Abortion is always Morally Permissible

Thanks once again to Envisage on this debate. I kindly remind him that this round will be his last opportunity to post arguments as he must forgo the final round. At this time, I will discuss the BOP for this debate and defend my case.BOPPro writes, "Note that BoP only means I need to give evidence that positivly [sic] demonstrates the resolution." That is partially correct. Pro must offer evidence that upholds the resolution, and this evidence must be sufficient on its own to accomplish that task, but it must also not be cancelled out by any arguments I might make. For instance, let's say Pro has argument A and I have argument B; Pro's argument fully affirms the resolution, whereas mine fully negates it. Because Pro has the BOP, in case such as that, we presume against Pro and vote Con. Therefore, Pro must not only successfully argue through evidence that is sufficient to affirm the resolution, but he must also deal with any potential arguments I present that would negate the resolution.REALISMWhat is an objective moral statement? I want to explore this question though the example of Utilitarianism. A utilitarian might make the statement: "maximizing pleasure and minimizing pain are moral." They use this as their first principle to determine whether a given individual action is or is not moral. To use Pro's phraseology, the moral truth espoused by the utilitarian exists "independently of cognition, bias and opinion," even though it may be biased in its application (i.e. biased in favor of promoting pleasure.) the same could be said of Kant's philosophy, with its categorical imperative being used to make right-wrong claims that exist independently. Why, then, is moral egoism not a morally realist theory? It is axiomatic in the sense that an egoist will make the claim: "doing what is in your self-interest is moral." This is a first principle by which the morality of a given action is determined. Like Utilitarianism and Kantian Ethics, it seems to meet all of the criteria that Pro lays out as well. If this is the case, all of Pro's arguments can be turned back against him, defeating his own case."The debate between moral realists and anti-realists assumes, though, that there is a shared object of inquiry--in this case, a range of claims all involved are willing to recognize as moral claims--about which two questions can be raised and answered: Do these claims purport to report facts in light of which they are true or false?...Moral realists answer ‘yes’." [1] Moral egoism is purporting to report facts in light of which moral claims are true or false, and thus falls under the scope of moral realism, affirming Pro's self-contradiction.Now, let's discuss Pro's syllogism. P1 is obviously true, so we'll focus on P2 and P3. Pro's argument in support of P2 is that when we make a moral statement, we can keep asking "why" ad infinitum. But, this objection seems true even for so-called objective facts. If you make the claim "1+1=2" I could continue to ask "why" for every single response you gave until it would reach the point of absurdity. Everything has to start from some basic assumption, some first principle, that we can then work back from, like egoism's first principle of maximizing self-interest, utility's first principle of maximizing pleasure, Kant's first principle of respecting human dignity, etc. The implications of Pro's argument is that nothing is objective, but that's clearly false. Very clearly "1+1+=2" even if I can ask "why" until my throat gets hoarse. While we may have trouble identifying what the basic truth of morality is, that doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. By citing a variety of theories, I was attempting to show that from multiple possible first principles of morality, we would arrive at the same conclusion--thus, regardless of which of these first principles was right, we could still make the claims I was making. For the purposes of this round, I was establishing that murder is generally wrong. Even egoism agrees with this claim, as committing murder could find you locked up in jail, ostracized by potential allies in the community, etc. So, my case preceded on the notion, on the first principle, that murder is generally wrong.Regarding P3, this is also not true. Pro is attempting to prove a negative here--i.e. to prove that there is no objective moral first principle. If it is at least possible that such a principle exists, even if we don't yet know what it is, P3 is undermined because, this principle is not something I want or value, "ought" statements do not connect with what I care about. I might "ought" to do something I do not care to do. This casts serious doubt on the validity of P3.Finally, there are several advantages to moral realism that mean we should prefer that as a framework for the debate. The main one I will give here is that moral realism has the "capacity to resolve moral disagreements: