Utilitarianism is an unsound ethical system

FRAMEWORK: 1) Stable Advocacy Pro did not contest this- Limit Pro to a stable and consistent advocacy, don’t allow him to defend contradictory positions. Debate is not a forum thread or an exploration of infinite alternatives- it is a competition with a finite character limit. Debate therefore must be bracketed by constraints aimed at maintaining fair competition and quality discourse. It is unfair to allow Pro to defend multiple contradictory positions while I must defend one position, yet Pro continues to keep open the option that ALL ethical systems are unsound AND that the NAP is a competing ethical theory. I clearly explained last round why this was unfair but Pro persisted - Now I have waste my speech time explaining why this is unfair. Vote Con on theoretical grounds of fairness and education. 2) Competing Ethical Theories Pro agrees that this is a debate of competing ethical theories. The winner of this debate is whoever better defends their ethical theory. NAP P1) Utilitarianism justifies all the benefits of NAP without the drawbacks. As I explained in C7, rights can be derived from Util. P2) The NAP has overwhelming massive moral blind spots. The NAP is only prohibitive of the violation of rights; it is totally silent on the moral character of all other moral interactions. Consider the case of the drowning child that an adult could easily save at no personal cost or risk- not only does the NAP not generate an obligation to help, the NAP is totally silent about any possible choice. Since the child’s rights are not being violated either way, watching a child drown to death and saving the child are morally equivalent. P3) The NAP is massively impractical – it prohibits marginal infringements on property rights that yield massive benefits. The NAP is absolutist- any violation of rights is wrong. This means that any form of pollution that could impact the health or property of another is unjustifiable (Rothbard argued for tort-law in pollution cases). Extreme security cases become unresolvable- the NAP allows no room for civilian casualties in times of war, as ANY harm to a non-aggressor violates the NAP. P4) Interaction of epistemic uncertainty in the form of risk of aggression is especially problematic for the NAP. Strict adherence to NAP would bar any incursion of risk of aggression- thus even driving your car would be immoral since you willingly risk the lives of those around you. NAP lacks any conceptual tools to rationalize what degree of risk is morally acceptable. Intentionality offers Pro no safe harbor here- if Pro argues that only intentionally aggressive acts are wrong, then this means that wildly reckless acts like drunk driving in a school zone are ok. Again, NAP only speaks to the violation of rights, which is a binary state of affairs. Risk either does or doesn’t violate NAP- both options are paralyzing. Utilitarianism is well-equipped to evaluate risk and uncertainty. P5) The NAP assumes a massive amount of philosophical theory. It offers no justification of rights- it doesn’t explain why life, liberty, and property should be considered rights or why other things shouldn’t. It also assumes a well-developed theory of property to determine what property rights even are- is Pro defending the Lockean theory that property is derived from God’s gift of the earth to man? Is Pro willing to defend this particular concept of God and the attending theology? The sheer quantity of philosophical baggage the NAP carries is a reason to prefer utilitarianism. Util C1) a) Pro responds that comparisons are only possible when comparing binary cases of one person suffering vs another not. Do I really need to give examples here? The choice of giving a starving man meal vs giving a satiated man a meal is simple. Life experience gives us plenty of knowledge to make interpersonal comparisons- often people can relate their individual experiences quite effectively merely by opening their mouths and speaking! I don’t deny that comparisons can be difficult or infeasible due to epistemic barriers, but the same could be said about analyzing problems governed by physics. b) Pro offers no argument that uncertainty invalidates a system and he ignores my argument that validity of a theory is independent of full knowledge of relevant parameters. This means he needs to win that interpersonal comparisons are intrinsically IMPOSSIBLE, not just practically impossible in SOME cases. Note this also means his unfair claim that no ethical system is sound fails, as he has no argument why uncertainty demonstrates unsoundness. Pro has already conceded this by granting me C3- that utilitarian calculation IS POSSIBLE IN PRACTICE. c) Pro ignores my distinction between criteria and decision making process. A prohibition on thievery protects the institution of property, allowing for economic growth, individual security and ease of mind, and societal trust. Theft harms