United States (1869)
Resolved: A person whose violent act arises from a disease of the brain should not be held morally responsible for it.
Body and Mind, Henry Maudsley (1870)
Resolved: that Congress may make paper notes a legal tender for debts contracted before the law was passed.
Hepburn v. Griswold, Supreme Court of the United States (1870)
Resolved: Moody's organized campaigns, with their music, publicity, and inquiry rooms, strengthened rather than weakened the integrity of his preaching.
Selected Sermons, Dwight L. Moody (1870-1899)
Resolved: that Aronnax was right to stay aboard the Nautilus for the sake of science rather than help Ned Land escape at the first chance.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne (1869-1870 (French); English 1872-73)
Resolved: that the Supreme Court acted properly in overruling Hepburn v. Griswold in 1871.
Legal Tender Cases, Supreme Court of the United States (1871)
Resolved: that Lydgate's failure was caused more by his own choices than by the town of Middlemarch.
Middlemarch, George Eliot (1871–72)
Resolved: An evolutionary account of the origin of the moral sense can explain why conscience obliges us.
The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin (1871)
Resolved: that Humpty Dumpty is right that a word means just what the speaker chooses.
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll (1871 (dated 1872))
Resolved: that Laura's father was right to welcome a stranger into his home on the strength of her mother's appeal.
Carmilla, J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1872)
Resolved: Teaching medicine by presenting living patients before an audience does more good than harm.
Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System, Jean-Martin Charcot (1872-1887 (English lectures 1877-1881))
Resolved: Nietzsche is right that Socratic rationalism destroyed Greek tragedy.
The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche (1872)
Resolved: Darwin's study of expression shows that human emotions differ from animal emotions only in degree, not in kind.
The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, Charles Darwin (1872)
Resolved: that Irene is right to trust the grandmother even when others doubt.
The Princess and the Goblin, George MacDonald (1872)
Resolved: that Fogg’s calm is a virtue.
Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne (1873)
Resolved: that the Privileges or Immunities Clause protects the right to pursue a lawful calling against state legislation.
Slaughter-House Cases, Supreme Court of the United States (1873)
Resolved: that Boldwood should be held fully responsible for the death of Troy.
Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy (1874)
Resolved: Sherman's principle that the costs of war are chargeable to those who caused it justifies the destruction of civilian property.
Memoirs, William Tecumseh Sherman (1875)
Resolved: that Agnes's quiet conceit was a worse fault than Rosamond's rages.
The Wise Woman (A Double Story), George MacDonald (1875)
Resolved: Tom Sawyer was right to break his oath to Huck by testifying at Muff Potter's trial.
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain (1876)
Resolved: The narrator's final realization is genuine repentance rather than another form of self-pity.
The Meek One, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1876)
Resolved: Cruelty from ignorance is as blameworthy as cruelty from malice.
Black Beauty, Anna Sewell (1877)
Resolved: In God's Grandeur, the cause of the world's dullness lies in human perception rather than in the world itself.
God's Grandeur, Gerard Manley Hopkins (written 1877; published 1918)
Resolved: that Joseph's surrender at Bear Paw was an act of courage rather than of defeat.
I Will Fight No More Forever, Chief Joseph (1877)
Resolved: That an idea with no conceivable practical consequences has no meaning.
Illustrations of the Logic of Science, Charles Sanders Peirce (1877-1878)
Resolved: that a state may fix the prices charged by any business that serves a large part of the public.
Munn v. Illinois, Supreme Court of the United States (1877)
Resolved: Winterbourne bears more responsibility for Daisy's isolation than the expatriate society that cuts her.
Daisy Miller, Henry James (1878)
Resolved: Nora is right to leave her husband and children at the end of A Doll's House.
A Doll's House and Other Plays, Henrik Ibsen (1879)
Resolved: that the Free Exercise Clause should protect religiously required conduct as well as belief, unless a compelling public interest forbids it.
Reynolds v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1879)
Resolved: that Heidi should return to the mountains even if city comforts are greater.
Heidi, Johanna Spyri (1880 (Stork trans. 1919))
Resolved: Ivan Karamazov is morally guilty of his father's murder.
The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)
Resolved: Dr. Sloper did right by his daughter in opposing her marriage to Morris Townsend.
Washington Square, Henry James (1880)
Resolved: Isabel Archer is right to return to Rome.
The Portrait of a Lady, Henry James (1881)
Resolved: that Tom Canty would have made a better king than Edward.
The Prince and the Pauper, Mark Twain (1881)
Resolved: The passengers in Boule de Suif are more guilty than the Prussian officer.
Selected Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant (1880s)
Resolved: Modern science depends on a faith in truth that its own methods cannot justify, as Nietzsche argues in §344.
The Gay Science, Friedrich Nietzsche (1882 (expanded 1887))
Resolved: that learning to read the river was worth the loss of its poetry.
Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain (1883)
Resolved: that the Fairy was right to let Pinocchio suffer the results of his choices instead of always rescuing him.
The Adventures of Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi (1881-1883 (Italian; book 1883))
Resolved: that merry courage can be serious virtue.
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, Howard Pyle (1883)
Resolved: that Curdie's gift of feeling a person's true nature would do more good than harm in our world.
The Princess and Curdie, George MacDonald (1883 (serialized 1882))
Resolved: The last man is a greater danger to human greatness than the believer whom Zarathustra opposes.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche (1883-1885)
Resolved: Jim Hawkins was right to keep his word to Long John Silver.
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (1883)
Resolved: The last eleven chapters at the Phelps farm are a fitting ending to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884 (UK) / 1885 (US))
Resolved: that authored childrens poems should be memorized alongside nursery rhymes.
A Child's Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson (1885)
Resolved: Grant's generous terms at Appomattox were the wisest decision of his military career.
Personal Memoirs, Ulysses S. Grant (1885-1886)
Resolved: Pity is a strength of the soul and not, as Nietzsche claims, a weakness.
Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche (1886)
Resolved: that David was right to provoke the quarrel with Alan by defending the Campbells.
Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
Resolved: The Earl changed because he loved Cedric, not because Cedric was good.
Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1886 (serialized 1885-86))
Resolved: A medical diagnosis should reduce the legal punishment for an act that is otherwise criminal.
Psychopathia Sexualis, Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1886 (Rebman English adaptation 1906))
Resolved: that Henry Jekyll is fully responsible for the crimes committed by Edward Hyde.
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (1886)
Resolved: Ivan Ilyich's final peace redeems a wasted life.
The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Leo Tolstoy (1886)
Resolved: The Christian virtue of humility is a form of strength rather than a disguised resentment.
On the Genealogy of Morality, Friedrich Nietzsche (1887)
Resolved: Ecce Homo should be read as a serious work of philosophy rather than as a symptom of Nietzsche's approaching collapse.
Ecce Homo, Friedrich Nietzsche (written 1888; published 1908)
Resolved: that Countess Kathleen O'Shea was right to sell her soul to save her people.
Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry, W. B. Yeats (editor) (1888)
Resolved: Nietzsche is right that the teaching of the church departs fundamentally from the teaching of Jesus.
The Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche (written 1888; published 1895)
Resolved: that the Fellowship of the Black Arrow was justified in its war on Sir Daniel.
The Black Arrow, Robert Louis Stevenson (1888 (serialized 1883))
Resolved: that fairy tales should keep their dangers as well as their joys.