If two moral beliefs contradict one another, realism says that they cannot both be right, and therefore everyone involved ought to be seeking out the right answer to resolve the disagreement." [2]EXISTENTIALISMPro writes: "To state that humans ‘have worth’ is to literally state that ‘Humans are worth *something*’, what is this something?" I would argue that, for the purposes of this debate, I don't have to answer than question as long as I make the claim that humans are of equal worth. If humans are of equal worth, then killing one to save another creates no net harms (it's a 1 for 1 trade.) However, killing one without saving one does create a net harm. That's sufficient to make my argument.As for the inherency of human worth, a lot of that ties back into moral realism, so I don't see much reason to explore that too much. Instead, I want to focus on Pro's claim that worth is never inherent, but rather assigned. He explains that a dollar bill has no inherent worth of it's own. That's true insofar as the value of a dollar bill is determined--subjectively--by society. This seems to be a relativistic stance Pro is taking.Let's take a moment to explore moral relativism: "The philosophically interesting claim at the heart of most forms of moral relativism is that moral statements are true (or false) relative to some normative standpoint, usually one characteristic of some particular culture...Cognitive relativism holds that (a) the truth value of any judgment is relative to some particular standpoint (for example, a conceptual scheme or theoretical framework); and (b) no standpoint is metaphysically privileged over all others--there is no 'God’s eye point of view' that yields the objective truth about reality. Relativists of this sort are not so impressed by the fact-value distinction. They do not view truth as a property that sentences possess in virtue of their correspondence to an independent reality. Rather, they argue that we call a sentence 'true' when it coheres with the rest of our beliefs, perceptions, values, and assumptions." [3] There are two impacts to this:The key impact of this analysis is that relativism leads to an inability to make meaningful moral claims. Because there is no objective truth, and all moral values are analyzed from an individual perspective with no overarching first principle, something can be both moral or immoral. Let's say Envisage and I witness situation X transpire. Envisage thinks what occurred was moral; I think what occurred was immoral. Under a morally relativist paradigm, we're both correct. Therefore, it is impossible to make substantive claims about whether an action is or is not moral. This would lead to a Con ballot because Pro cannot affirm the "always" statement since--from some point of view--abortion will be immoral. This would also function as a kritik of the topic (something disallowed by rules) because it challenges the debate's assumption that we can make moral claims about abortion. Since the logical implications of Pro's dollar bill analysis would lead us to a relativistic conclusion, we can actually turn those arguments against him.So, Pro is really all over the map. He argues that egoism is a moral axiom (objective), then denies objectivity (subjective). Morality is either objective, subjective, or nonexistant. Pro cannot affirm if morality doesn't exist, and his other two stances are widely contradictory. What's more is that if morality is subjective, we can turn that back against him and negate.PERSONHOODAll of Pro's attacks on this part of my argument are simply cross-applications of his earlier remarks about realism and existentialism. Since I've already reviewed those two concepts thoroughly, I see no need, nor do I have the space, to repeat myself. I am not dropping this contention, though, because I have already addressed the core assumptions of Pro's rebuttals. As for the remark about gold fish, we can make the claim that a gold fish will never have the potential for moral decision-making, whereas a fetus will. The same is true of a baby.FLO ARGUMENTIt appears I need to offer a brief clarification here: I contend that murder is wrong except in self-defense, because at that point the losses in FLO cancel out (1 for 1 trade). Otherwise, the FLO argument would seem to assert that killing is wrong. To more properly construct the syllogism, we would write: P1. Any action that leads to a net loss in FLO is wrongP2. Abortion intentionally denies a FLOC1. Abortion is oftentimes wrong This clarification, combined with my earlier statements, should sufficiently uphold P1.SOCIETYPro drops 2 of my harms to society. He cannot rebut these later, as that would be making new arguments. Extend them. Society is harmed in those ways by abortion--I'll impact this in my next speech (where it's relevant).SOURCES1 - http://plato.stanford.edu...2 - http://en.wikipedia.org...3 - http://www.iep.utm.edu...Thanks, again :) Over to Pro...