Resolution: Ulilitarianism is a superior moral theory to Kantianism.

He's kept it nice and short, so I will too. He also asked me to post this late, so I hope this is late enough. In debates like this it's easy to set the debate in terms of what you want to do for others. Think of it in terms of what you want others to do to you. I remember vividly a childhood friend of mine telling me a few years ago that they respect me so much they would be willing to kill somebody for me. I asked them how they'd feel if I killed them. It didn't take much questioning after that to discover that one of the key reasons they had so much respect for me, although one they'd never thought of before, was that I didn't kill people. In the end, they decided that maybe they needed to think some things through. So think of this debate in terms of whether Utilitarianism actually produces a better society. Not just a society in which you are happier, but an ethical society that works for everyone. Why Utilitarianism FailsUtilitarianism assumes that everybody wants to help eveybody else out. If that were the case, there would be no need for ethics because we'd all live in a perfect society already. Its problem is that some people don't want to contribute to welfare and make others happy. Utilitarianism's moral solution of making yourself as happy as possible clearly doesn't actually work. After all, pleasure and pain are both chemical signals our brains have evolved over the ages, and unfortunately our brains have not yet evolved universally perfect judgement. That's why Osama thought 9/11 was such a good idea, or why Hitler thought the Holocaust was such a good idea, or why almost every evil man has bought came from people who thought they were doing the right thing. They all judged that they were maximising their pleasure, and minimising their pain. Worryingly, sometimes they were right. There's a number of reasons why our judgement is flawed. We can't see the future, so without being able to weigh moral alternatives in an uncertain world we are forced to make moral judgements on a basis with no reliability. We don't all weigh incentives with the same weight, so one individual might have learnt somehow that selfishness is better than helping others out. Sometimes there are alternatives we don't even want to consider. Sometimes we are prone to short-term thinking. Sometimes people are just really dumb. Sometimes we consider alternatives we strongly believe to be true but which may not be, such as in the case of suicide bombers who believe they will go to heaven by sending others to hell. These are alternatives that utilitarianism not only allows, but actively encourages, because we might derive (or think we will derive) more pleasure than pain from doring moral wrongs. Maybe some people like seeing the world burn. Why Kant RocksKant knew about utilitarianism and noted what a failure it was. He realised that if the problem is our subjective, flawed judgement, then logically a subjective system of morality will never produce objectively good outcomes. His moral theory was created to provide an alternative - that that considers not just how YOU feel about a given alternative, but other universal maxims as well, providing some measure of objectivity. Kant called the former hypothetical imperatives, and the latter categorical imperatives. It's these categorical imperatives - things that are more important than our fleeting fancies - that set Kant apart in this debate. The most important feature of categorical imperatives is that they are universally applicable. So murder, for example, is not good, no exceptions. Even if you have a really good reason to hate somebody, it doesn't justify the murder because murder is bad, at least by the measure of how universal the moral code is. Aside from the fact that everybody can be happy because nobody is getting killed, it also means that people can't protest their own exceptional subjective rationales, and rather refrain from evil in the first place. Other important things to universally consider, most of which pro seems to agree with (in his examples), are to help others (humanity), act rationally (kingdom of ends) and allow for the autonomy of others (formula of autonomy). These objective moral truths - that we live not only for ourselves, but for others - are what Kant offers and utilitarianism denies. RebuttalsIt's patently false to say that Kant doesn't "rule in" actions, any more than utilitarianism merely "rules out" actions that reduce your utility. There may well be situations in which there are several good outcomes, but Kant doesn't deal with them because ethics is about making a good choice, not dictating a choice (otherwise it would be a violation of the formula of autonomy). In Kantian ethics all choices are valid so long as people are morally good. Kant's moral solution to the 2 million dollar problem pro posed is that the false promise was wrong but the miser should have given the money charitably. Kantian ethics provides an objective reason for charity (ie sees human lives as an end worth valuing), utilitarianism hopes it will happen in a world where too often it does not. No false promise is needed to achieve the desired end. A Kantian follower wouldn't give the lottery money away selfishly but rationally, because there is good cause to give the money to charity. That's not to say a selfish benefit cannot accrue, but that there is a reasonable motivation for it. I don't see why my opponent makes being motivated by doing the right thing count against Kantian theory. Being universally true, Kantian maxims operate regardless of a state of affairs, but that does not mean they cannot be applied to them - just like maths is true whether you are in Iceland or Tahiti, but maths remains applicable. Likewise, there's no reason to think that your circumstance changes the fact that murder is morally wrong. If you're doing the same act as Jack the Ripper, you should be morally judged as was Jack the Ripper. Kant's maxims don't contradict. You can still attempt to help your family without stealing the food. It may well be that this alternative leads to their death, but you didn't know that at the time you made the choice, nor did you know stealing the food would be right. Since you didn't steal, you still did right in terms of the moral norm not to steal that society values. After all, perhaps the theft would have discouraged charity giving that would have saved a different family. I look forward to the next round.