Individuals have a moral obligation to assist people in need.

CROSS EXAMINATION: My opponent asks me, “Why am I (or anyone) OBLIGATED to increase the total amount of happiness?” I have already offered at least two lines of argumentation to answer this question. I’ll reiterate them here with clearer impacts: 1) Everyone undoubtedly desires their own happiness. Because of this, each person must regard his happiness as valuable. Sayre-McCord explains, “When we are desiring things, we believe that the thing is good, otherwise we wouldn’t be wanting it for ourselves. Desiring a thing and thinking of it as desirable are the same” (1). When an individual desires his own happiness, there clearly must be something he sees as good about it. Whatever that feature is, it cannot be merely the fact that it’s his happiness, since there are at least some things of his which are not valuable. However, any other feature which might give this individual’s happiness value will not be originally proprietary. That is, it will not be a feature which is specific to his own happiness but rather a feature of happiness in general. Therefore, as Sayre-McCord concludes, “...in desiring happiness, people are thinking that happiness [in general] is valuable and, on that basis, wanting it for themselves. [E]ach of us, in desiring happiness for ourselves cannot deny that when someone else gets happiness they get something that is good...The grounds we each have for thinking it would be a good to us appear to commit us to thinking that in getting it, someone else would be getting something of value” (1). Thus, everyone MUST see the general happiness as valuable. Since morality is essentially a code of values to guide an individual’s actions, all individuals are morally obliged to increase the general happiness. 2) Since all humans are morally equal, we MUST act to increase the total amount of happiness in society. Rakowski explains, "Individuals’ status as moral equals requires that the number of people [who are happy] be maximized. Only in this way can we give due weight to the equality of persons; to allow [a small number of people to be happy and a large number of people to suffer] is to treat some people as less valuable than others. It is because they are no less ends than others that an impartial decision-maker must favor the more numerous group” (2). DEFENDING THE AFFIRMATIVE CONSTRUCTIVE (AC): In response to the AC, my opponent states, “Happiness is highly subjective. Making one person happy is almost certain to make someone else unhappy as a consequence.” This objection seems to be irrelevant to the debate. As I noted in round one, assistance is defined as the act of increasing the net amount of happiness from an objective point of view. Since my opponent has failed to offer an alternative definition, we must accept the one I have provided. Thus, my textual burden is only to prove that individuals have a moral obligation to increase the overall amount of happiness. I clearly am not required to defend the statement that individuals have an obligation to increase the happiness of every specific person. ATTACKING THE NEGATIVE CONSTRUCTIVE (NC): My opponent states that “A quick glimpse at my profile will quickly reveal my philosophy regarding morality; nihilistic. I reject the concept of objective morality [since] there is no objective moral teacher...Without objective morality, there can be no certain way of determining whether something is actually right or wrong.” I have three responses to this argument, the first of which comes directly from the AC. 1) Since our moral beliefs are almost entirely based on the values of the society we live in, all individuals ultimately believe that the general happiness is an intrinsic good. Wren explains, “Being moral involves proposing actions which, upon being communicated to other agents, would be recognized and accepted by them. When an action is perceived as unacceptable, the agent who proposed it can only presume that it is wrong. In other words, moral valuation presupposes the existence of other agents because a totally isolated agent could not know his choices as good or his moral judgements as true” (3). Etzioni furthers, “The libertarian perspective that individual agents are fully formed and their value preferences are in place prior to and outside of any society ignores robust social scientific evidence about the deep-seated human need for communal attachments, the social anchoring of reasoning itself, and the consistent interactive influence of society members on one another. There are no wellformed individuals bereft of culture. Individuals' actions are often deeply affected by groups and communities of which they are members” (4). Clearly, our moral beliefs are almost entirely based on the values of the community we live in. All societies value the general happiness since it’s key to the survival of the community. Therefore, each individual’s moral education leads him to believe that he should do what produces the greatest amount of happiness. My opponent appears to concede this point when he states, “We are altruistic by nature; nobody likes to see starving children in Africa on their TV.” In essence, the fact that there is no objective moral teacher is essentially irrelevant to the debate. All communities already hold that the general happiness of their society is good. 2) Even if this response is not valid, we still must reject nihilism. According to this theory, all moral beliefs are neither right nor wrong. However, nihilism itself is a moral belief. Therefore, my opponent cannot prove that this theory is right without contradicting himself. 3) In any case, it’s unfair for my opponent to argue in favor of nihilism since doing so places multiple burdens on me. Namely, it requires me to prove that objective morality exists and demonstrate that individuals should assist those in need. However, in arguing for nihilism, my opponent only needs to prove that objective morality doesn’t exist. Fairness is clearly important because the ballot asks who did the better debating, and such an evaluation is impossible in the prescience of unfair rules. Later in the NC, my opponent states, “I’m offended by the idea of being obligated to do anything that I don’t want to do.” This is irrelevant. The fact that individuals may not want to fulfill their obligation to assist others is not sufficient to show that such an obligation does not exist. For instance, a criminal may strongly want to steal another person’s belongings. However, regardless of this fact, the criminal still has both a legal and moral obligation to not steal from others. Lastly, my opponent claims, “If we were to give all we could spare away, we would never feel truly safe or comfortable.” This objection is also irrelevant to the debate. The resolution does not say that individuals must give to any specific extent. Therefore, affirming the resolution would not require individuals to “give all [they] could spare away.”SUMMARY: Throughout this debate, I have demonstrated that there are at least two reasons why all individuals are obligated to assist people in need. I have also shown that, independent of these reasons, all individuals already believe that they have such an obligation. My opponent has argued that objective moral standards cannot exist. However, the third argument I presented directly refutes this point by showing that all individuals accept the moral standard of minimal altruism. My opponent even contradicted himself by agreeing to this in his constructive. Please vote for the affirmative! SOURCES: See my sources for round one.