The Blue Fairy Book, Andrew Lang (1889)
Resolved: Nietzsche is right that morality cannot survive the loss of the faith that founded it.
Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche (1889)
Resolved: that the 1890s editors were right to give Dickinson's poems titles and regular punctuation for their first readers.
Poems: First, Second and Third Series, Emily Dickinson (1890–1896)
Resolved: A person's character is formed more by habit than by deliberate choice.
The Principles of Psychology, William James (1890)
Resolved: Captain Vere was right to convene the drumhead court and hang Billy Budd.
Billy Budd and Other Stories, Herman Melville (1924 (written 1886–1891); stories 1850s)
Resolved: That the State has a duty to require a wage sufficient to support a frugal worker and his family.
Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII (1891)
Resolved: that Lord Henry bears moral responsibility for Dorian Gray's crimes.
The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (1891)
Resolved: that Irene Adler, not Holmes, was in the right in A Scandal in Bohemia.
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle (1892 (stories 1891-92))
Resolved: Scientific theories describe how things behave, not what they really are.
Popular Scientific Lectures, Ernst Mach (1894)
Resolved: that Mowgli belongs more to the jungle than to the village.
The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling (1894)
Resolved: Booker T. Washington's strategy in the Atlanta Exposition Address was the wisest course open to Black Southerners in 1895.
Atlanta Exposition Address, Booker T. Washington (1895)
Resolved: Innstetten was morally obliged to destroy Crampas's letters and fight no duel.
Effi Briest, Theodor Fontane (1895)
Resolved: that Phillotson acted rightly in releasing Sue from their marriage.
Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy (1895)
Resolved: that a tax on income from property is in substance a tax on the property itself.
Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co., Supreme Court of the United States (1895)
Resolved: The case histories in Studies on Hysteria prove less than Breuer and Freud claim for them.
Studies on Hysteria, Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud (1895 (Brill English translation 1936/1937))
Resolved: By the final chapter Henry Fleming has become a courageous man.
The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (1895)
Resolved: that a law requiring equal but separate facilities is consistent with the equal protection of the laws.
Plessy v. Ferguson, Supreme Court of the United States (1896)
Resolved: that Disko Troop was right to refuse to take Harvey back to New York.
Captains Courageous, Rudyard Kipling (1897)
Resolved: that Cyrano did right to keep his secret from Roxane after Christian's death.
Cyrano de Bergerac, Edmond Rostand (1897 (French))
Resolved: In Dracula, faith rather than modern science defeats the Count.
Dracula, Bram Stoker (1897)
Resolved: Families, churches and schools hold authority that does not come from the state.
Lectures on Calvinism, Abraham Kuyper (1898)
Resolved: that the fisherman was right to let the genie out of the jar a second time.
The Arabian Nights Entertainments, Andrew Lang (ed.) (1898)
Resolved: that the little way asks more of a person than heroic deeds do.
The Story of a Soul, Therese of Lisieux (1898)
Resolved: The ghosts in The Turn of the Screw are real, and the governess is right about the danger to the children.
The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers, Henry James (1898 / 1888)
Resolved: that the narrator was right to leave the artilleryman's underground scheme on Putney Hill.
The War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells (1898)
Resolved: that Sonia's closing speech is an expression of hope rather than resignation.
Uncle Vanya, Anton Chekhov (1898)
Resolved: that the phrase subject to the jurisdiction thereof requires more than residence and obedience to the laws.
United States v. Wong Kim Ark, Supreme Court of the United States (1898)
Resolved: Marlow was right to lie to the Intended about Kurtz's last words.
Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad (1899)
Resolved: Because no dream can contradict Freud's theory of wish-fulfilment, the theory cannot be scientific.
The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud (1899 (dated 1900))
Resolved: The charge of the 21st Lancers at Omdurman was folly rather than heroism.
The River War, Winston Churchill (1899)
Resolved: that most consumer spending is driven more by status than by usefulness.
The Theory of the Leisure Class, Thorstein Veblen (1899)

Early 20th Century (164)

Resolved: Jim's death at Doramin's hand redeems his jump from the Patna.
Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad (1900)
Resolved: that the Wizard of Oz was a good man even though he was a humbug.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (1900)
Resolved: that Washington's measure of success, the obstacles overcome, is truer than the measure of position reached.
Up from Slavery, Booker T. Washington (1901 (serialized 1900-01))
Resolved: that Ferdiad was more to blame than Maeve for the fight at the ford.
Cuchulain of Muirthemne, Lady Gregory (1902)
Resolved: that the children were right to promise never to ask the Psammead for another wish.
Five Children and It, E. Nesbit (1902)
Resolved: that the Cat was wiser than the Dog.
Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling (1902)
Resolved: That the axioms of geometry are conventions rather than truths about space.
Science and Hypothesis, Henri Poincare (1902)
Resolved: that Dr. Mortimer was right to keep the hound's footprints out of the inquest.
The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle (1902 (serialized 1901-02))
Resolved: that Peter deserves care as much as his sisters deserve their feast.
The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter (1902)
Resolved: The value of a religious experience can be judged entirely by its fruits, without asking whether its source is truly divine.
The Varieties of Religious Experience, William James (1902)
Resolved: Buck is better off at the end of the book than he was at Judge Miller's place.
The Call of the Wild, Jack London (1903)
Resolved: that Du Bois's call for higher education and political rights was a wiser program for 1903 than Booker T. Washington's emphasis on industrial training.
The Souls of Black Folk, W. E. B. Du Bois (1903)
Resolved: that Merlin was wrong to teach his magic to Vivien even though he foresaw his fate.
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights, Howard Pyle (1903)
Resolved: that Anne Sullivan deserves as much credit as Helen Keller for Helen's achievements.
The Story of My Life, Helen Keller (1903)
Resolved: that the Roman soldier in Bethlehem's Children deserves forgiveness for sparing the Child at the end.
Christ Legends, Selma Lagerlöf (1904)
Resolved: Mental illnesses should be classified chiefly by their course and outcome rather than by their symptoms.
Lectures on Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin (1904 English translation)
Resolved: that Sara should forgive Miss Minchin.
A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1905)
Resolved: that a state may impose a penalty on an adult who refuses vaccination during an epidemic.
Jacobson v. Massachusetts, Supreme Court of the United States (1905)
Resolved: that the Constitution protects a right of adults to agree on their own hours of work.
Lochner v. New York, Supreme Court of the United States (1905)
Resolved: that Weber's account of Calvinist assurance is a fair reading of Reformed teaching.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber (1905)
Resolved: Marguerite was justified in betraying the Pimpernel's meeting to save her brother.
The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy (1905)
Resolved: Botchan was right to throw the eggs.
Botchan, Natsume Sōseki (1906)
Resolved: That no single experiment can ever refute a single scientific hypothesis.
The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory, Pierre Duhem (1906)
Resolved: that Mother was right to keep Father's imprisonment a secret from the children.
The Railway Children, E. Nesbit (1906)
Resolved: Weedon Scott was right to take White Fang to California.
White Fang, Jack London (1906)
Resolved: James's definition of truth as what works makes truth depend on human wishes.
Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, William James (1907)
Resolved: Janet's theory of a narrowed field of consciousness explains the symptoms he describes better than any account based on deliberate deception.
The Major Symptoms of Hysteria, Pierre Janet (1907)
Resolved: Psychiatric description is incomplete without psychological interpretation of the patient's symptoms.
