Secession is justified (morally)

OverviewMy opponent and I have agreed that morality is deontic in nature. To win this debate I must prove that Kantian ethics does not prescribe positive obligations and that states are moral agents. Relinquished Sovereignty“From what I proved in the last argument, the only FORM of obligation that can exist to a THING is a legal form. Objects cannot wield morality or be owed morality. Therefore, the only kind of rule that exists over a concept like the state is a legal one.”The entire legality argument presented by my opponent is predicated on him winning that states are not moral agents. I am going to prove that states are moral agents later in the round, and thus affirm the resolution by proving that secession is justified morally, as the resolution demands. As a resolutional burden to prove that secession is legal does not exist, you can disregard his legality argument right now.Furthermore, I would like to extend the Is-Ought Fallacy from last round that my opponent has not addressed. 000ike seems to believe that copying and pasting the first line of my argument constitutes refutation, however he fails to reject that “what is implicated legally is not what ought to be implicated morally” and that “A legal concession of rights doe[s] not justify a moral concession of them. I may legally sell my life, but I may not morally be deprived of my right to life. Even if my life is not in my control does not mean that it had not ought to be.” Relinquished sovereignty has been refuted on both the legal and moral level, do not vote for my opponent on it.Kantian EthicsThe crux of my opponent’s supposed contradiction has collapsed to “The obligation to rememdy is a positive obligation in and of itself, as it requires us to do something. There is no such thing as a negative obligation to remedy because remedying is an action, not an inaction.”My opponent decided to ignore my arguments from last round hoping that you would too, so I’m just going to copy and paste my argument for you to read over again.“My opponent completely misrepresents Kant's argument. The implication of the Kant evidence is that we have obligations to uphold morality, not to enforce it. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary makes the distinction between the two quite clear for us:Uphold (1): to give support toEnforce (2): to give force toAs we can see, we must give support to morality by acting in conformity with moral maxims, but nowhere does Kant say that we must proactively enforce it upon others. In fact, that would contradict Kantian ethics by violating the autonomy of others. Don't buy into my opponent's attempt to put words into Kant's mouth by reconstructing the evidence presented in this debate in order to fabricate flaws that he could capitalize on.”For further evidence that I am not proposing a positive obligation to secede, “Positive obligations demand proactive action that is owed to others, and negative obligations require inaction or action that is owed to yourself. My argument is not that we should never act. Rather, it states that if morality required us to take positive actions, enforce morality itself in this scenario, then we would have unlimited positive obligations to do so, and it would be impossible to prescribe that we fulfill a specific positive obligation as it will always result in not fulfilling and unlimited amount of alternative positive obligations. We can prescribe negative actions however, such as a refusal to allow your autonomy to be limited, because you are always in control of your own actions, and of inaction.”I am going to win that the action prescribed is a negative obligation in two ways. First, a refusal to let your autonomy being violated is inaction. However, even if you reject this argument, negative obligations include action that is owed to yourself.What does this mean for the round?My opponent’s strategy on the moral level is first and foremost to prove that we need governments to enforce positive moral obligations. I’ve proven that positive obligations do not exist under deontology, indicating that my opponent’s argument is as I’ve stated before a misrepresentation of what Kant argues. The only moral obligation we have is to ourselves, which is a negative obligation that does not require governmental action. Thus, even if secession results in anarchy, it is still morally justified.Status of States’ Moral AgencyMy opponent does not reject that states are organizations. The Wilmot evidence that I presented last round argues that organizations have cognitive attributes and thus are moral agents. My opponents refutation is three-fold:1. “The quote my opponent presents attempts to put sentient qualities to inanimate things!”Yes, 000ike, that is exactly what Wilmot argues. Thank you for pointing that out. However, stating my argument does not refute it. My opponent goes on to say that states do not possess a variety of cognitive qualities, however he does not prove that organizations lack any of them. I provide evidence that organizations have these qualities. If organizations could not reason then they would never make decisions and action would never be taken. We obviously see that states take action constantly.2. “My opponent conceded that states/organizations are inanimate entities that exist independently of the people who run them. Yet, he turns around and mistakes the moral qualities OF those people as the qualities for these non-sentient political concepts.”No, that is not my argument. I agree that states are independent of those who live in them. The argument that I am making is that a state is an organization, which my opponent concedes, and that organizations have cognitive qualities, which my opponent did not properly refute.3. “In light of the fact that an organization such as a U.S State is mutually agreed to be a THING, I maintain the argument that things cannot think or act in moral manners.”My opponent’s central, and perhaps strongest, argument against agency is what I call “The Argument of the THING.” My opponent consistently believes that calling States THINGs is a justification for them not being moral agents. I would like to note that I, a human and sentient being, am a THING. I, however, have moral agency. Labeling something as a THING is not a warrant, don’t vote on the argument of the THING.The fact that the argument of the THING does not disprove moral agency also destroys his final manifestation of his anarchy argument.UnderviewI have proven that:1. Morality is deontic.2. Kantian Ethics does not prescribe positive actions.3. States are organizations. Organizations are moral agents.4. I am not resolutionally obligated to prove that secession is legal.My opponent has proven:1. States are THINGs.As THINGs are not definitionally denied moral agency as organizations have cognitive attributes, my opponent's argument carries no weight in ths round. I think it is clear that you must affirm.