Utilitarianism Is Good

Also thanks to Wierdman for hosting this tournament, which has gone surprisinly fast. Overview:In this debate you should look to who has the most clear warrants for their arguments. In order for Pro to prove utilitarianism is morally righteous (conceded definiton) he must explain why 1. We look to only consequences when determining morality of an action, and 2. That happiness is intrinsically good. If you as the judge feel that Pro has not answered these questions (hint: he hasn't) then the ballot goes Con. I'll keep Pro's last round format. ObjectivityThe reason I ask pro to prove happiness itself as "objectively" good is to ensure that the cannot use appeals to emotion to justify his arguments. Because if we're not debating that Util is "objectively" good, then the alternative is that its "subjectively" good. But if the debate is about Utility being subjectively good, its impossible for me to negate because Pro can just say "I think Util is cool" and win the debate, since he's proved in his subjective opinion that its ok. Therefore we look to whether Pro has proved Util as an objective good, which means he must justify the specific tenets of utility, such as happiness being intrinsically good, without appealing to your emotions to justify this for him. We see though that intuition appeals is all he has in the following points. Is/oughtI never brought up the is/ought problem in my last round. I think he misinterprets my argument about him needing to prove the inherent worth of happiness as this issue. I would have argued the is/ought problem had I said "because we can't know what we ought too based off what is, we can't actually know anything, thus we can't know Utility is good". However, I never made this argument. I merely asked him to prove to us why happiness (chemical reactions) is inherently good. He hasn't even attempted to explain this. Ethics/MetaethicsPro thinks that judging Utilitarianism as good is similar to eating tacos. However, I am a Mexican-American, and feel deeply offended that he would use my country's prized food as an object to win your ballot. Vote Con for racial discrimination. Jimtimmy is not allowed to vote on this debate. But if thats not good enough reason, I'll continue the refutation. Pro basically wants you to accept Util as good because it sounds good, just like tacos "smell" good. But metaethics, contrary to what he argues here, is not about what moral system sounds better than the other based on instinct. Metaethics asks "why is X good or bad". Which means pro must specifically tell you why happiness itself is moral. He can't just say "well, we like it, and it appeals to people". Again, this is an appeal to emotion and it a poor attempt at justifying a moral system. Thus, extend that he has no justification for the series of chemical reactions that cause human pleasure. Pro has failed to uphold utility by not even attempting to justify its main tenet. ConsequentialismPro agrees that intentions people have when carrying out an action do matter. Furthermore, he says that he rejects a system that ignores intentions. You can vote con right here, because by definition, Utilitarianism ignores the intent people have in an action and looks only at what end result it produces. He defines Util as "The most happiness for the greatest number". Look at this definitio; its only accounting for happiness produced and not whether the intent of the action was good. He has therefore conceded the debate right here. He rejects moral systems that ignore intent of actions, which is exactly what consequentialism and Utilitarianism do. My case:"Parade of the horribles" (my contentions 2, 3, 5 and 6)Pro concedes that the things I said Utility would advocate are immoral, when he says "Incidentally, Con agrees with me that those things are bad". Furthermore, he has given no reason whatsoever to counter my logic that Utility would support things like date rape and overpopulation. His only response is that things like date rape and forced donations make people unhappy, so util wouldn't advocate them. Except, these things DO lead to a net gain in happiness. Date-rape does not make anyone unhappy because the victim is unconscious. Pro donating all his money to charity would save possibly hundreds of lives at the expense of one. All my outrageous examples lead to more people being happy, so Util advocates them. My opponent therefore concedes that Utilitarianism is bad by admitting that these things are immoral. He also says that I haven't proven that things like date rape, forced donations, and overpopulation are actually bad. This falls right into my trap. In actuality, I am appealing to your emotions in order for you to realize that the murdering doctor example is bad. I haven't actually proven it wrong, I'm only appealing to intuition. This was purposely done, because if you can't accept the murdering doctor or date rape examples as bad because they don't appeal to us, you can't accept happiness itself as good because it emotionally appeals to us. This is a double-bind: Either happiness is prima facie good and my examples are prima facie bad, or my examples can't be proven bad and happiness can't be proven good. Either outcome negates Utilitarianism. Inconsistency critiquePro says other moral systems like Christianity are inconsistent too. So what? Christianity isn't necessarily right. If other moral systems are inconsistent, then they're unsound as well. His economy example is a false analogy. While Keynesians and Austrians are both trying to help the economy, they use entire different methods to reach them. But when you talk about diverting a trolley from 5 people to 1, and then saving 5 hospital patients by stealing the organs from 1, morally speaking these are the exact same thing. Yet one is clearly moral and the other is not. Inconsistency. Pro hasn't refuted that Util in inconsistent. Extend that his moral theory use the same logic to reach different conclusions. ConclusionRemember the overview; to win, Pro must explain to you why 1. Only consequences matter, not intent and 2. Happiness itself has intrinsic worth. These are the premises that make up Utilitarianism. My opponent actually says that intent does matter, which negates Utilitarianism by default because it only looks at happiness produced, and not whether it was intentional. He also completely neglected to justify happiness as moral, outside of appealing to emotion, which is not how you justify metaethics. Therefore Utility hasn't been proven good. Moreover, I showed that Util permits things like date rape, abuse, and violation of freedom. He has no response other than these make people unhappy, when in reality they lead to a net benefit in some circumstances. Finally, my opponent has displayed blatant racism in this debate which I take offense to. Even though I am not actually Mexican, I find it morally reprehensible that he would use the staple food of a culture as a tool to get people to vote for him. For shame. For all of these reasons I urge a Con vote.