. . . Ha! YOU'RE GOING DOWN, BEEM0R!

--->RE:Since my opponent has left it up to me, I will of course hold him to the resolution he used in R1." Very well then. Ladies and gentleman, whereas at first glance, it would appear that I was the one going down, the flaws in my opponent's case grant him no chance at victory here as I will show you soon enough: --->RE:"So what my opponent is claiming is that self interest being involved is a necessary condition for _not_ consciously acting." Indeed so, because if one isn't consciously acting, one is unconsciously acting. -------->RE: "This is patently false - a dead man doesn't consciously act, and there's no self interest involved in that, a rock doesn't consciously act, a man bleeding to death is not consciously acting, and yet there is no self-interest involved." No, a dead man acts alright as do rocks and other inanimate objects. http://www.work911.com... http://www.iridiumconsulting.co.uk... As we can see here by these highly credible source and their air tight explanations, it is impossible not to act as it is impossible not to communicate. A dead man communicates with silence as does a rock and their messages are the following: 1) I am dead (the dead man). 2) I am an inanimate object (for the rock). Essentially, one ALWAYS communicates. Thus, given that I've established that one always acts (which can be make up for the "not consciously acting clause" of the resolution, I need only concern myself with the self interest part as of now. Ladies and gentleman, this is just as easy to prove as I am dictating that all action is associated with self interest. I submit that as long as at least one person has some self interest when existence is concerned (I myself am very interested in all of existence), self interest is indeed involved. Of course, I'm not the only one who has self interest in existence, but I'm enough to prove the resolution true. Remember, self interest merely needs involvement and my self interest is involved in existence. And given that the resolution is set in the present (is), it means that it concerns status quo, meaning my opponent cannot bring up the possibility that all humans will be annihilated. Now . . . though I don't have to, I shall respond to all unrelated matters: "The debate would come down to the definition of conscious - consciously acting does not mean the same thing as willfully acting. One may be conscious of the fact that he is bleeding to death, but that does not mean he wants to bleed to death, and it doesn't mean he is bleeding to death due to self-interest." No, consciously acting is indeed willfully acting. If you have control over something, you're willing it. As for bleeding to death, that is an unconscious actio, but believe it or not, is no different than one giving into his/her limits and dropping the barbel when they are bench pressing heavy weights. The body can no longer take the strain, thus gives in out of being interested in it's own strain. The same can be applied to bleeding to death. ----->RE: "My opponent claimed that all actions were selfish, and I negated his claim in two ways. First, I showed that selfishness includes a 'lack of regard for others' component, and I gave examples of actions with regard for others. Second, I showed that some actions that are done unwillingly can be unselfish. However, the resolution my opponent apparently wanted to use in this debate does not conflict with either of my arguments - it's carefully worded so that the arguments I used in my previous debate do not have any impact." Believe it or not, this was sort of my intention. It must have been due to habit alone that I unconsciously devised ways around it in the resolution. Still, being that my only concern is to debate, I shall gladly counter these fallacious claims made by my opponent. 1) Is there truly a regard for others in these actions? Granted, others benefit from them, but in acting out on these decisions, one is merely appealing to their own way of life. For instance, let us focus on your example where the man helps the old lady across the street? What do you think is initially in the man's mind before he does this? I'll tell you: That lady might need some help crossing the street. I'd better help her so that I "feel like a better person" or "further strengthen what I know to be important in life." If neither of the above is the case, the man simply wouldn't help the old lady as if he doesn't perceive any standards as being important or if he doesn't feel that helping the old lady will make him a better person, he wouldn't be the kind of person to help the old lady in the first place (well actually, he could be, provided he had ulterior motives to helping the old lady . . . which would still fall under selfishness). The point to be made here is that individuals act either to gain or to uphold their paradigms of life (which, is colloquially referred to as "standards"). Often, these paradigms of life merely happen to benefit others. 2) Unwilling actions would fall under unconscious actions and would simply link back to my weight lifting example. So there you have it ladies and gentleman. I have this debate in the palm of my hands regardless of the choices made. I now await CON's next round. Toodles.