The Psychology of Dementia Praecox, C. G. Jung (1907 (Peterson/Brill trans. 1909))
Resolved: that Anne was right to refuse Gilbert's friendship at the pond.
Anne of Green Gables, L. M. Montgomery (1908)
Resolved: that fairy tales teach truer lessons about the world than scientific materialism.
Orthodoxy, G. K. Chesterton (1908)
Resolved: that Sanshirō, not Mineko, is responsible for the failure of their romance.
Sanshirō, Natsume Sōseki (1908)
Resolved: that Toad’s friends are right to restrain him for his own good.
The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame (1908)
Resolved: The person who tries and fails deserves more honor than the critic who never tries.
Citizenship in a Republic ("The Man in the Arena"), Theodore Roosevelt (1910)
Resolved: The ideal man of If— is admirable chiefly for what he refrains from doing rather than for what he does.
If—, Rudyard Kipling (written c. 1895; published 1910)
Resolved: that Erik deserves more pity than blame.
The Phantom of the Opera, Gaston Leroux (1910)
Resolved: that living among those one serves is more effective than giving to them from a distance.
Twenty Years at Hull-House, Jane Addams (1910)
Resolved: that mathematics is discovered rather than invented.
An Introduction to Mathematics, Alfred North Whitehead (1911)
Resolved: A psychiatric diagnosis should be defined by its present symptoms rather than by its expected outcome.
Dementia Praecox or the Group of Schizophrenias, Eugen Bleuler (1911 (English trans. 1950))
Resolved: that Lepanto is chiefly a poem about liberation rather than about conquest.
Lepanto, G. K. Chesterton (1911)
Resolved: Wendy was right to leave the Neverland and go home.
Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy), J. M. Barrie (1911 (as Peter and Wendy; play 1904))
Resolved: that the Sherman Act should forbid only unreasonable restraints of trade.
Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1911)
Resolved: Father Brown was right to let Flambeau go free in The Queer Feet rather than handing him to the police.
The Innocence of Father Brown, G. K. Chesterton (1911)
Resolved: Mary, not Colin, is the true patient whom the garden heals.
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911)
Resolved: Aschenbach's silence about the cholera is a greater failure than his infatuation.
Death in Venice, Thomas Mann (1912)
Resolved: that philosophy is more valuable for its questions than for its answers.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell (1912)
Resolved: that the speaker of Mending Wall is right that the wall is unnecessary.
Early Poems: A Boy's Will, North of Boston, Mountain Interval, Robert Frost (1913–1916)
Resolved: that Pollyanna's glad game is good advice for everyone.
Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter (1913)
Resolved: that Swann's love for Odette was a real love and not merely his own creation.
Swann's Way, Marcel Proust (1913)
Resolved: that Muir learned more on his father's farm than at the University of Wisconsin.
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth, John Muir (1913)
Resolved: that Roosevelt's stewardship theory of the presidency serves a republic better than a strict reading of executive power.
Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt (1913)
Resolved: The student was right to leave his dying father to go to Sensei.
Kokoro, Natsume Sōseki (1914)
Resolved: that Louisa makes a wiser choice than Mary in Daughters of the Vicar.
The Prussian Officer and Other Stories, D. H. Lawrence (1914)
Resolved: that the best way to honour the war dead is to continue the cause for which they died.
In Flanders Fields, John McCrae (1915)
Resolved: that Grete's decision in Part III is justified by the family's circumstances.
The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (1915)
Resolved: The speaker of The Road Not Taken is deceiving himself in the final stanza.
The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost (1915; collected 1916)
Resolved: that Hannay was right not to go to the police after Scudder's murder.
The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan (1915)
Resolved: Demetrio Macias is more admirable than Luis Cervantes.
The Underdogs, Mariano Azuela (1915)
Resolved: that Stephen Dedalus is right to leave Ireland.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce (1916)
Resolved: That a scientific concept has meaning only if we can say how it would be measured.
Relativity: The Special and General Theory, Albert Einstein (1916)
Resolved: that memorizing nursery rhymes is a fit first stage of literary education.
The Real Mother Goose, Blanche Fisher Wright (illustrator); traditional rhymes (1916)
Resolved: that Cousin Ann helped Betsy more than Aunt Frances did.
Understood Betsy, Dorothy Canfield Fisher (1917 (serialized 1916))
Resolved: Jim Burden's life is a failure compared with Ántonia's.
My Ántonia, Willa Cather (1918)
Resolved: Hopkins's terrible sonnets are poems of faith rather than poems of despair.
Poems, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1918)
Resolved: that speech urging opposition to a wartime draft should be protected by the First Amendment unless it incites imminent lawless action.
Schenck v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1919)
Resolved: that naming creatures is part of loving them.
The Burgess Bird Book for Children, Thornton W. Burgess (1919)
Resolved: that the fifteenth century in northern Europe is better described as the end of the Middle Ages than as the beginning of the Renaissance.
The Waning of the Middle Ages, Johan Huizinga (1919)
Resolved: that a physician's written order for a drug should be judged a prescription by the physician's own professional judgment rather than by a court.
Webb v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1919)
Resolved: that giving away a great fortune for public purposes is the best answer to criticism of how it was made.
Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie (1920)
Resolved: that Bertha Young's bliss at the start of the story was a true good, even though it rested on a mistaken view of her marriage.
Bliss and Other Stories, Katherine Mansfield (1920)
Resolved: that Poirot was justified in letting John Cavendish stand trial in order to catch the real murderers.
The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Agatha Christie (1920)
Resolved: The best lack all conviction is a fair description of good people in times of crisis.
The Second Coming, W. B. Yeats (written 1919; published 1920)
Resolved: that Rosalind was right to break her engagement to Amory.
This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920)
Resolved: that the townspeople in Right You Are! have a right to know the truth about the Ponza household.
Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays, Luigi Pirandello (1921)
Resolved: Jason, not Medea, deserves the chief credit for winning the Golden Fleece.
The Golden Fleece and the Heroes Who Lived Before Achilles, Padraic Colum (1921)
Resolved: Siddhartha is right to refuse discipleship to Gotama.
Siddhartha: An Indian Tale, Hermann Hesse (1922)
Resolved: that Frazer's comparative method explains more than it distorts.
The Golden Bough (abridged edition), James George Frazer (1922)
Resolved: that it is better to become Real and worn than to stay perfect and unused.
The Velveteen Rabbit, Margery Williams (1922)
Resolved: that The Waste Land ends in hope rather than despair.
The Waste Land, T. S. Eliot (1922)
Resolved: that parents have a constitutional right to direct the subjects their children study in school.
Meyer v. Nebraska, Supreme Court of the United States (1923)
Resolved: that Joan's judges acted justly according to the law and beliefs of their time.
Saint Joan, George Bernard Shaw (1923)
Resolved: that psychological reasoning is a more reliable guide to the truth than physical evidence.
The Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie (1923)
Resolved: The speaker of Twenty Love Poems loves the landscape he makes of the woman more than he loves the woman herself.
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, Pablo Neruda (1924)
Resolved: I-330 is a liberator rather than a manipulator.
We, Yevgeny Zamyatin (written 1920–1921; first published (English) 1924)
Resolved: that a state may punish advocacy of violent overthrow of the government even when no immediate danger is shown.
Gitlow v. New York, Supreme Court of the United States (1925)
Resolved: that a physician's good-faith judgment about treating addiction should be beyond the reach of federal criminal law.
