“Basic desert” is the view that a person can deserve praise or blame (and, all else equal, reward or punishment) simply because of what they have done, independent of the social consequences of praising, blaming, rewarding, or punishing them. For example, under this view, an irresponsible employee could deserve a wage cut purely because they performed poorly, even if it would not change their behavior, deter similar behavior by their coworkers, or provide any other benefit.

“Moral realism” is the view that there are objective moral facts (e.g., facts about what actions are right and wrong), regardless of what anyone believes.

For this debate, “neediness” is the excessive desire for attention, validation, and reassurance from others in sexual and romantic contexts.

“Odious debt” is a hypothetical legal doctrine holding that a new government need not honor sovereign debt obligations if the debt was incurred without the people's consent, did not benefit the people, and the lenders knew or should have known this. 

A substantial portion of Venezuela's sovereign debt is governed by New York law in the United States, and many PDVSA (Venezuela's state-owned oil and gas company) debt instruments are structured to be litigated under New York law. For this debate, assume it is feasible for courts applying New York law to treat debt as odious, even though they have never done this before.