A first look at the 2026-2027 Lincoln-Douglas potential topics

If the 2025-2026 Lincoln-Douglas season asked students to wrestle with criminal justice, nuclear weapons, and military intervention, the 2026-2027 slate is shaping up to be just as philosophically demanding — moving into space ethics, animal rights, ecological law, artificial intelligence in warfare, economic justice, and the tension between privacy and the public’s right to know.

Here is a preview of what next season’s LD competitors may be arguing.

September/October 2026 — Whether outer space colonization is a moral imperative, and whether keeping wild animals in zoos is immoral. Two topics rooted in applied ethics — one asking what humanity owes its own future, the other asking what humanity owes other species.

November/December 2026 — Whether de-extinction is unethical, and whether the United States ought to vest ecosystems with legal rights. A pairing that pushes students into genuinely novel philosophical territory: the ethics of reviving extinct species, and the emerging legal movement to grant rights to rivers, forests, and ecosystems themselves.

January/February 2027 — Whether using artificial intelligence for offensive military operations is immoral, and whether the United States ought to substantially increase renewable energy subsidies. One topic places students at the center of the most urgent ethical question in modern warfare; the other returns to energy policy, this time through a values-based rather than purely economic lens.

March/April 2027 — Whether the United States ought to provide a universal basic income, and whether a candidate for public office’s right to privacy ought to be valued above the public’s right to know. A pairing that spans economic philosophy and the ethics of democratic transparency.

2027 National Tournament — Whether the intergenerational accumulation of wealth is unjust, and whether justice requires the repatriation of cultural artifacts to their countries of origin. Both nationals-caliber topics ask students to reason about historical injustice and what present generations owe for the past — a fitting, weighty close to the season.

As with the PF slate, final resolution wording is confirmed by NSDA member vote closer to each cycle. Honor Academy will publish full topic breakdowns — research angles, key philosophical frameworks, and case-building guidance — once each topic is finalized, the same way we did for the 2025-2026 season.