Linder v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1925)
Resolved: that Clarissa Dalloway was right to marry Richard rather than Peter Walsh.
Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf (1925)
Resolved: that a state may require all children to attend public schools.
Pierce v. Society of Sisters, Supreme Court of the United States (1925)
Resolved: that Nick Carraway shares responsibility for Gatsby's death.
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
Resolved: that Josef K. is in some sense guilty.
The Trial, Franz Kafka (1914-1915 (published 1925))
Resolved: Parker's wit is a defense against despair rather than a surrender to it.
Complete Poems, Dorothy Parker (1926–1936 (collections))
Resolved: that the Puritan ethic of the calling did more good than harm to English society.
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, R. H. Tawney (1926)
Resolved: Lawrence was justified in encouraging the Arab Revolt while knowing of the Sykes-Picot agreement.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T. E. Lawrence (1926)
Resolved: that a funny book can form character as seriously as a solemn one.
Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne (1926)
Resolved: that a careful legal procedure is sufficient to make a state's interference with a person's body consistent with due process.
Buck v. Bell, Supreme Court of the United States (1927)
Resolved: Vaillant's warm, restless zeal does more for the mission in New Mexico than Latour's reserved contemplation.
Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (1927)
Resolved: that the Magus's final wish for another death is an expression of faith rather than despair.
Journey of the Magi, T. S. Eliot (1927)
Resolved: Mrs Ramsay is the true artist of To the Lighthouse, more than Lily Briscoe.
To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf (1927)
Resolved: that Orlando is chiefly a satire of biography rather than a serious novel about identity.
Orlando: A Biography, Virginia Woolf (1928)
Resolved: The narrators of these tales would have been wiser never to investigate.
The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories, H. P. Lovecraft (1928 (title story))
Resolved: that Piglet was right to give his house to Owl.
The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne (1928)
Resolved: that the discoveries of modern physics make belief in free will more reasonable than classical physics did.
The Nature of the Physical World, Arthur Eddington (1928)
Resolved: that Frederic Henry's separate peace was an act of desertion rather than a justified escape.
A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway (1929)
Resolved: that Kantorek bears moral responsibility for the deaths of his pupils.
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque (1929 (German, Im Westen nichts Neues, serialized 1928))
Resolved: Irene Redfield is responsible for Clare Kendry's death.
Passing, Nella Larsen (1929)
Resolved: Freud is right that the command to love one's neighbor as oneself asks more than human nature can give.
Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud (1930)
Resolved: that Lavinia's final choice is an act of justice rather than despair.
Mourning Becomes Electra, Eugene O'Neill (1931)
Resolved: that a court may enjoin a newspaper found after trial to be regularly malicious and defamatory from publishing future issues.
Near v. Minnesota, Supreme Court of the United States (1931)
Resolved: Bernard's final summing-up shows that telling the story of one's life gives it meaning.
The Waves, Virginia Woolf (1931)
Resolved: Flora Poste does more good than harm by rearranging the lives of the Starkadders.
Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons (1932)
Resolved: Pa was right not to shoot the deer at the deer lick.
Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1932)
Resolved: Almanzo made the wiser choice in turning down Mr. Paddock's apprenticeship.
Farmer Boy, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1933)
Resolved: Roosevelt was right to warn that he would seek war-like executive power if Congress failed to act.
First Inaugural Address ("The only thing we have to fear"), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933)
Resolved: Vera Brittain was right to leave Oxford in 1915 to serve as a nurse.
Testament of Youth, Vera Brittain (1933)
Resolved: That a claim which cannot be shown false cannot be counted as scientific.
The Logic of Scientific Discovery, Karl Popper (1934 (English 1959))
Resolved: that Congress should be required to set clear standards before delegating rulemaking to the executive branch.
A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1935)
Resolved: Weston Liggett bears greater responsibility for Gloria Wandrous's death than Gloria herself.
BUtterfield 8, John O'Hara (1935)
Resolved: Pa was right to move the family to Kansas in the first place.
Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder (1935)
Resolved: that Congress may override gold clauses in private contracts to carry out its monetary policy.
Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. (Gold Clause Cases), Supreme Court of the United States (1935)
Resolved: In a deep recession, governments should spend more rather than balance their budgets.
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes (1936)
Resolved: that the general welfare clause gives Congress an independent power to spend for national purposes not otherwise enumerated.
Helvering v. Davis, Supreme Court of the United States (1937)
Resolved: that the Commerce Clause authorizes Congress to regulate labor relations in manufacturing.
NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., Supreme Court of the United States (1937)
Resolved: George's killing of Lennie in Section 6 was an act of mercy.
Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck (1937)
Resolved: Bonhoeffer's reading of the Sermon on the Mount as concrete command cannot be reconciled with his later part in the conspiracy against Hitler.
The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1937)
Resolved: Bilbo's gift of the Arkenstone to Bard was an act of loyalty to Thorin, not a betrayal.
The Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien (1937)
Resolved: that a state may require employers to pay a minimum wage fixed by law.
West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, Supreme Court of the United States (1937)
Resolved: that Dewey's principles of continuity and interaction are compatible with a classical curriculum.
Experience and Education, John Dewey (1938)
Resolved: Mr. Popper was right to give the penguins to Admiral Drake instead of taking the movie offer.
Mr. Popper's Penguins, Richard and Florence Atwater (1938)
Resolved: Our Town teaches that human life is most fully understood only after it is over.
Our Town, Thornton Wilder (1938)
Resolved: that Merlyn's lessons as animals were a better education for a king than training in arms.
The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White (1938)
Resolved: that Gehrig's farewell speech is the finest short speech in American sport.
Farewell to Baseball ("The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth"), Lou Gehrig (1939)
Resolved: that the new diesel shovels were better than Mary Anne.
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Virginia Lee Burton (1939)
Resolved: Pure research should be valued even when it has no foreseeable practical use.
A Mathematician's Apology, G. H. Hardy (1940)
Resolved: The peddler was clever, not just lucky, when he got his caps back.
Caps for Sale, Esphyr Slobodkina (1940)
Resolved: The Duke of Rudling was right to pretend he did not know his own dog.
Lassie Come-Home, Eric Knight (1940)
Resolved: that a public school may require a patriotic ceremony of all pupils so long as the requirement is not aimed at any religion.
Minersville School District v. Gobitis, Supreme Court of the United States (1940)
Resolved: The whisky priest is a saint.
The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene (1940)
Resolved: Churchill was right to rule out any inquiry into the prewar governments in June 1940.
Their Finest Hour, Winston Churchill (1940)
Resolved: Churchill was right in June 1940 to reject any negotiated peace with Germany.
We Shall Fight on the Beaches, Winston Churchill (1940)
Resolved: Mrs. Mallard was right to leave the Public Garden the first time, even though it had plenty of peanuts.
Make Way for Ducklings, Robert McCloskey (1941)
Resolved: Roosevelt's demand for absolute victory was the right war aim to announce on 8 December 1941.
Pearl Harbor Address ("A Date Which Will Live in Infamy"), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941)
Resolved: Jane was more to blame than the Murdocks for the trouble over the For Sale sign.
The Moffats, Eleanor Estes (1941)
Resolved: that Adam was right to choose the minstrel's life over a chance to study at Oxford.
Adam of the Road, Elizabeth Janet Gray (1942)
Resolved: Dr B. was right to play Czentovic a second time.
Chess, Stefan Zweig (1942)
Resolved: The Alden children were right to run away from the bakery.
