kant's categorical imperetive is superior to utilitarianism as a ethical framework

To clarify a little, I assume by "superior" my opponent means one is a coherent and valid ethical framework/system while the other is not. So in other words, he's arguing for utilitarianism while I am arguing for Kantian ethics. Also, since I don't know what type of utilitarianism my opponent will argue for (act vs. type), I will simply argue against the foundations of utilitarianism then argue for the foundations of Kantian ethics. ==================== Attacks against utilitarianism - Has yet to explain why general happiness is the "good to the aggregate of all persons. ï¿½" ==================== J. S. Mill, a pivotal figure among classical utilitarians, famously failed to explain why the happiness of others should be of concern to me. In other words, I ask of my opponent as to why I should even care about the happiness of others - instead of being a utilitarian who cares about the good of all, why can't I resort to a form of ethical egoism? ==================== Attacks against utilitarianism - Practically impossible ==================== Even if the idea behind utilitarianism were somehow justified, I'd argue that we'd be stuck at a permanent standstill for EVERY action we attempt to assess. Since we are primarily looking at the consequences of an action to determine whether it's moral or not, an interesting problem of how the heck we do this arises. Dennett mentions the example of the Three Mile Island accident; is it too early or not to assess the moral value of incident? Many utilitarians would say we don't need a perfect knowledge of how consequences unfold, but a good rough look. I'd argue that we can't even come close to getting a rough look because the consequences of our actions are inconceivably complex. For example, chaos theory states that some simply actions can lead to a vast array of complex results, like the weather or turbulence. In the same view, we can expect that seemingly trivial actions can have gigantic impact on world affairs - I mean, who can tell? For example, what if I help an old lady cross a road. From that experience, she tells her grandson the story of me helping her on her deathbed. Moved by this simple story, her grandson strives hard and eventually becomes President of the United States due to hard work and motivation. As President, he employs many policies that undoubted are motivated by his idea that people should help others - in fact, he makes America much more socialist than it is. So for every libertarian and conservative out there, would helping that old lady been a vastly immoral thing of me to do? It would seem, deemed by utilitarianism, that this is so. ==================== Attacks against utilitarianism - Claim to psychological egoism ==================== Utilitarianism is based on the idea that we all desire happiness in what we do - which mirrors psychological egoism. I ask my opponent to back up this claim, since I will argue as of now we can only remain on the fence about this issue. ==================== Defense of Kantian ethics - Stable foundation ==================== Kantian ethics is based on the autonomous use of our reason. Since reason is universal and can make universal demands or obligations on our behavior, it easily sets a foundation or guideline for our moral actions. What makes an action truly moral is that it is motivated by a rational acceptance of duty: the categorical imperative. To be honest, I'm not suer what criticism my opponent has in mind for me, so I'll simply leave it at this for now. When he gives me the arguments against Kant, I will refute accordingly. ==================== Conclusion ==================== Well. .. there you go. Even though I have to defend Kantian ethics as well, my opponent's focus should lay with utilitarianism as well (we have an equal burden of proof).