This house believes in Utilitarianism over its rivals.

Epistemological BasisMy opponent's rebuttal simply is a quotation from Nozick, but are based on his misunderstanding on foundationalism. Foundationalism says brute facts of the quality "I am", "I think", "There is the physical", "Others exist", and "we could understand each other" exist indubitably. This allows the formation of many things: the existence of propositions allows for the existence of arguments; the existence of arguments allows for the existence of logic and reason; the existence of the physical allows for science; the existence of others (even if just extensions of ourselves or another being) allows for politics and ethics. Moreover, without this basis, the logic and reason do crumble without the laws of logic, such as non-contradiction, because it can be derived from the other two. If it is removed, the other rules must as well. And for them to be removed, so must our brute facts. And if they are removed, we cannot believe anything. Indeed, my opponent has put himself into a corner: to prove his position, he must recreate logic and reason with a different set of assumptions from the ground up to justify his argument that it is possible. I claim it is not. The burden is on my opponent on this case.Furthermore, he still relies on coherentism: "every fact relies on some other fact" is the same as "the truth of any (true) proposition consists in its coherence with some specified set of propositions"[1], aka coherentism. This makes all three of my criticisms still stand. He cannot show what the premise "I am" relies on, as such it promotes foundationalism, not coherentism. And even then, foundationalism still stands: my arguments for it remain untouched. The closest to a criticism of the regress argument (which claims a regress of argument must stop at some point, and the stopping point is a foundational brute fact) has been "every fact relies on some other fact". However, this is impossible. An argument regressing forever doesn't work: it must stop at some point, as an infinite chain of justification is impossible in theory, yet alone in practice.Meta-ethical BasisThe problem is not solved. My opponent contends that his theory uses intuition, and this makes it stronger. This is an illogical chain. Just because something appeals to intuition, doesn't make it right. In fact, I contend it makes it more likely to be wrong: intuition told us the earth was flat, the sun rotated around the earth and Dynamo went to Hogwarts. Only applying reason defeats this lunacy. Even partial embrace of intuition is bad. In the words of Twain: "All the consciences I have ever heard of were nagging, badgering, fault-finding, execrable savages!" The Enlightenment, which rejected intuition as a source of knowledge, interestingly brought about common law, democracy, chartism, classical liberalism, constitutionalism and the prides of society. But I digress: pragmatism doesn't give us an answer to what we mean by ethical statements. Normative basis firstly, I wish to point out my opponent admits "often pragmatists will derive moral knowledge from a utilitarian calculus". Even pragmatists admit that the calculus is a brilliant way of solving moral dilemmas. Moreover, this is the cosest we get to a clear answer on how to solve ethical dilemmas. For those interested, the calculus weighs up six values: Intensity --How intense is the pleasure or pain? Duration --How long does the pleasure of pain last? Certainty --What is the probability that the pleasure or pain will occur? Fecundity --What is the probability that the pleasure will lead to other pleasures? Purity --What is the probability that the pain will lead to other pains? Extent --How many persons are affected by the pleasure? (There's also propinquity, but I reject it as a factor). My opponent contends pragmatism is better as it does not "lead to moral paralysis" due to the "complex calculations required by utilitarianism on the spot". However, the solution has been solved decades beforehand. Two-tiered utilitarianism by Hare points out "moral decisions should be based on a set of 'intuitive' moral rules, except in certain rare situations where it is more appropriate to engage in a 'critical' level of moral reasoning." It is a variant of soft rule utilitarianism, claiming we should follow rules when rushed (tackling a criminal, for example, to stop them getting away), but should put in criticial thought when possible (e.g. invading Iraq). This solves the moral paralysis problem.My opponent also contends pragmatists nonetheless preserve the "marketplace of ideas" ", yet utilitarianism does not. It should make us at least slightly suspicious that this idea originated from utilitarian thought - after all, why would a utilitarian promote it as moral if it does not fit in with utilitarian morality? Simply put, it necessarily does. My original case in fact makes explicit that a marketplace of ideas is needed for morality to take place: it needs value-plurality to promote preference. Moreover, if we were to promote people's preference, we need to know all the options, and which idea to "buy into". Thus, we need a free "marketplace" to see each "idea". Thus, utilitarianism necessitates a marketplace of ideas. Pragmaists, of course, can simply embrace fascism if bored. In other words, utilitarianism promotes tolerance and democracy, while pragmatism simply does it because when it suits it.Moreover, my opponent claims the calculus produces moral absolutes. This is so false that it is just insincerity rather than genuine ignorance at this point: no utilitarian ever claimed it produces moral absolutes. It is a consequentialist system, where the right thing to do depends on the situation. I made this clear in R1 devoting an entire section to this issue. Moreover, let's revisit my nuclear power plant example. I agree my opponent tells us of many ways to operate the powerplant, but which one is best? Again, we're told 'it just tells us', nothing substantial. The fact of the matter is utilitarianism is open to improvement: that's why the theory is founded on the principle of "people coming together and stating imperatives both parties agree upon". Finally, my opponent claims pragmatism, not utilitarianism, grants rights. But utilitarianism does grant rights. We have rights like we cannot be killed randomly: this is fundamental to the system. However, it recognises, in extreme, terrible circumstances, the breaking of human rights (a tragic thing in itself) is needed for the greater good of, for example, saving hundreds of lives. By contrast, pragmatism has no reason to hold onto these rights: if it is practical to steal this man's wallet, screw his human right to life, kill him and take it! As long as you're not discovered, it's fine. It suffers from the Gyges Problem: if you have a Ring of Gyges, a ring that turns you invisible and diverts all blame away from yu, pragmatism commands you to steal and pillage and rape and kill to your heart's content. Utilitarianism stops you. Does Utilitarianism tell you to kill the one to save the five? That depends on how highly you value the precedence of human rights. The fact that these rights order society, and if people could kill like this there would be permanent outrage, mistrust of doctors and people would die indirectly in their droves as a result of not getting treatments out of fear of their bodies being pillaged, I'd say the doctor, via utilitarianism, cannot kill these people. If it was 500 though? Or 5000? What if the man killed was a warlord in an African country abusing human rights himself? In these cases, I'd say the killing is justified. Pragmatism has no upper hand.To conclude, pragmatism doesn't have a leg to stand on epistemologically or meta-ethically. It's appeal to intuition ruins the argument's persuasive power, and allows us to commit immoral action whenever we feel like it. As such, I urge a vote PRO. Thank you.1 - http://plato.stanford.edu...;