The Boxcar Children, Gertrude Chandler Warner (1924; revised 1942)
Resolved: that the Little House was right to want to leave the city.
The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton (1942)
Resolved: Writing from the devil's point of view teaches virtue more effectively than writing from the saint's.
The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis (1942)
Resolved: that Meursault was condemned more for his indifference than for his crime.
The Stranger, Albert Camus (1942)
Resolved: that the Commerce Clause permits Congress to regulate goods produced for personal use.
Wickard v. Filburn, Supreme Court of the United States (1942)
Resolved: Uncle Ulysses's labor-saving devices caused Centerburg more trouble than they saved.
Homer Price, Robert McCloskey (1943)
Resolved: that Johnny was right to use Dove as a spy without telling him.
Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes (1943)
Resolved: that a school cannot teach character without teaching that some values are objectively true.
The Abolition of Man, C. S. Lewis (1943)
Resolved: The prince was right to leave his rose.
The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (1943)
Resolved: that public schools should have no power to require any student to recite the pledge of allegiance.
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Supreme Court of the United States (1943)
Resolved: that in time of war, courts should defer to military judgments about the civilian population.
Korematsu v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1944)
Resolved: Bonhoeffer was right to join the conspiracy against Hitler.
Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1943-1945 (published 1951))
Resolved: that Hoederer's willingness to dirty his hands makes him a better leader than Hugo.
No Exit and Three Other Plays, Jean-Paul Sartre (1944-1948)
Resolved: that a commander should tell his troops the full danger of the battle they are about to fight.
Order of the Day, 6 June 1944, Dwight D. Eisenhower (1944)
Resolved: Maddie was as much to blame as Peggy for what happened to Wanda.
The Hundred Dresses, Eleanor Estes (1944)
Resolved: Parker's humor makes her portraits of suffering more truthful, not less.
The Portable Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Parker (1944 (collection))
Resolved: That comprehensive central economic planning is incompatible with the rule of law.
The Road to Serfdom, F. A. Hayek (1944)
Resolved: Benjamin is more to blame for the fate of Animal Farm than Boxer.
Animal Farm, George Orwell (1945)
Resolved: Doc is right that the virtues people admire most tend to lead to failure in the world.
Cannery Row, John Steinbeck (1945)
Resolved: The will to meaning, rather than the will to pleasure, is the primary human motive.
Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl (1946 (German, as Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager); English trans. Ilse Lasch 1959; enlarged 1962)
Resolved: Bayard Sartoris in An Odor of Verbena acts with more courage than his father, Colonel John Sartoris.
The Portable Faulkner, William Faulkner (1946 (ed. Malcolm Cowley))

Postwar Contemporary (175)

Resolved: that Mother Courage is responsible for the deaths of her children.
Mother Courage and Her Children, Bertolt Brecht (1941)
Resolved: that life can be fully explained by the laws of physics and chemistry.
What Is Life?, Erwin Schrödinger (1944)
Resolved: Stuart was right to leave home to search for Margalo.
Stuart Little, E. B. White (1945)
Resolved: Mark Studdock is more responsible for his own corruption at Belbury than the N.I.C.E. is.
That Hideous Strength, C. S. Lewis (1945)
Resolved: That piecemeal reform is wiser than utopian planning.
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper (1945)
Resolved: that plain language is a civic duty.
Politics and the English Language, George Orwell (1946)
Resolved: that the sale of land paired with an optional management contract should be treated as a security.
SEC v. W. J. Howey Co., Supreme Court of the United States (1946)
Resolved: Otto Quangel's postcard campaign was a wise act of resistance and not a reckless waste of his and Anna's lives.
Alone in Berlin, Hans Fallada (1947)
Resolved: that a state may pay the bus fares of children attending religious schools as part of a general transportation program.
Everson v. Board of Education, Supreme Court of the United States (1947)
Resolved: Fantasy literature shows the real world more truly than realistic fiction does.
On Fairy-Stories, J. R. R. Tolkien (1947)
Resolved: that Kino was right to refuse the pearl buyers' offer.
The Pearl, John Steinbeck (1947)
Resolved: that Rambert was right to stay in Oran rather than escape to the woman he loved.
The Plague, Albert Camus (1947)
Resolved: that Elmer was right to trick the tigers about the chewing gum.
My Father's Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (1948)
Resolved: Willy Loman is destroyed more by his own false dream than by the indifference of the company that fires him.
Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller (1949)
Resolved: that Shane was right to take Joe Starrett's place in the final fight.
Shane, Jack Schaefer (1949)
Resolved: that Robin showed more courage at the siege of Lindsay than a knight who could fight.
The Door in the Wall, Marguerite de Angeli (1949)
Resolved: Violet was right to hide the savings from Amos.
Amos Fortune, Free Man, Elizabeth Yates (1950)
Resolved: that Father was right to make Ralph confess the pheasant to the sheriff.
Little Britches, Ralph Moody (1950)
Resolved: that intangible qualities such as reputation and tradition should count when a court judges whether two schools are equal.
Sweatt v. Painter, Supreme Court of the United States (1950)
Resolved: Edmund was more to blame for his betrayal than the White Witch who tempted him.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C. S. Lewis (1950)
Resolved: Lucy should have gone on alone to follow Aslan the first time she saw him in the gorge.
Prince Caspian, C. S. Lewis (1951)
Resolved: That loneliness, more than poverty, prepared the masses for totalitarian movements.
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt (1951)
Resolved: Templeton is a true friend to Wilbur.
Charlotte's Web, E. B. White (1952)
Resolved: Cal Trask bears the chief moral responsibility for Aron's death.
East of Eden, John Steinbeck (1952)
Resolved: Mildred Lathbury's life of service is a vocation rather than a confinement.
Excellent Women, Barbara Pym (1952)
Resolved: The universal sense of right and wrong is better explained by a moral lawgiver than by evolution or social convention.
Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis (1952)
Resolved: Jonathan's mother was right to send him over Hemlock Mountain alone.
The Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Alice Dalgliesh (1952)
Resolved: The borrowers were stealing, not borrowing.
The Borrowers, Mary Norton (1952)
Resolved: Santiago was wrong to go out so far beyond the other fishermen.
The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway (1952)
Resolved: Hector, not Achilles, is the true hero of the Trojan War.
The Trojan War, Olivia Coolidge (1952)
Resolved: Caspian was right to obey Aslan and turn back instead of going to the end of the world.
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis (1952)
Resolved: that the President should have power to seize private industry in a national defense emergency when Congress has not acted.
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, Supreme Court of the United States (1952)
Resolved: Captain Beatty is right that people gave up books before the government ever burned them.
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953)
Resolved: that the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Philosophical Investigations, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1953)
Resolved: Jill is more to blame than Eustace for missing the first three Signs.
The Silver Chair, C. S. Lewis (1953)
Resolved: that Vladimir and Estragon are right to keep waiting.
Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett (1953)
Resolved: that the Court in Brown should have ordered immediate desegregation rather than setting the remedy for later argument.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Supreme Court of the United States (1954)
Resolved: Ralph bears some of the guilt for the deaths of Simon and Piggy.
Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954)
Resolved: Sarah's father was right to leave her with Tall John's family while he fetched the others.
The Courage of Sarah Noble, Alice Dalgliesh (1954)
Resolved: Marcus was right to accept the decision not to re-form the Ninth Legion and to bury the eagle in secret.
The Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff (1954)
Resolved: that Aslan was right to wound Aravis.
The Horse and His Boy, C. S. Lewis (1954)
Resolved: Frodo's failure to destroy the Ring by his own will makes him a greater hero, not a lesser one.
The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien (1954-1955)
Resolved: Juror Eight was right to keep the jury talking even though he admitted he did not know whether the boy was innocent.
Twelve Angry Men, Reginald Rose (1954 (teleplay))
Resolved: The grandmother's final gesture toward the Misfit is a genuine moment of grace.
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, Flannery O'Connor (1955)
Resolved: Alfieri is right to admire Eddie for refusing to accept a partial satisfaction of his desires.
A View from the Bridge, Arthur Miller (1955)
Resolved: Nat's nine years of indenture gave him a better education than Harvard would have.
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham (1955)
Resolved: that Lewis's argument from desire gives good reason to believe in something beyond the natural world.
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life, C. S. Lewis (1955)
Resolved: Digory was more to blame than Uncle Andrew for bringing Jadis into Narnia.
The Magician's Nephew, C. S. Lewis (1955)
Resolved: Fowler was justified in helping to bring about Pyle's death.
The Quiet American, Graham Greene (1955)
Resolved: that Travis did the right thing when he shot Old Yeller.
Old Yeller, Fred Gipson (1956)
Resolved: that Clamence's confession is a form of repentance rather than a form of pride.
The Fall, Albert Camus (1956)
Resolved: King Tirian was right to give himself up after killing the two Calormenes.
The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis (1956)
Resolved: Orual was more to blame than the gods for Psyche's suffering.
Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis (1956)
Resolved: Mother Bear was right to play along with Little Bear's moon game instead of telling him at once that he was only at home.
Little Bear, Else Holmelund Minarik (1957)
Resolved: Sal is right to leave Dean behind at the end of the novel.
On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957)
Resolved: that the five missionaries acted wisely as well as bravely in attempting contact with the Waorani.
Through Gates of Splendor, Elisabeth Elliot (1957)
Resolved: Paddington causes more good than trouble for the Brown family.
A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond (1958)
Resolved: That scientific knowledge rests ultimately on trust rather than on proof.
Personal Knowledge, Michael Polanyi (1958)
Resolved: that the Copenhagen interpretation shows nature itself to be indeterminate.
Physics and Philosophy, Werner Heisenberg (1958)
Resolved: that myths are best understood by their structure rather than by their story.
Structural Anthropology, Claude Lévi-Strauss (1958)
Resolved: that Kit was right to keep teaching Prudence in secret against her mother's wishes.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare (1958)
Resolved: Sam's father was right to let him go to the mountain.
My Side of the Mountain, Jean Craighead George (1959)
Resolved: Querry is beginning to be cured when he dies.
A Burnt-Out Case, Graham Greene (1960)
Resolved: that Frances was really frightened, not just trying to stay up late.
Bedtime for Frances, Russell Hoban (1960)
Resolved: Karana was right to jump off the ship and stay with Ramo.
Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell (1960)
Resolved: Chester was right to leave New York and go home to Connecticut.
The Cricket in Times Square, George Selden (1960)
Resolved: that Heck Tate and Atticus were right to report that Bob Ewell fell on his own knife.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (1960)
Resolved: A pluralist democracy can endure without a shared public philosophy.
We Hold These Truths, John Courtney Murray (1960)
Resolved: Judge-made law protects individual freedom better than legislation.
Freedom and the Law, Bruno Leoni (1961)
Resolved: The pledge to pay any price and bear any burden in Kennedy's Inaugural Address was a sound principle for American foreign policy.
Inaugural Address, John F. Kennedy (1961)
Resolved: that the exclusion of unlawfully seized evidence is the best remedy for violations of the Fourth Amendment.
Mapp v. Ohio, Supreme Court of the United States (1961)
Resolved: Daniel's rescue of Joel was worth its cost.
The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare (1961)
Resolved: Words are more important than numbers.
The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster (1961)
Resolved: Billy was right to spare the ghost coon even though it cost him the Pritchards' bet money.
Where the Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls (1961)
Resolved: Charles Wallace's capture by IT was caused more by his pride than by IT's power.
A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle (1962)
Resolved: that federal courts should decide disputes over how state legislative districts are drawn.
Baker v. Carr, Supreme Court of the United States (1962)
Resolved: that a voluntary, nondenominational prayer composed by state officials may be recited in public schools.
Engel v. Vitale, Supreme Court of the United States (1962)
Resolved: Shukhov's devotion to building the wall is an act of inner freedom, not submission.
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1962 (Russian; English trans. 1963))
Resolved: that the Constitution should forbid punishing a person for a condition, even one that began with a voluntary act.
Robinson v. California, Supreme Court of the United States (1962)
Resolved: That the choice between competing scientific theories is fully rational even when no experiment can decide it.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas S. Kuhn (1962)
Resolved: that a public school which permits voluntary Scripture reading at the start of the day establishes religion.
Abington School District v. Schempp, Supreme Court of the United States (1963)
Resolved: that each state, not the federal courts, should decide when appointed counsel is necessary for a fair trial.
Gideon v. Wainwright, Supreme Court of the United States (1963)
Resolved: King's appeal to the founding documents was more persuasive than an appeal to new principles would have been.
I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King Jr. (1963)
Resolved: that an investment adviser who gives sound advice should be free to trade on its market effect without telling clients.
SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau, Inc., Supreme Court of the United States (1963)
Resolved: King was justified in marching in Birmingham in defiance of a court injunction.
Sermons and Letter from Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King Jr. (1955-1963)
Resolved: Jethro was right to write to President Lincoln instead of reporting Eb to the authorities.
Across Five Aprils, Irene Hunt (1964)
Resolved: Mandela's turn to sabotage was justified once lawful protest had been banned.
I Am Prepared to Die, Nelson Mandela (1964)
Resolved: that public officials should have to prove actual malice to win a libel suit.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, Supreme Court of the United States (1964)
Resolved: Dignitatis Humanae develops rather than contradicts earlier Catholic teaching on the duties of the state toward religion.
Dignitatis Humanae, Second Vatican Council (1965)
Resolved: that the Constitution protects fundamental rights beyond those it expressly lists.
Griswold v. Connecticut, Supreme Court of the United States (1965)
Resolved: The divisions among Christians, not the strength of the Ottoman army, were the decisive cause of the fall of Constantinople.
The Fall of Constantinople, 1453, Steven Runciman (1965)
Resolved: that confessions obtained without the Miranda warnings should never be used as evidence of guilt.
Miranda v. Arizona, Supreme Court of the United States (1966)
Resolved: Every genuine scientific explanation shows that the event explained had to happen, or was highly probable, given the laws of nature.
Philosophy of Natural Science, Carl G. Hempel (1966)
Resolved: Woland is a servant of justice rather than an agent of evil.
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (written 1928–1940; published 1966–1967)
Resolved: Sam's father was right to take Sam with him to Lexington green.
Sam the Minuteman, Nathaniel Benchley (1969)
Resolved: that public school students should have the same freedom of political expression at school as adults have in public.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, Supreme Court of the United States (1969)
Resolved: Henry Pulling is better off at the end of the novel than he was among his dahlias.
Travels with My Aunt, Graham Greene (1969)
Resolved: Frog was right to trick Toad out of bed by tearing the pages off his calendar.