this institution, so it is almost always wrong. In light of societal considerations, micro-evaluations of utility are unnecessary. In this way consideration of utility yields practical decision-making procedures that need not consider local uncertainty. C2) a) Pro’s account of intention is absurd. Inanimate objects don’t make decisions- a boulder’s action is amoral because there is no “action” at all. I believe Pro is making the fallacy of equivocation. Psychological intention may be a pre-requisite for moral content insofar as simply having an intention is required for the capacity of decision-making. I think this sense of intention is more related to the psychology of action than the motivational aspect of action that Pro is arguing for. b) Pro ignores the distinction between culpability and a moral criterion. We judge people based on how well they adhere to ethical decision making procedures, but those decision making procedures are justified by the moral criterion of utilitarianism. Utility is maximized by following utility maximizing decision procedures- so we judge people on this basis. If I follow these rules I am acting in accordance with utilitarianism, even if the result of my action was harmful. c) Pro completely ignores my argument that any moral relevance intention has can be derived from consequentialist calculation; on this point alone I win C2. We judge accidents less harshly because intentional harm is more likely to result in actual harm. We also judge accidents that are the result of recklessness harshly not because of intentional factors but because of the high risk of actual harm. How intentions manifest in societal consequences makes intentions relevant. C4) Treat Pro’s concession as a test case for the efficacy of utilitarianism in evaluating moral scenarios. C5) a) Pro has effectively conceded this contention by reformulated his argument into “it is wrong to sacrifice for other people. ” He conceded that we don’t need to consider fantasy objections to ethical systems and that happiness doesn’t exist on an infinite scale. Pro’s objection asserts that we should only care about our own happiness and no one has an obligation to sacrifice their own well-being. This highlights the inflexibility of the NAP. Pro would claim that I have no obligation to donate one dollar to charity even if doing so could save thousands of lives at minimal expense to me. Utilitarianism acknowledges that the well-being of all humans is equally valuable, that all our actions are motivated by the same psychological principles of pursuing desires. Intellectual honesty requires that if we find our own pleasure and pain to be of value, we must also value the pain and pleasure of others. The pain I feel is no different than the pain that others feel, so I should not create an artificial moral distinction between the two. C6) a) Pro concedes that we should try and relieve third world poverty. However, only utilitarianism justifies this conclusion. The NAP is silent on whether third world poverty is right or wrong. b) Pro has offered no justification to the claim that it is universally wrong to seize property. Again, NAP is impractically rigid. Utilitarianism justifies limited property rights while acknowledging extreme circumstances can present a compelling reason to limit the protection of property rights. c) Again, books have been written about the proper utilitarian response to poverty. What I am pointing out is that ACTUAL utilitarians do not support Pro’s thesis. Actual utilitarians advocate for reasonable and pragmatic solutions while Pro creates a straw man argument that utilitarianism will result in some Stalinist purge of wealth. Utilitarians argue that the First World does have an obligation to aid the Third, but utility is best served by valuing the well-being of all people and protecting the wealth generating economies fueled by the First World. The NAP silently stares the suffering of the poor in the face. C7) a) Pro doesn’t dispute that utilitarianism can generate rights like liberty, free speech, and property. This means that utilitarianism captures all the benefits of NAP while avoiding all the pit-falls, including the unwieldy philosophical baggage of the NAP. b) Utilitarianism is founded on basic observations about human psychology and what we value. All our actions center on considerations of pain and pleasure; the well-being of ourselves and others is the fundamental consideration of all decisions. From this we can conclude that utility is the fundamental factor in evaluating human activity. Even Pro accepts this- Pro asks why we should sacrifice our own desires for others, implicitly acknowledging that our own desires of value. But the desires of others are no different from my own, all men bleed. It is inconsistent to say that my desires alone are important. More importantly, the NAP acknowledges that the suffering of others must be considered, as it prohibits harm to others.