The Prerequisites of Debate

What should you have before a debate?

First, someone involved should have an idea of what they're doing. Someone should understand what a productive debate looks like. Simplifying, you should either have a debate moderator or a debate participant who is capable of being a debate moderator. If no one knows how to do that, your debate is likely to be disorganized and unproductive. Meeting this prerequisite doesn't guarantee a good debate, but it gives you a better chance. If you don't meet this prerequisite, consider collaboration instead. If you don't meet this prerequisite and have strong disagreements and adversarial attitudes, consider aborting or finding a moderator.

Second, you should be interested in the topic. You should think it's important and want to spend some time on it. Debate is best if everyone wants to try to reach a conclusion instead of stopping early. That may not happen for a variety of reasons, but it should at least be people's preference that they'd like to do if everything goes smoothly.

Third, each person should know how to win the debate unopposed. If your opponent didn't say a word for the entire debate, and you still couldn't win, then you aren't ready to debate the claim you're making. You should not have reached that conclusion yourself because you don't know conclusive arguments and evidence, or don't know how to evaluate and explain what is enough to be conclusive. Instead of just saying some pros of your side and cons of the other side, you should be able to explain what the objectively correct goalposts are and how/why your reasoning meets that bar. Instead of saying how great your side is, you should also know what is good enough that reasonable, unbiased people should reach a conclusion.

If you think in terms of probabilities not conclusive reasoning, then put forward a claim like "X is at least 80% likely to be true" and explain why your arguments and evidence are enough to reach that conclusion.

By conclusive I mean fallibly and tentatively: the best knowledge we have now, and enough to conclude and move on instead of continuing to consider the issue. But after we reach a conclusion, it's still open to revision and reconsideration in the future, especially if we think of relevant new arguments or get new evidence.

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