Frog and Toad Are Friends, Arnold Lobel (1970)
Resolved: The cob was right to take the trumpet for Louis, as long as the debt was paid.
The Trumpet of the Swan, E. B. White (1970)
Resolved: Social and economic inequalities are just only if they benefit the least advantaged.
A Theory of Justice, John Rawls (1971)
Resolved: that a state may pay the salaries of teachers of secular subjects in religious schools.
Lemon v. Kurtzman, Supreme Court of the United States (1971)
Resolved: Nollie was right to refuse to lie about the Jewish woman hidden in her house.
The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom (1971)
Resolved: Hazel was right to offer Woundwort peace before the siege rather than preparing only for battle.
Watership Down, Richard Adams (1972)
Resolved: that a state may require every child to attend formal schooling until age sixteen regardless of the parents' religious convictions.
Wisconsin v. Yoder, Supreme Court of the United States (1972)
Resolved: that when the Constitution does not name a right, its existence should be decided chiefly by the history of the laws in force when the relevant amendment was adopted.
Roe v. Wade, Supreme Court of the United States (1973)
Resolved: that the federal Constitution should be read to guarantee children a substantially equal public education.
San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, Supreme Court of the United States (1973)
Resolved: Ideology is more dangerous than ambition as a source of political evil.
The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1973)
Resolved: that a President's confidential conversations with his advisers should be wholly immune from criminal subpoenas.
United States v. Nixon, Supreme Court of the United States (1974)
Resolved: No single method can account for the progress of science.
Against Method, Paul Feyerabend (1975)
Resolved: Charlie Citrine betrayed Humboldt.
Humboldt's Gift, Saul Bellow (1975)
Resolved: that persons with mental illness who are not dangerous should never be confined against their will.
O'Connor v. Donaldson, Supreme Court of the United States (1975)
Resolved: Owl was right to open the door to Winter.
Owl at Home, Arnold Lobel (1975)
Resolved: In any contest, accurate orientation matters more than speed of decision.
Destruction and Creation and the OODA Loop Briefings, John Boyd (1976-1995)
Resolved: that an auditor whose negligence allows a client's fraud to continue should be liable to defrauded investors under federal securities law.
Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, Supreme Court of the United States (1976)
Resolved: that disclosure law should require companies to tell investors every fact a reasonable investor might consider important.
TSC Industries, Inc. v. Northway, Inc., Supreme Court of the United States (1976)
Resolved: Betonie is right that traditions must change in order to remain alive.
Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko (1977)
Resolved: A travel writer may embellish real people's stories if doing so tells a deeper truth about a place.
In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin (1977)
Resolved: The two large stones were happier after the mouse's report than they were before the bird came.
Mouse Soup, Arnold Lobel (1977)
Resolved: The butterflies are happier than Grasshopper because they always know what will happen next.
Grasshopper on the Road, Arnold Lobel (1978)
Resolved: That a scientific theory should be retained in the face of a failed prediction if it continues to predict new facts successfully.
The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, Imre Lakatos (1978)
Resolved: that involuntary commitment to a mental hospital should require proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Addington v. Texas, Supreme Court of the United States (1979)
Resolved: that clients harmed by an investment adviser's breach of fiduciary duty should be able to sue for damages under federal law.
Transamerica Mortgage Advisors, Inc. v. Lewis, Supreme Court of the United States (1979)
Resolved: that the SEC should be able to obtain injunctions against securities fraud without proving the defendant intended to deceive.
Aaron v. SEC, Supreme Court of the United States (1980)
Resolved: that anyone who trades on material nonpublic information, however obtained, should be guilty of securities fraud.
Chiarella v. United States, Supreme Court of the United States (1980)
Resolved: that a new living organism created by human design should be eligible for a patent.
Diamond v. Chakrabarty, Supreme Court of the United States (1980)
Resolved: Barthelme's comedy deepens rather than undercuts the grief in his stories.
Sixty Stories, Donald Barthelme (1981)
Resolved: that a state may limit free public education to children who are citizens or lawfully admitted residents.
Plyler v. Doe, Supreme Court of the United States (1982)
Resolved: that a state which commits a person for care owes him training to preserve the skills he had when he arrived.
Youngberg v. Romeo, Supreme Court of the United States (1982)
Resolved: that an insider who reveals confidential information to expose a fraud should be free of insider trading liability, along with those he tells.
Dirks v. SEC, Supreme Court of the United States (1983)
Resolved: Matt should have gone with the beaver people.
The Sign of the Beaver, Elizabeth George Speare (1983)
Resolved: Abbie was right to run out into the storm to save the hens.
Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie, Peter and Connie Roop (1985)
Resolved: that the Commission should be able to require anyone who sells investment recommendations to register as an adviser.
Lowe v. SEC, Supreme Court of the United States (1985)
Resolved: that Anna was wiser than Caleb to be careful about hoping Sarah would stay.
Sarah, Plain and Tall, Patricia MacLachlan (1985)
Resolved: Quinn's disappearance at the end of City of Glass is the result of his own choices rather than the case he was given.
The New York Trilogy, Paul Auster (1985–1986)
Resolved: Reagan was right to promise on the day of the disaster that there would be more shuttle flights and more teachers in space.
Address to the Nation on the Challenger Disaster, Ronald Reagan (1986)
Resolved: that brokerage customers should be able to bring securities fraud claims in court regardless of any arbitration agreement they signed.
Shearson/American Express Inc. v. McMahon, Supreme Court of the United States (1987)
Resolved: that a leader should publicly challenge a rival head of state even when his own advisers judge it provocative.
Tear Down This Wall (Brandenburg Gate Address), Ronald Reagan (1987)
Resolved: that investors who trade in an efficient market should be presumed to have relied on a company's public misstatements.
Basic Inc. v. Levinson, Supreme Court of the United States (1988)
Resolved: Annemarie's parents were right to keep the truth about Lise from her until the war was over.
Number the Stars, Lois Lowry (1989)
Resolved: that a state may require clear and convincing evidence of a patient's own wishes before life-sustaining treatment is withdrawn.
Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, Supreme Court of the United States (1990)
Resolved: that courts should read financial terms in securities statutes by their established legal meaning rather than by the statute's purpose.
Reves v. Ernst & Young, Supreme Court of the United States (1990)
Resolved: The market economy described in Centesimus Annus section 42 is the economic system most compatible with the dignity of the human person.
Centesimus Annus, John Paul II (1991)
Resolved: that the Supreme Court should give its institutional legitimacy weight when deciding whether to overrule a controversial precedent.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, Supreme Court of the United States (1992)
Resolved: that Achilles was justified in refusing to fight after Agamemnon took Briseis.
Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad, Rosemary Sutcliff (1993)
Resolved: Jonas was right to leave the Community rather than stay and help the people bear the returning memories.
The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
Resolved: Mandela was justified in turning from nonviolent defiance to sabotage after all lawful channels of protest were closed.
Long Walk to Freedom, Nelson Mandela (1994)
Resolved: A law that permits the taking of innocent human life has no binding moral authority.
Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II (1995)
Resolved: that trading on information entrusted to one's employer or client should be a federal securities crime even when the trader owes no duty to the other side of the trade.
United States v. O'Hagan, Supreme Court of the United States (1997)
Resolved: that the meaning of liberty in the Due Process Clause should be limited to rights deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition.
Washington v. Glucksberg, Supreme Court of the United States (1997)
Resolved: In the present age the greater threat to faith is a reason that doubts it can know truth, not a reason that claims to know too much.
