January/February LD debate topic

Thanks QT. Random House dictionary defines "deliberate" as "characterized by deliberation; careful or slow in deciding." Therefore, "deliberate deadly force" meets the definition of first degree murder: it involves foresight, planning, and cold-blooded deliberation. It is *not* a heat of passion crime like second degree murder. This means that my opponent cannot justify the killing of an abuser by appealing to the exculpatory effects of emotion or heat of passion since the long deliberation process ensures that the decision to kill is fully rational. The use of the word deliberate thus refers to pre-meditated homicides or pre-meditated attempted homicides. Deadly force, according to the US Armed Forces, is force which a person knows is substantially likely to result in death. Repeated – occurring more than once. Value: justice Criterion: justified self-defense Lacking a morally acceptable theory of justice, the social contract breaks down. Currently, the principle of necessity governs the rights of people to justifiably kill other people. The principle of necessity states that one should not be held criminally liable for one's actions if and only if the actions were *necessary* to prevent some greater harm. In the case of domestic violence, murder is not a necessary response because the abuse victim can *leave* the perpetrator rather than murdering him. Given that there is a suitable non-violent alternative, pre-meditated murder of an abuser cannot be morally justified using the principle of necessity. Law professor Joshua Dressler explains the problem of pre-meditated self-defense as follows, "My concern, however, is not with the . . . case of the woman who uses deadly force against her abuser during an attack or because of an immediately impending one; rather, my focus is on the . . . morally perplexing situation of the battered woman who kills her tormenter when he is not attacking, or about to attack, her. I am interested, in other words, in ‘nonconfrontational homicides,' such as when the abuse victim kills her abuser while he sleeps, or as he is watching the Super Bowl game, or eating dinner. . . . The traditional rule, which still prevails in most jurisdictions, is that self-protective force can only be used to repel an ongoing unlawful attack or . . . an imminent unlawful assault; and ‘imminent' or ‘immediate' has come to mean that the attack will occur momentarily, that it is just about underway. By definition, of course, no assault is taking place or imminent in nonconfrontational cases. . . . Stemming from the common law, a core feature of self defense law is that the life of every person, even that of an aggressor, should not be terminated if there is a less extreme way to resolve the problem." Therefore, our entire society is founded on the principle that nonconfrontational homicides are morally impermissible. Dressler continues, "I fear that the result of expanding self-defense law to the extent required to justify the killing of a sleeping abuser would be the coarsening of our moral values about human life and, perhaps, even the condonation of homicidal vengeance. . . . I believe that we should be very, very slow to suggest that the killing of a sleeping abuser is a ‘proper' or even ‘tolerable' moral or legal outcome." The danger of allowing nonconfrontational homicides to be considered morally permissible is the slippery slope. If a man hits a woman twice, according to the resolution, she can then kill him at any point in his life. His life has become forfeit. A whole slew of dangerous self-defense claims then become possible. If your brother consistently steals food off your dinner plate, you can then suffocate him in his sleep because you claim to fear starvation. Pre-emptive self-defense is dangerous indeed. Dressler analogizes pre-emptive self-defense to allowing a number of mini-Iraqs and justifying the Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive warfare on an individual level. The problem with lethal responses to non-lethal domestic violence is not only the pre-emptive nature of the response, but also its lack of proportionality. Self-defense allows the use of *proportionate* or *appropriate* force, which is taken to mean *equal* force. If I punch you in the stomach, you can punch me back. You are *not* allowed to stab me or shoot me in the face. Prosecutors often call this form of homicide "bringing a knife to a fistfight." In the same way, slicing off a man's testicles while he sleeps and watching him bleed to death is *not* a proportionate response to physical hitting. ==Rebuttal== Let's begin with my opponent's resolutional analysis. "Deliberate" means pre-meditated and intended; it does not mean "provoked." I can deliberately intend to kill you, without provocation. My opponent also claims that she does not need to defend every use of deadly force in cases of repeated domestic violence. However, for something to be morally permissible, under my opponent's own definition, there must be no moral law prohibiting the act. To prove that the moral law prohibiting murder does not apply to repeated domestic violence cases, my opponent must disprove the moral law's application to all the cases that I present. My opponent argues reciprocity, but no topic is ever fully reciprocal. My opponent sets up a definition that would supposedly force me to defend the "validity" of moral laws, allowing her to argue moral nihilism. This foists a huge burden of proof upon me. In addition, letting her spike out of nonconfrontational homicides moots my whole case, which is even more unfair. Lastly, she chose the topic and side, so she has no cause for complaint. Fundamentally, my opponent's argument is that by violating the social contract, one forfeits the right to life. There are a number of problems with this: 1. My opponent straw mans her own author (Kasachkoff). When he argues that one forfeits the right to life by attacking another, he means an attack intended to cause death. Self-defense still requires an *immanent* threat, which nonconfrontational homicides lack, and a proportionate response. Without proportionality, this argument is absurd. Say I violate the social contract by disobeying the speed limit; without demanding a *proportionate* forfeiture of rights, a cop could shoot me in the head if the violation of the speed limit results in *all* my rights being forfeit. Thus, an abuser sacrifices his right to not be physically assaulted by his victim, but does *not* sacrifice his right to life. I will never contend that the DV victim does not have the right to hit back. 2. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. If the murdered abuser's brother believes that the wife violated the social contract by killing her husband, then he believes his retributive killing of her is justified. My opponent's moral stance justifies vigilantism, which leads to a breakdown in the social contract as people take the law into their own hands. 3. Dressler takes issue with the "forfeiture" justification (that the abuser forfeits his right to life) because of "the implications of this moral view. We have decided that a human life is expendable. We can swat him like a fly and toss him in the garbage without guilt feelings. If we follow the logic of this position, imagine—as has occurred —a battered woman hires a contract killer to take her husband's life, and then seeks to justify her conduct. No court has allowed such a claim. But, if the death of an abuser is equivalent to throwing out the garbage or swatting a fly—if he is not recognized as a human being deserving of the law's protection—what basis do we have for prosecuting the woman or, for that matter, the contract killer?" Thus, the problem with the forfeiture principle is that it places no value on human life and justifies vigilante justice. 4. My opponent is cynical regarding human nature. She says, "people in the first stage of moral development will only conform to societal rules if they avoid harm in doing so." If this is the case, then the aforementioned "justified" murders will *always* occurs because the killer incurs no harm by doing so. The killer can always find a violation of the social contract to exculpate him or herself. Thus, under my opponent's interpretation of social contract theory, murder will become commonplace. 5. My opponent assumes all rights stem from the social contract, which ignores the existence of natural rights (Lockean "inalienable" rights), like the right to life. My opponent further says that one can "sacrifice one's duty" to another if that person violates the social contract, but duties are positive rights/obligations. Negative rights, like the right to life, cannot be thus sacrificed since they are not "duties" imposed by the social contract. For example, if someone violates the social contract by refusing to pay taxes, society is not obligated to provide him with social services (which are positive obligations). However, by refusing to pay taxes, he does not sacrifice his right to life, which is a negative right. Sources: http://moritzlaw.osu.edu...