The Following Character is Immoral and Undeserving of Respect.

In my opponents own definition it says ". .. a sense of worth or excellence of a person, [or] a personal quality or ability. .. ". The question then becomes, what has this person done, or what quality does this person have that makes him useful or important? The following points will show you why he is important and or useful (meaning that he is "worth" by definition as in the definition of respect). The most obvious reason that he is important that he is a human, and as a human deserves to be treated justly, at the very least. I think we can all agree that humans deserve justice. In this mans case justice may not be preferable to the status quo, but the fact that he is given the opportunity to be treated justly alone means something. We must ask, why treat him justly? For that matter, why treat anything justly? The reason is that justice, by definition, is required for ethical and morally acceptable actions within a society. The fact that we would treat the character justly proves that he is of some importance. I think that all of you as judges understand in your hearts that justice is important, but yet surely you don't always treat things justly do you? Some of you may be just in your treatment of other people, but what about everything else? In comparison to all the inanimate objects, and nonhuman living things which we treat unjustly humans are certainly given special treatment. Why are they given special treatment? The reason is that they are important. Maybe not by definition, but in lay terms they certainly are. Although I'm sure with six degrees of pointless definitions and technicalities you can prove that this is grammatically untrue I think that you all know in your hearts that there is a reason you treat people so much better than you treat everyone else, and that reason is that they are important to you. While I'm on the issue of importance I will provide some other examples of the importance of the character. Importance is defined as 1. of much or great significance or consequence: an important event in world history. 2. mattering much (usually fol. by to): details important to a fair decision. 3. entitled to more than ordinary consideration or notice: an important exception. 4. prominent or large: He played an important part in national politics. 5. of considerable influence or authority , as a person or position: an important scientist. 6. having social position or distinction, as a person or family: important guests. 7. pompous; pretentious: When speaking, he assumes an important attitude that offends his audience. (dictionary. com) I will now show why the character justifies under several of the offered definitions, although I have to win only one to prove that he deserves respect. In regard to definition 2 "mattering much" The character "matters much" because he is a person, albeit a bad person he is a person none the less. No one doesn't matter. If you don't believe me consider this; the Catholic church and the Jewish disapprove of suicide because they believe that everyone is important and everyone is on earth for a reason. They believe that we all matter, so much so that we don't even have the right to take our own life. If we didn't matter we could all leave this earth at any time on a whim with no effect. We can never really know how important someone's existence is, so we need to treat everyone as if they matter, because they do. For all we know the character may have stolen the throne from an even worse younger brother who would have done much worse things if he were leader, or been the great grandfather of the prophet Muhammad or Jesus or Gandhi. Sure the person has done bad things and may deserve death but he's at the very least important enough that he had to do some pretty bad stuff before he was deserving of death. The reason he wasn't deserving of death until proven so is that he matters. In regard to definition 4 "prominent or large" The fact that the character had the capacity to do what he did proves that he is prominent. Surely no insignificant person could influence others to go to war, enslave foreigners, kill family members, and allow him to destroy entire cities. His prominence is irrefutable. In regard to definition 5 "of considerable influence or authority" Cross apply arguments for definition 4, also look specifically at #9 of the original post. This proves that he has considerable influence. *****THE ABOVE ARGUMENTS PROVE THAT THE CHARACHTER IS IMPORTANT, WHICH BY DEFINITION PROVES HE IS "WORTH" WHICH IS SPECIFICALLY STATED IN THE DEFINITION OF RESPECT, SHOWING THAT BECAUSE OF HIS IMPORTANCE AND WORTH HE DESERVES RESPECT. ***** Now to cross apply my previous arguments in order of his responses: ">> "I will show through several philosophies why said character does in fact deserve at a bare minimum "some modicum of respect"" To satisfy this burden, my opponent must show something that merits respect in the 10 actions I have put forth. However, there is no net respect to be found in any of these actions. " His being a human and the fact that he has not given up certain rights, according to Locke's policy show merits of respect. ">> "If absolutely no respect is given that means anything which could be considered disrespectful would be done to said person. These actions would be far worse than the acts of the person himself. " False - lack of respect does not mean DISrespect. Lack of respect is neutral ground. Also, there is no punishment outlined for this character in my argument, so your argument that any action taken against him would be worse than his actions (if such a thing is conceivable) is a complete red herring. " Lack of restraining from doing something is doing it, or would allow doing it, which means that not respecting by the verb form of respect would allow doing worse things. ">> "By not giving "any modicum of respect" everyone would have to not even in the slightest refrain from interfering with the goings on of said persons life. " Here you use respect as a noun. .. which is it? This doesn't even make sense if we consider the definition of "respect" YOU put forward. " Just because I used your definition of respect doesn't mean I accepted it as the only definition, there is more than one definition of respect. ">> "I think we can all agree that the person is obviously beyond saving, and protection of society from said person would be as simple as killing him, an act which would not allow the horrible things suggested by my opponent. I have clearly proven that the person does deserve some modicum of respect. " Your "modicum" of respect is killing him because he is "obviously beyond saving. " I submit that this counts as conceding the debate" My point is that there are far worse things than just killing him and not respecting him would allow those things. I do not concede I simply believe that he deserves nothing worse than justice.