Fides et Ratio, John Paul II (1998)
Resolved: that keeping a person in an institution after professionals recommend community care is a form of discrimination.
Olmstead v. L. C., Supreme Court of the United States (1999)
Resolved: that the peace mission to France in 1799 was the greatest act of Adams's public life.
John Adams, David McCullough (2001)
Resolved: A family should adopt a new technology only if it strengthens the household and local community it enters.
The Art of the Commonplace, Wendell Berry (2002)
Resolved: that a state may include religious schools in a tuition scholarship program for low-income families.
Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, Supreme Court of the United States (2002)
Resolved: that every arrangement promising investors a fixed return for passive participation should be regulated as a security.
SEC v. Edwards, Supreme Court of the United States (2004)
Resolved: that Congress's power over interstate commerce should extend to goods grown and used within a single home.
Gonzales v. Raich, Supreme Court of the United States (2005)
Resolved: that the western Roman Empire fell chiefly because of external pressure rather than internal decline.
The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, Peter Heather (2005)
Resolved: The recruitment of Turkish soldiers was the decisive cause of the Abbasid caliphate's political decline.
When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty, Hugh Kennedy (2005)
Resolved: The modern university should treat theology as a rational discipline alongside the natural sciences.
Regensburg Lecture, Benedict XVI (2006)
Resolved: Byzantium did more than any other medieval state to make the development of western Europe possible.
Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire, Judith Herrin (2007)
Resolved: that the weakness of the Byzantine and Persian empires, more than the strength of the Arab armies, explains the speed of the conquests.
The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In, Hugh Kennedy (2007)
Resolved: that the militia clause of the Second Amendment defines and limits the right it protects.
District of Columbia v. Heller, Supreme Court of the United States (2008)
Resolved: High school world-history courses should be organized around more than one civilizational narrative.
Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, Tamim Ansary (2009)
Resolved: That the term 'Dark Ages' should be abandoned.
The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000, Chris Wickham (2009)
Resolved: that Bonhoeffer's decision to join the conspiracy against Hitler was consistent with the teaching of The Cost of Discipleship.
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, Eric Metaxas (2010)
Resolved: that forgiving an enemy does more good for the one who forgives than for the one forgiven.
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption, Laura Hillenbrand (2010)
Resolved: that Washington's resignation of his commission in 1783 was a greater service to the nation than his victory at Yorktown.
Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow (2010)
Resolved: that the Commerce Clause permits Congress to require individuals to purchase health insurance.
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, Supreme Court of the United States (2012)
Resolved: That the Roman empire's survival is more remarkable than its fall.
Rome: An Empire's Story, Greg Woolf (2012)
Resolved: that isolating a naturally occurring gene should be treated as a patentable invention.
Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., Supreme Court of the United States (2013)
Resolved: that the definition of civil marriage should be decided by state legislatures and voters rather than by the federal courts.
Obergefell v. Hodges, Supreme Court of the United States (2015)
Resolved: The benefits of the pax Romana for the provinces outweighed the costs of the conquests that created it.
Pax Romana: War, Peace and Conquest in the Roman World, Adrian Goldsworthy (2016)
Resolved: Climate change and pandemic disease were more important than barbarian invasion in ending the Roman Empire in the West.
The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, Kyle Harper (2017)
Resolved: that the Supreme Court should decide constitutional cases on the narrowest ground available, even when it believes a precedent was wrongly decided.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, Supreme Court of the United States (2022)
Resolved: Historians should stop calling the eastern Roman Empire 'Byzantium'.
The New Roman Empire: A History of Byzantium, Anthony Kaldellis (2023)

Readings

Logic, dialectic, and rhetoric in the library

The Last Days of SocratesPlato. Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedo: the elenchus at work, a defense speech before a jury, and a dialogue on obeying the laws.c. 399–347 BCE The RepublicPlato. Book I tests definitions of justice against Thrasymachus; the rest of the work builds a long constructive case.c. 380 BCE Phaedrus and Letters VII and VIIIPlato. Plato on true and false rhetoric, on speech that leads the soul, and on the limits of writing.c. 370 BCE The SymposiumPlato. A sequence of set speeches in praise of Love: a model for encomium and for comparing speeches.c. 385 BCE The Nicomachean EthicsAristotle. Aristotle on virtue, deliberation, and practical wisdom: the moral vocabulary of value debate.c. 340 BCE PoliticsAristotle. Aristotle on the city, citizenship, and regimes: the ground of many policy and value resolutions.c. 350 BCE The History of the Peloponnesian WarThucydides. Paired speeches in Thucydides: the Funeral Oration, the Mytilene Debate, and the Melian Dialogue.c. 431–411 BCE The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek LivesPlutarch. Includes Plutarch's Life of Demosthenes, the classic account of an orator's training.c. 100 CE The Fall of the Roman Republic: Six LivesPlutarch. Includes Plutarch's Life of Cicero, the orator and statesman of the late Republic.c. 100 CE The OresteiaAeschylus. The Eumenides stages the founding of a jury court on the Areopagus.458 BCE ConfessionsAugustine of Hippo. Augustine, a professional teacher of rhetoric, on eloquence, truth, and his conversion.c. 397–400 CE The Consolation of PhilosophyBoethius. A prison dialogue between Boethius and Lady Philosophy, by the translator who carried Aristotle’s logic into the Latin West.c. 524 CE Summa TheologicaThomas Aquinas. The disputed question in its mature form: objections, sed contra, respondeo, replies.1265-1274 The Trial of Joan of ArcJeanne d'Arc; Pierre Cauchon; Guillaume Bouille; T. Douglas Murray. The record of a real interrogation: questions, refusals, and answers under pressure.1431; rehabilitation 1450-1456; Murray translation 1902 Novum OrganumFrancis Bacon. Bacon’s new organon of induction, with his account of the idols that mislead the mind.1620 EssaysFrancis Bacon. Short essays that model the maxim, the thesis, and the balanced sentence.1597-1625 Discourse on MethodRene Descartes. Descartes’s rules for directing reason, set out in four precepts.1637 PenseesBlaise Pascal. Pascal on reason, the heart, imagination, and the wager.1670 Dialogues Concerning Natural ReligionDavid Hume. Three speakers state their positions at full strength: a model of fair dialectic.1779 The Federalist PapersAlexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Persuasive essays for ratification, built on definition, example, and refutation.1787-1788 The Anti-Federalist PapersVarious. The opposing case on the Constitution, for side-by-side reading with the Federalist.1787-1788 Common Sense, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and The American CrisisThomas Paine. Paine’s plain-style persuasion for a popular audience.1776-1794 Narrative of the Life and What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?Frederick Douglass. Douglass’s Fourth of July address, a ceremonial occasion turned to argument.1845 / 1852 Sermons and Letter from Birmingham JailMartin Luther King Jr.. A letter that answers its critics point by point.1955-1963 On LibertyJohn Stuart Mill. Mill on why a position must be tested against its strongest objections.1859 Twelve Angry MenReginald Rose. A jury room in which evidence, doubt, and persuasion are weighed one vote at a time.1954 (teleplay)Billy Budd and Other StoriesHerman Melville. A drumhead court in which law, conscience, and necessity collide.1924 (written 1886–1891); stories 1850s Logical Writings on Binary Arithmetic and Universal CharacterGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz’s hope for a universal character in which reasoning could be calculated.1679-1703