Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 29 (2008) 1 ACADEMIC DEBATE AS A DECISION- MAKING GAME: INCULCATING THE VIRTUE OF PRACTICAL WISDOM L. Paul Strait, University of Southern California and Brett Wallace, George Washington University Abstract: This essay argues for a pedagogical renewal in the academic debate community, which currently lacks a clear telos. Practical wisdom, as defined by Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics, is proposed as the final cause of academic debating. Practical wisdom is identified with the process of good decision- making. Controversies in the theory of disadvantages, counterplans, and critiques are evaluated. In order to realize the final cause of practical wisdom, debate theory needs to be restructured according to a common-sense understanding of decision-making. The authors advocate a more rigorous and systematic approach for debating and evaluating theoretical arguments. If we take seriously the proposition that debate is not merely a contest to be won but also an activity that enriches all of its participants, whether they win or lose, we ought to determine the substance of that enrichment. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (c. 330BCE/1941a) avers that all activity has an end: Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good… What then is the good of each? Surely that for whose sake everything else is done. In medicine this is health, in strategy victory, in architecture a house, in any other sphere something else, and in every action and pursuit the end. (#1094a 1-3; #1097a 18-22).